Health & Medicine
Vaccines, treatments and public-health milestones, checked against the evidence.
A new class of antibiotic clears gonorrhoea as well as the standard injection
Two doses of a tablet cleared gonorrhoea from 92.6 percent of patients in a 628-person trial, against 91.2 percent for the standard injection and tablet. US regulators approved it in December 2025.
The first oral PCSK9 cholesterol drug wins FDA approval
A once-daily tablet has become the first swallowable version of one of the most effective cholesterol drugs, lowering LDL cholesterol by about 56 percent in the trials that won it approval.
Chile becomes the second country ever to eliminate leprosy
The WHO verified Chile's elimination of leprosy in March 2026, only the second country worldwide and the first in the Americas.
A new kind of ADHD medicine is approved in the US, the first to act on three brain chemicals at once
US regulators have approved centanafadine, the first ADHD drug of its class. In four trials it beat a placebo on symptom scores at six weeks, and its label is candid about the risks that come with it.
A drug pair beats chemotherapy before bladder cancer surgery
In a trial of 808 people, 79.4 percent of those given two newer drugs before and after bladder surgery were alive with no return of their cancer two years later, against 66.2 percent on the standard chemotherapy.
England recorded zero cervical cancer deaths in young HPV-vaccinated women
A Lancet analysis found no cervical cancer deaths among women aged 20 to 24 in England, among the generations offered the HPV vaccine at age 12 to 13.
El Salvador has eliminated trachoma, the leading infectious cause of blindness
The World Health Organization has validated El Salvador as free of trachoma as a public health problem, the first country in Central America to stop the world's leading infectious cause of blindness.
A twice-a-year injection to prevent HIV wins WHO backing
Lenacapavir prevented HIV with near-total efficacy in trials, and in 2025 both the FDA and the WHO backed it for prevention.
The malaria vaccine is working, and it is saving children's lives
Four years into the first real world rollout, the evidence is in, and it is measured in children who are still alive.
