WHO and Angolan health officials on a mission to stamp out Guinea worm disease Credit: WHO/Omotola Akindipe Contributions to WHO are being used to free communities from a range of dangerous infectious diseases. Some, like malaria, kill mainly children. Others, like the disfiguring Guinea worm and noma infections, are linked to poor access to clean water and other aspects of poverty. This week, see stories about how contributions have been translated into action in Cabo Verde, where years of persistent effort have eliminated malaria; in Panama, where community collaborators are filling a health-services gap in hard-to-reach villages; and in Paraguay, where teams are going from one neighborhood to the next, removing the breeding grounds of the mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever. Read also about work under way in Angola to eradicate Guinea worm disease, Cameroon’s significant progress in reducing HIV, success against hepatitis B in Maldives and Sri Lanka, and fighting back against cho...

Campaigns in Africa to stop polio and other diseases have a more stable, better-motivated workforce thanks to WHO’s collaboration with countries and partners to pay frontline health workers through their mobile phones instead of in cash. “Over 80 percent of workers are saying they prefer the digital payments,” said Ahmed Hamani Djibo, head of WHO’s Digital Finance Team . WHO has been leading among international organizations in moving away from the unwieldy, less-secure practice of disbursing salaries in cash. Over the past few years, the Organization launched its Digital Finance Team and joined the Better Than Cash Alliance , an 80-member United Nations partnership with a mandate to develop the digitization of payments and expand financial inclusion – activities that support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Since it was established in 2020, WHO’s Digital Finance Team has designed and implemented digital payment solutions in 24 countries in Africa, including, last y...