A pioneering academic conference will bring together, for the first time, people from all over the world dealing with the problem of poor quality medicines and their impact on public health.

The third Quality of Medical Products and Public Health course will take place in Boston, USA this year, from 10-14 July. The course is a pioneering initiative developed by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford.

A booklet aimed at the general public examines the supply chain and how market globalisation put the quality of medicines at stake.

An investigation conducted by the international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) revealed that over a 1,000 people in a remote area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ingested pills of diazepam which actually contained haloperidol.

Congratulations to Prof Sir Nicholas White, former chair of the WWARN Board, who was recently appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George for services to tropical medicine and global health.

In an article published today in The BMJ’s online Christmas edition, Prof Paul Newton, Head of the Medicine Quality Group at the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory, visits the history of falsified medicines and highlights what needs to be done to avert a problem that threatens us all.

The growing inefficacy of the drugs currently available to treat visceral leishmaniasis (VL) needs to be addressed with harmonised research procedures, in order to discriminate resistant and susceptible strains, and establish a resistance ‘breakpoint’.

The Infectious Diseases Data Observatory will be at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2016 Annual Meeting, in Atlanta, discussing the importance of responsible data sharing and poor quality medicines.

The proliferation of poor quality medicines has been described as a global pandemic that threatens the lives of millions. A new project will assess a variety of portable and handheld devices used to assess the quality of medicines.

A new article published in The BMJ outlines experiences and investigates the advantages and costs of different data sharing models.

The Infectious Diseases Data Observatory's new film shows the potential impact of data sharing on infectious diseases research.

The Infectious Diseases Data Observatory was officially launched on Wednesday 7 September as part of the Oxford Tropical Network meeting, an opportunity for those working in tropical medicine and global health to learn about each other’s work and forge new collaborations.

A database of individual participant-level information could benefit schistosomiasis clinical research and treatment policies, according to a study published today in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Avoiding ‘data dumpsters’ is the key to ensuring that the drive towards open data sharing is truly useful, according to a Perspective article published in the New England Journal of Medicine today.

The latest Ebola clinical trial to be published showed that, at the dose given, the drug did not improve survival rates compared to historic controls.