Health Check

By BBC World Service

Technology

What's Health Check about?

Health issues and medical breakthroughs from around the world.

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Health Check episodes:

04.24.2024
Is turbulence injuring more and more flyers?
After a number of incidents around the world so far this year that have left dozens of flyers needing hospital treatment, we look at how a rise in air turbulence because of global warming is leading to more and more...
04.17.2024
Nigeria rolls out world’s first 5-in-1 meningitis vaccine
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...
04.10.2024
How we hope
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...
04.03.2024
Puerto Rico declares dengue fever emergency
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,...
03.27.2024
Pig kidney transplanted into patient
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...
03.20.2024
Should we stop talking about long Covid?
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...
03.13.2024
A promising new cancer treatment
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...
03.06.2024
One billion obese people
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....
02.28.2024
Junior doctors strike in South Korea
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. ...
02.21.2024
Global Trade v Health Equality
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...
02.14.2024
Dengue outbreak in Latin America
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....
02.07.2024
Getting vaccinations to remote South Sudan
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...
01.31.2024
Surviving Noma disease
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...
01.24.2024
Cape Verde eliminates malaria
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....
01.17.2024
Endurance
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,...
01.10.2024
Are outcomes better with female surgeons?
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...
01.03.2024
2024 in global health
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...
12.27.2023
A year in health in review
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...
12.20.2023
When will we have an HIV vaccine?
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...
12.13.2023
Closer to a cure for morning sickness
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...
12.06.2023
How do we know when a mystery illness is serious?
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?...
11.29.2023
New Zealand backtracks on smoking ban
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...
11.22.2023
Gene editing treatment approved for sickle cell
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....
11.15.2023
Vaccinating children against chickenpox
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...
11.08.2023
A drug to prevent breast cancer
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...
11.01.2023
Warnings over antibiotic resistance in children
Antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective at treating common childhood infections, according to a new study. The research, led by the University of Sydney, found some antibiotics recommended by the World Health Organization for children had less than 50% effectiveness...
10.25.2023
A musician’s story of coping with schizophrenia
Talented guitarist, Hamish Barclay, was given steroids when he was a teenager to treat a kidney problem. He then experienced the rare side effect of psychosis and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. He has lived the condition for the past...
10.18.2023
Cholera cases surge in Zimbabwe
More than 100 people are suspected to have died in Zimbabwe in the most recent outbreak of cholera there. Almost 5,000 possible cases have been reported across the country, with the Zimbabwean government moving to ban large gatherings to prevent...
10.11.2023
US proposes world first policy to reduce STIs
‘Doxy PEP’, or doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis, is where a common antibiotic is given to someone shortly after having unprotected sex to avoid the chance of them getting an STI like chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis. It’s an idea being put forward...
10.04.2023
Malaria vaccine backed by WHO
A vaccine for malaria that can be produced cheaply on a large scale has been recommended for use by the World Health Organisation. It was developed by the University of Oxford, and is only the second malaria vaccine to be...
09.27.2023
The deadly practice of gum lancing
Gum lancing is a tradition practiced on babies in some parts of the world. It’s done with good intentions, and involves extracting the teeth of infants with symptoms such as a fever or diarrhoea in the belief it will cure...
09.20.2023
Could global Aids program be cut?
The PEPFAR scheme was launched by George W Bush in 2003 to provide HIV and Aids relief around the world. Officials say it has since saved more than 25 million lives in 55 different countries. Now, though, its future could...
09.13.2023
Do men have a friendship problem?
The author Max Dickins was preparing to propose to his girlfriend when he came to a realisation: he didn’t have anyone he felt he could ask to be his best man. It prompted him to write the book ‘Billy No-Mates’,...
09.06.2023
Opioid overdose antidote made available in US
With deaths from opioid overdoses rocketing to more than 100,000 people each year, the US has moved to make the drug Naloxone available to buy in pharmacies for the first time there this week. The nasal spray treatment can revive...
08.30.2023
What happened to babies with Zika virus
In March 2015, Brazil reported a large outbreak of the Zika virus infection. Over the next year, the disease became a global medical emergency. Thousands of babies were born brain-damaged, after their mothers became infected while pregnant. As the World...
08.23.2023
Disgraced surgeon appeals prison sentence
When former transplant surgeon Paolo Macchiarini first implanted a synthetic trachea into a patient more than a decade ago, it was hailed as a breakthrough. But the person he operated on died, as did subsequent patients. And in 2013, Macchiarini...
08.16.2023
Contaminated cough syrup found in Iraq
Iraq is the latest country to report a batch of contaminated cough syrup according to the World Health Organisation. It’s the latest in a string of health alerts issued by WHO in the last 12 months. According to reports, 300...
08.09.2023
A closer look at leprosy
In the week that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that leprosy could now be endemic in the South-eastern United States, Claudia Hammond looks at global action on leprosy with science journalist Kamala Thiagarajan. There is...
08.02.2023
Henrietta Lacks’ family settle lawsuit
Henrietta Lacks was only 31 years old when she died from cervical cancer in 1951. While she was in hospital in the USA, her cells were harvested without her knowledge which, since being replicated infinitely, have gone on to enable...
07.26.2023
Playing catch up on childhood immunisations
The World Health Organisation and UNICEF say global immunisation services reached 4 million more children in 2022 compared to the previous year, after a huge backslide during the Covid 19 pandemic. But the progress in countries like India and Indonesia...
07.19.2023
A new era for Alzheimer’s drugs?
Just months after the ‘momentous’ announcement of the first drug shown to slow the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, the results of a global trial into another have been published. The antibody medicine donanemab helped people in the early stages of...
07.12.2023
Sickle cell disease: Fighting for the future
“Sickle cell is not all that we are – Sickle Cell is solvable.” Lea Kilenga Bey from Kenya founded the non-profit Africa Sickle Cell Organisation to campaign on behalf of people like her who live with an inherited blood condition...
07.05.2023
Drumming for a healthy life
Since early times, the drum has been part of human society. But have you ever considered how drumming might actually improve our physical and mental health? Researchers from the University of Essex are at this year’s annual Royal Society’s Summer...
06.28.2023
The future of HIV research in Africa
African HIV research now makes up almost a third of total research being conducted into the virus. A new study highlights how it has increased from just 5 per cent in 1986. But there’s still a way to go until...
06.21.2023
Healthcare under threat in Myanmar
When the Myanmar military staged a coup d’état in February 2021, many healthcare workers became the first government employees to react, announcing a boycott of state-run hospitals. Today, there are doctors, nurses and other health workers providing services across the...
06.14.2023
A step closer to a Chikungunya vaccine
Chikungunya is a mosquito-borne disease which spreads to humans and can cause fever and severe joint pain, sometimes felt long term. It’s most common in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. But just like better known diseases Dengue and Zika, outbreaks...
06.07.2023
China's Covid-19 lockdown: What happened next?
When China abruptly ended its tough lockdown policy in December 2022, Covid cases in the country rose rapidly. The Government’s official death toll was 121,000, but medical epidemiologist Ray Yip is one of several experts estimating it could have been...
05.31.2023
Uganda's anti-gay law and healthcare
As Uganda approves some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ legislation in the world, we hear from Dr Chloe Orkin, Professor of infection and inequities at Queen Mary University in London about the impact the new laws are already having on HIV...
05.24.2023
What can we do about back pain?
As new research is released showing that lower back pain is the leading cause of disability across the world, we ask Professor of musculoskeletal health at Sydney university, Manuela Ferreira what we can do to reduce the risks. We’re talking...
05.17.2023
Home testing kits for disease screening
Home testing kits for screening people for signs of diseases have become more and more common in recent years. Now a study in the US shows that mailing women from low-income backgrounds tests for HPV, almost doubled the uptake of...

What's Health Check about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Health Check episodes:

Is turbulence injuring more and more flyers?

Nigeria rolls out world’s first 5-in-1 meningitis vaccine

How we hope

Puerto Rico declares dengue fever emergency

Pig kidney transplanted into patient

Should we stop talking about long Covid?

A promising new cancer treatment

One billion obese people

Junior doctors strike in South Korea

Global Trade v Health Equality

Dengue outbreak in Latin America

Getting vaccinations to remote South Sudan

Surviving Noma disease

Cape Verde eliminates malaria

Endurance

Are outcomes better with female surgeons?

2024 in global health

A year in health in review

When will we have an HIV vaccine?

Closer to a cure for morning sickness

How do we know when a mystery illness is serious?

New Zealand backtracks on smoking ban

Gene editing treatment approved for sickle cell

Vaccinating children against chickenpox

A drug to prevent breast cancer

Warnings over antibiotic resistance in children

A musician’s story of coping with schizophrenia

Cholera cases surge in Zimbabwe

US proposes world first policy to reduce STIs

Malaria vaccine backed by WHO

The deadly practice of gum lancing

Could global Aids program be cut?

Do men have a friendship problem?

Opioid overdose antidote made available in US

What happened to babies with Zika virus

Disgraced surgeon appeals prison sentence

Contaminated cough syrup found in Iraq

A closer look at leprosy

Henrietta Lacks’ family settle lawsuit

Playing catch up on childhood immunisations

A new era for Alzheimer’s drugs?

Sickle cell disease: Fighting for the future

Drumming for a healthy life

The future of HIV research in Africa

Healthcare under threat in Myanmar

A step closer to a Chikungunya vaccine

China's Covid-19 lockdown: What happened next?

Uganda's anti-gay law and healthcare

What can we do about back pain?

Home testing kits for disease screening