After a 50% jump in meningitis cases reported across Africa last year, Nigeria is becoming the first country to roll out a new 5-in-1 meningitis vaccine. The Men5CV vaccine protects people against five strains of the meningococcus bacteria. Claudia Hammond is joined by New Scientist medical journalist Clare Wilson to discuss how it’s hoped the treatment will help significantly reduce cases of the disease. We also head to Brazil to hear how the country is dealing with long Covid, four years...

Claudia Hammond presents a special edition of Health Check from the Northern Ireland Science Festival, where she’s joined by a panel of experts to discuss the psychology of hope. With a live audience in Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Centre, Claudia speaks to Dr Karen Kirby, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Ulster; Dr Kevin Mitchell, associate professor of genetics and neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin; and author Sinéad Moriarty. Topics include the role of hope in medical...

As the recent surge in cases of dengue fever continues across Latin America and the Caribbean, Puerto Rico declares a public health emergency. Claudia Hammond is joined by Professor of Global Health and Epidemiology at Boston University, Matt Fox, to hear how warmer temperatures have lead to outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease around the world, with millions of cases reported so far this year. We speak to the artist Jason Wilsher-Mills at his latest exhibition inspired by his childhood...

The latest on the first procedure to transplant a kidney from a pig into a living patient. Claudia Hammond is joined in the studio by Dr Graham Easton to hear how the organ was genetically modified to reduce the risk of it being rejected following a four hour surgery in Massachusetts in the US. We also hear about the data that’s linked working outdoors in sunlight to non-melanoma skin cancer. The report from the World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organization says one in...

Most people with Covid-19 make a full recovery within 12 weeks, but some patients have experienced ongoing symptoms for much longer. This has become known as ‘long Covid’. However, new research suggests that the rates of ongoing symptoms and functional impairment after Covid are indistinguishable from other post-viral illnesses, and that long Covid may have appeared to be a distinct and severe illness because of high volumes of Covid-19 cases during the pandemic. Presenter Claudia Hammond is...

The toxic mineral asbestos is still mined across the world, despite it’s much documented links to cancer. Now there are promising results from a new global study into one of the most aggressive types of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Also on the programme, we receive an exciting update from Mike, who has gotten a long-awaited kidney transplant, and we discuss new treatment protocols for Hepatitis B and how they could better serve people in southern and eastern Africa.

More than one billion people in the world are now living with obesity. The number of people who are underweight has also fallen according to a new global study, but this does not necessarily mean that people are better fed. In some countries insufficient food has been replaced by food that does not contain the nutrition that people need, with obesity now the most common form of malnutrition in many places. Claudia Hammond talks to study author Professor Majid Ezzati about the results and what...

More than 1,600 junior doctors have been on strike in South Korea in a dispute about working conditions and Government plans to add more medical school placements. BBC health reporter Smitha Mundasad joins Claudia Hammond to explain the latest. Smitha also brings Claudia new research about the first ever prehistoric case of a child with genetic condition Edwards’ syndrome. And some innovative solutions to get blood to so called ‘blood deserts’; large rural areas where there is no access to...

Research shows that large numbers of Covid deaths could have been prevented if people in low and middle income countries had better access to vaccines. But this week the World Trade Organisation said it could not reach a consensus on waiving intellectual property rights on Covid-19 tests and treatments for poorer countries. Claudia Hammond is joined by BBC Africa health correspondent Dorcas Wangira in Nairobi, to discuss the impact of vaccine inequity on her part of the world. Dorcas also...

Carnival hits the streets in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week. As well as preparations for the crowds and colourful processions, health authorities have also been putting in extra measures to try to contain a huge outbreak of dengue fever. Last week a health emergency was declared in the city. And as Claudia hears from Peruvian health journalist Fabiola Torres, cases are rising to levels not seen for decades across the whole of Latin America. Consultant in public health Dr Ike Anya is in the...

The hospital in Old Fangak, South Sudan is extremely remote; it’s a place that can only be accessed by boat, using the river Nile. The airstrip has been flooded for the past four years – flooding that has also destroyed crops and drowned cattle. Since April 2023, 501 cases of hepatitis E have been treated at the hospital, and 21 people – mainly women – have died. Now, doctors have launched a vaccination campaign that targets women and girls in communities that are up to eight hours by canoe...

There are neglected tropical diseases, and then there is Noma, a severe gangrenous disease which tends to affect 2 to 6-year-olds and has a 90% fatality rate. Its quick onset means that often children die before they can get medical attention and it is thought that many medical professionals don’t even get taught about early symptoms. Claudia meets Fidel Strub, originally from Burkina Faso who survived Noma to ask about the impact on his life. This week the first meeting of an international...

It has been another ‘milestone week’ for the fight against malaria. The archipelago island nation Cape Verde became the third country in Africa to officially eliminate the disease. Meanwhile in Cameroon, a ‘world first’ routine malaria vaccination programme has begun. A little girl called Daniella received the first vaccine in a clinic near capital city Yaoundé on Monday. BBC health reporter Philippa Roxby joins Claudia Hammond in the studio to gauge what progress we are making against a...

Have you ever considered rowing across the Atlantic? How about making it even more challenging by doing it whilst wearing an ECG monitor and filling in psychological questionnaires? Claudia Hammond speaks to the first Austrian woman to row the Atlantic, Ciara Burns, who collected data throughout her 42-day crossing. And to the professor who studied the data, Eugenijus Kaniusas from the Vienna University of Technology, about the three big dips in mood along the way. Ciara talks about the...

A recent study from Canada has found that patients treated by female surgeons have a lower likelihood of adverse postoperative outcomes (death, hospital readmission or major complications) at 90 days and one year following surgery. The same research team also found in another recent study that there are lower 30-day, 90-day and 1-year post-surgery health care costs for patients treated by female surgeons compared with those treated by male surgeons. Claudia Hammond discusses these findings...

A treaty to help the world cope with the next pandemic, new ways to treat undernutrition and a last goodbye to polio. Could these be some of the health advances that 2024 will bring? Claudia asks global health journalist Andrew Green for his predictions. Monica Lakhanpaul, professor of integrated community child health at University College London joins Claudia in the studio to discuss new evidence showing that a vaccination for winter virus RSV could cut hospital admissions in children by...

As 2024 draws ever closer, Claudia Hammond looks back at the medical news, trends and advances which the last twelve months have brought us. She is joined in the studio by BBC health reporter Philippa Roxby and Graham Easton, Professor of Clinical Communication Skills at Queen Mary University in London who debate their favourite health advances of the year. And Claudia returns to some of the biggest health news stories of the year to ask what happened next? Reuters’ Krishna N. Das gives an...

With the failure of the PrEPVacc trial in Southern and Eastern Africa, HIV researchers are concerned that an HIV vaccine will not be developed before 2030 at the earliest. Claudia Hammond is joined by Matt Fox, Professor of Global Health Epidemiology at Boston University, to discuss the latest news about HIV vaccines, funding and treatment from around the world. We also hear about Super 5, a home-grown nutritional supplement being made by rural women in Rajasthan, in India, to address the...

Morning sickness affects 4 in 5 women at some point in pregnancy but until now we’ve known little about why. Now researchers in the USA, Sri Lanka and the UK have discovered that it could be linked to a hormone produced in the placenta, and the mother’s reaction to it. Dr Graham Easton explains how it could lead to new cures. He also brings Claudia Hammond news from Ukraine where the ongoing war has caused an increase in multidrug-resistant organisms. The US Center for Disease Control and...

On Health Check we often cover the outbreak of a mystery illness or unusual health event that has occurred somewhere across the globe. But how do we know when these illnesses are serious and how are they identified and investigated? Claudia Hammond speaks to Dr. Jarod Hanson from the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED) about how they scan and review information related to global health security. This follows news about an outbreak of anthrax in the Kyotera district of Uganda. We...

When former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern passed legislation to reduce access to tobacco products, the policy was held up as an international example. So there was shock among health experts in New Zealand and across the world this week when the newly sworn in Government announced they would be scrapping the plans. Claudia Hammond asks Janet Hoek, Professor of Public Health at the University of Otago what the international impact will be. She hears from the people who hear...

The UK has become the first country in the world to approve a gene editing treatment for people with the genetic conditions sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. The news has been hailed as revolutionary, unthinkable just a decade ago. But will the new treatment provide a realistic option for the millions of people living with these haemoglobin disorders worldwide? BBC health reporter Philippa Roxby joins Claudia to look at the latest. She also brings new evidence from Australia on the...

The committee that advises on vaccinations in the UK has recommended that chickenpox is added to the standard list of childhood vaccinations; something which the USA and many European countries have been doing for some time. So why do some countries vaccinate children against chickenpox and others choose not to? Claudia Hammond is joined by family doctor Ann Robinson. They also hear from conversation analyst Charlotte Albury, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, about how...

This week it was announced in the United Kingdom that women at high risk of breast cancer will be able to take a drug, Anastrozole, which is usually used to treat breast cancer, as a preventative measure. Recent trials show the drug can reduce the incidence of breast cancer by almost 50% in post-menopausal women at moderate or high risk of the disease. Claudia Hammond is joined by medical journalist Clare Wilson from New Scientist to discuss how the drug works and who it will be offered to....