The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) is a group of public health experts, scientists, academics and clinicians ready to support countries around the world responding to disease outbreaks. The UK-PHRST is partnership between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Public Health England, with University of Oxford and King’s College London as academic partners.

TB killed 1.7 million people in 2016 – about three a minute – and it shows few signs of slowing, despite the availability of the BCG vaccine and a generally effective drug regimen. The problem of TB eradication is simple: as long as poverty continues to flourish, so will TB.

The West African Ebola outbreak of 2014-16 was a terrifying, murderous rampage that ticked almost every box on the ‘bad’ column, yet surprisingly enough, it ticked some ‘good’ boxes, too. It taught the world how truly interconnected our health is and that we must do a better job in protecting health globally so that we can better protect health locally.

Malaria spreads with dizzying efficiency. In infectious disease theory, the R0describes how many people someone with a disease will infect: more than one and the disease will spread, fewer than one and it will die out. The R0 of the Ebola virus during the 2015 outbreak in West Africa was estimated to be between two and three. Estimates for the R0 of malaria in Africa vary from fewer than one to more than 3000.

Multi drug-resistant TB is now found in almost all countries around the world. Even worse, incurable TB with resistance to all the locally available drugs has been reported in several countries, including countries with a high burden of disease such as India and South Africa. Complete resistance to the cocktail of antibiotics used to treat TB is an alarming and realistic prospect. What can be done?

The cramped Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh are the perfect environment for the transmission of respiratory infections such as diphtheria. It’s no surprise that the disease, which can cause airway obstruction, damage the heart and sometimes cause death, has been sweeping through these camps for a few months now.

In 19th century England, goitres – or swollen thyroid glands – were prevalent in Derbyshire and the condition became known as ‘Derbyshire neck’. Goitres are disfiguring and can impede breathing; more significantly, a poorly functioning thyroid can lead to severely stunted physical and mental growth. In 1886, Dr William Webb noted that goitres were mainly found “in women belonging to the working classes”, but the local environmental causes were not understood.

As a result, investment in community-based interventions to prevent forced labour and trafficking in women has vastly increased over the past decade. Many interventions have invested in empowerment strategies under the assumption that greater knowledge of risks, regulation and rights could make women less vulnerable to exploitation. However, there is limited evidence about how effective these strategies actually are.

World AIDS Day is an important milestone each year allowing the ongoing pandemic of HIV/AIDS to be the focus of global attention. It provides an opportunity to advocate for political will, to reflect on our efforts, and to redouble our resolve to make a difference in fighting HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, today tell us that there are 26 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, that progress has been made in reducing the treatment gap, and that the number of new infections each year is slowing.

The elevated HIV risk of men who have sex with men (MSM) is well known – globally, they are 19 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population – a shocking statistic. However, there is another group that evidence suggests is a staggering 49 times more likely to acquire HIV than other adults - trans women.