Rwanda combating Rift Valley Fever disease using mobile phones

Tuberculosis is still a rampant problem in the developing world. Doctors are looking for even more advanced ways to test for TB beyond the GeneXpert tests.

Wolves in western America were once hunted to near-extinction but have now been reintroduced into certain territories with notable success. More wolves often means more attacks on ranchers' livestock, however, so cowboys are working to track wolf packs by computer to reduce conflicts.

Slow test results make it difficult to stop the spread of tuberculosis. Using faster diagnostic technology and driving vans to rural areas in Tanzania, GeneXpert is making progress in treating this curable disease.

Although patients go to hospitals to receive medical care, many Americans will acquire infections that did not already have them. The United States as a whole has made modest progress at reducing the rates of hospital-acquired infections. Spearheading the efforts, the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers have devised anti-MRSA strategies to keep patients safe.

In prison, most inmates are alienated from social practices and can be a tax burden for the states. The Colorado Correctional Industries is a program that positions inmates in different forms of labor such as making stuffed toys, farming fish, picking fruit, tending livestock, and creating crafts to be sold at grocery stores. The program makes inmates into taxpayers instead of tax burdens and offers skills that are useful for future employment once they leave prison.

For decades, AIDS has taken the lives of millions of people and infected millions more worldwide. The key to reducing the effect of AIDS, and even potentially curing it, involves treating patients as early as possible after being diagnosed with HIV, before the disease damages organs. San Francisco General Hospital developed the RAPID program for this purpose, with the goal of “Getting to Zero” the number of new infections and deaths.

In Colombia, traditional cattle pastures have caused soil degradation, deforestation, and desertification. To reconcile this, several thousand acres of land in Latin America have been transformed into a silvo-pastoral system of grazing and raising cattle with agro-forestry. The Colombia-based Center for Research in Sustainable Systems of Agriculture seeks to reduce pasture land by 26 million acres while increasing cattle numbers by 2019.

A robust population of grizzly bears can be an indicator of healthy land; however, the bears also can destroy grain bins, consume vegetation, and kill livestock. Ranchers work with the Canadian government and local conservation groups to protect their resources with bear-proof grain bins and electric fences.

As a state with robust populations of wildlife, Montana has had its share of roadkill. Its Department of Transportation developed animal shelving, a type of wildlife crossing, to enable safe passage for small animals who need to cross the road. The measure, combined with other types of crossings, has reduced animal-vehicle collisions by half.

Two columns on how Iran is treating its massive epidemic of injecting drug use by tackling it as a health problem, effectively lowering H.I.V. rates among drug users using an approach to drugs known as harm reduction.