Evidence-based reporting, analysis and perspectives on women’s health worldwide. Updated as stories develop.
Nearly three in four maternal health workers in Australia, Brazil, India, the UK and Zimbabwe say heat-linked pregnancy complications have increased over five years. Midwives and researchers are already testing simple ways to keep pregnant women cool.
A modified version of niclosamide, a decades-old tapeworm drug, shrank endometriosis lesions and eased pain sensitivity in mice, researchers at Washington State University report. Any treatment is at least five years from patients, but existing guidance already sets out how women can get symptoms recognised and treated.
Most New Zealand women now choose to test themselves for HPV, and the country has set out a plan to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040. Screening will be free for eligible women aged 25 to 69 from 1 March 2027.
Women who were both lonely and socially isolated could expect 2.4 fewer years free of major physical disease from the age of 50, a study of 277,489 UK adults has found. Healthy habits offset some of the harm linked to isolation, and WHO and some governments are now treating social connection as a health priority.
Aid cuts are projected to leave a US$185m gap in contraceptive funding in 2026. Ethiopia, Zambia and six other countries have pledged more than US$175m of their own money, while clinic closures and shipping delays hit women in sub-Saharan Africa hardest.
Bangladesh, where seven in 10 births now take place in a health facility, plans to redirect €250m from a European Investment Bank loan into maternal, newborn and cancer care. The government says the initiative will reach about 47 million women and girls between 2027 and 2031.
Stillbirths have fallen by more than a third since 2000, but progress has slowed since 2015. The Gates Foundation and Wellcome Leap will each put US$50m over three years into Uzima, a programme to halve stillbirth rates in selected countries within ten years.
Diagnosis of autism in girls is catching up with boys in Scotland and Sweden. In a large US health system, though, girls and women were still diagnosed an average of 3.4 years later than boys and men.
Cardiologists have rewritten the international definition of a heart attack, calling for separate blood test limits for women and men. The change is meant to cut the number of heart attacks in women that go unrecognised, and women can act on their own symptoms now.
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