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Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.

Cash transfers reduced AIDS incidence and mortality among 12.3 million Brazilian women, especially those with overlapping social vulnerabilities, highlighting the role of social protection in addressing health inequalities.

Loan guarantee comes amid fading hopes for an industry renaissance.

Primary CoronaVac vaccination followed by a BNT162b2 booster dose confers protection against some SARS-CoV-2 variants but its effectiveness against Omicron is unknown. Here, the authors show that this combination confers a high level of protection against severe outcomes for up to 120 days, with evidence of waning for those aged 80 or older.

There is limited evidence of the effectiveness of the CoronaVac vaccine for children against the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant. Here, the authors use data from Brazil for children aged 6–11 years and estimate effectiveness of 40% against infection and 59% against severe disease at least two weeks after the second dose.

The hippocampal dentate spike, an understudied population event that frequently occurs between sharp-wave ripples, may underlie a mechanism re-engaging the brain with the external world during synchronous population events, and support memory during non-locomotor behaviour.

Cold-sensitive engrams contribute to learned thermoregulation in mice that are returned to an environment in which they previously experienced a cold challenge, through a network formed between the hippocampus and hypothalamus that enables the recall of cold-related memories.

A high-resolution, global atlas of mortality of children under five years of age between 2000 and 2017 highlights subnational geographical inequalities in the distribution, rates and absolute counts of child deaths by age.

Fine-scale geospatial mapping of overweight and wasting (two components of the double burden of malnutrition) in 105 LMICs shows that overweight has increased from 5.2% in 2000 to 6.0% in children under 5 in 2017. Although overall wasting decreased over the same period, most countries are not on track to meet the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025.

Although progress in the coverage of routine measles vaccination in children in low- and middle-income countries was made during 2000–2019, many countries remain far from the goal of 80% coverage in all districts by 2019.

A test-negative case–control analysis of data from Brazil shows that vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 outcomes declines after two doses of CoronaVac but increases after a booster dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine.

Brazil has operated a conditional cash transfer program to support families living in precarious conditions since 2004. Here, the authors use linked administrative and health data to investigate the impacts of the program on HIV/AIDS-related outcomes, demonstrating strong positive associations.

Iranian physicists excited at prospects for a new physics lab and greater collaboration with the rest of the world.

Concerns mount that the new US president will sideline science’s role in international relations.

From predictions of nuclear ‘break-out’ to monitoring for ‘sneak-out’, scientific expertise is central to the success of the preliminary accord.

Genomic surveillance has been important for tracking the evolution and spread of SARS-CoV-2. Here, the authors analyse ~300,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from two years of sequencing in the Latin America and Caribbean regions and describe the emergence and spread of different lineages over time.

Chikungunya virus is endemic in Brazil and cases have been rapidly increasing in recent years. Here, the authors describe the expansion of a genomic surveillance program across the country allowing them to characterise the emergence and dispersal of two distinct subclades mainly seeded from the north eastern region.

Measuring an individual’s level of exposure to COVID-19 is challenging, and it is therefore unclear whether high exposure may impact immunity. Here, the authors investigate this question using data from a correctional facility in Connecticut, USA, by comparing rates of infection in people who share cells, cellblocks, and with no known exposure.

Low-resource settings can face additional challenges in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, the authors use mathematical modelling to investigate transmission in the state of Bahia, Brazil, and quantify control measures needed to prevent the hospital system becoming overwhelmed.

This study investigates the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine boosters following a primary series of CoronaVac vaccination. Using data from Brazil during the Omicron wave, the authors show that boosters provided protection against severe disease, with higher effectiveness from a BNT162b2 than CoronaVac booster.

Little is known about the distribution, evolution and functions of the K1 capsule at a population level, despite the important role in the pathogenesis of E. coli; authors explore this through the utilisation of over 5,000 clinical isolates in population genomics studies and statistical modelling.

Neuronal remodeling is critical for neuronal function. Here, the authors report that motor neurons use membrane blebbing coupled to muscle contraction as a mechanism for synaptic bouton formation, suggesting that mechanical force plays a key role in neuronal remodeling.

The burden of asthma varies between ancestries, but GWAS have so far focused on mainly European ancestry populations. Here, Daya et al. perform GWAS for asthma in 14,654 individuals of African ancestry and, besides confirming previously known loci, identify two potentially African ancestry-specific loci.

Empirically based models of disease progression in familial frontotemporal dementia reveal the relative ordering of clinical, neuroimaging, and fluid biomarker changes and facilitate novel clinical trial designs

Activated PI3K causes cancer, but the role of active PI3K mutations in early stages of malignancy are unclear. Here, the authors show in a mouse model that active PI3K induces centrosome amplification via AKT, ROCK, CDK2/Cyclin E and nucleophosmin, and increased tolerance of genome doubling.

Current cysteine bioconjugation strategies for protein-drug conjugates synthesis often yield heterogeneous and poorly stable products. Here, the authors use carbonylacrylic derivatives to selectively modify cysteine residues and synthesize biologically functional antibody conjugates highly stable in plasma.

Autophagy is known to impact CD4+ T cell proliferation but the identity of autophagosomal components remain unclear. Here the authors leverage a transgenic mouse model to assess the autophagosomal compartment and identify interleukin-7 receptor-α as a key cargo in proliferating CD4+ T cells.

The Consortium on Asthma among African-ancestry Populations in the Americas (CAAPA) aims to better understand population genetics of the African diaspora. Here, it uses deeply sequenced whole-genomes to describe the impact of admixture and potential disease burden of deleterious variants.