Morning Briefing

"Southeast Asia's 600 million people are facing a raft of new health challenges as the disaster-prone region undergoes some of the world's fastest social change," according to a series of papers and commentary pieces, published Tuesday in the Lancet, Agence France-Presse reports (1/25). "Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam were among the countries surveyed by the journal, which called for universal health coverage especially to protect the poor," Reuters writes (Lyn, 1/25).