Hannah Bloch
Hannah Bloch is lead digital editor on NPR's international desk, overseeing the work of NPR correspondents and freelance journalists around the world.
Her first contributions to NPR were on the other side of the microphone when, as a writer and editor at National Geographic, she was interviewed by NPR for her reporting from Afghanistan and on the role failure plays in exploration. During her 2004-2014 tenure at National Geographic, she also reported from Easter Island and covered a range of topics including archaeology and global health.
From 2014-2017, Bloch wrote the "Work in Progress" column at The Wall Street Journal, highlighting efforts by social entrepreneurs and problem-solvers to make a measurable difference in the world.
Earlier in her career, she was Time Magazine's first full-time correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, covering the rise and fall of the Taliban regime, Pakistan's nuclear tests, and the regrouping of al-Qaida after Sept. 11. She also established and led CNN's first bureau in Islamabad.
Bloch was part of NPR's Peabody Award-winning team covering the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and was the recipient of a John S. Knight Professional Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University and a Freedom Forum Asia Studies Fellowship at the University of Hawaii.
She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and earned master's degrees in journalism and international affairs from Columbia University.
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A small project started in 2014 to replace dirt floors, which can make people sick, with sealed earthen floors. Demand has only grown — but not exactly in the way the CEO had imagined. -
Also this week: How classic video games are teaching computers to learn.
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They each were cut when they were young. As outspoken opponents of the practice, they're accused of going against their religion. (They're not.) And of being brainwashed by white women. (Also untrue.)
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Around the world, patients acquire new infections simply from spending time in a hospital. One way to fight back: replacing hospital bed rails with copper, a natural infection-killer.
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Drugs are in short supply. So is protective gear. Muddy roads may be impassable. But community health worker Lorenzo Dorr continues his efforts to keep Ebola in check in remote parts of Liberia.
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There's a long tradition of denial, superstition and wishful thinking when it comes to health. Ebola is no exception. It's all too human to let fear interfere with facts.
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Lorenzo Dorr wants to keep Ebola at bay in remote parts of the country. "We should be prepared before a case is identified," he says, "not chasing after it after hell breaks loose."
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Homes with dirt floors can make people sick. Replacing them with concrete floors helps cut risks but isn't always affordable. A new project in Rwanda relies on a low-cost alternative.
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The "patient biocontainment unit" at Emory University Hospital is one of four facilities in the U.S. specially equipped to handle the most serious infectious diseases.
