By Elaine Nsoesie

Think of the last time you had food poisoning. Did you tweet about it? Did you Google your symptoms? Or did you write an angry review on Yelp?

Every day, people use the internet to seek and share health information. This opens up exciting new ways for scientists to study the health of a population, an approach known as digital epidemiology.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be deadly to both humans and dogs, but diagnosing a dog with the tickborne illness does not guarantee that the owner will be examined for it, even though he or she may have been exposed to the infection through the same environmental risk factors.

By Willis Simon Akhwale, Country Director for I-TECH Kenya

Malaria is one of the oldest and deadliest infectious diseases affecting man. It is an ancient and modern disease – descriptions of illnesses similar to malaria are found in ancient texts from China, India, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Malaria parasites have co-evolved – which involves genetic changes and adaptation – with people as their hosts over a period of four thousand years.

by Paige Minemyer

Global health spending is projected to increase significantly over the next 20 years, but spending rates will likely vary widely between countries, even those of similar size and gross domestic product, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of Washington mapped health spending trends around the world and found huge variation in how much different countries would likely spend, according to data published in The Lancet.

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