Diplomacy expert Manuel Castells defined public diplomacy as “the projection in the international arena of the values and ideas of the public." Perhaps no other international entity embodies that definition better than the People’s Health Movement (PHM), a global network that brings together grassroots health activists, civil society organizations, and academic institutions from more than 70 countries.

Public diplomacy means local community education in underdeveloped countries where disease is a stigma and reporting on issues like Ebola is poor. Ebola is now a front-page story and a social media phenomenon.  Let us use that momentum to demand support to create effective village- and community-based education in Africa, Latin America and other places where diseases go unreported.

The UK is set to spend £2m on medical support and supplies to tackle the spread of Ebola in West Africa, the International Development Secretary Justine Greening announced today. ‘This Ebola outbreak poses a serious public health risk to West Africa,’ she said.

The World Health Organization declared a recent spread of polio to new countries to be an international public-health emergency, warning that it could undermine a lengthy and expensive eradication effort.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne, infectious disease that infected 8.6 million people and killed approximately 1.3 million worldwide in 2012. UNAIDS has summed up this situation by concluding “TB anywhere is a threat everywhere.”

Thanks to the U.S. State Department, Beijing residents finally have the answer to one of the city’s greatest mysteries: How often is the air polluted? Well, a lot, a resident would say. But how many is a lot? 

Jessica Lopez, a four-year old with a shy smile, has suffered severe chronic asthma attacks since she was born. Her condition always worsened in the fall, when dust rose up from the abandoned fields that bordered her family’s modest one-room house.