Jason Beaubien
Jason Beaubien is NPR's Global Health and Development Correspondent on the Science Desk.
In this role, he reports on a range of issues across the world. He's covered the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, mass cataract surgeries in Ethiopia, abortion in El Salvador, poisonous gold mines in Nigeria, drug-resistant malaria in Myanmar and tuberculosis in Tajikistan. He was part of a team of reporters at NPR that won a Peabody Award in 2015 for their extensive coverage of the West Africa Ebola outbreak. His current beat also examines development issues including why Niger has the highest birth rate in the world, can private schools serve some of the poorest kids on the planet and the links between obesity and economic growth.
Prior to becoming the Global Health and Development Correspondent in 2012, Beaubien spent four years based in Mexico City covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. In that role, Beaubien filed stories on politics in Cuba, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the FMLN victory in El Salvador, the world's richest man and Mexico's brutal drug war.
For his first multi-part series as the Mexico City correspondent, Beaubien drove the length of the U.S./Mexico border making a point to touch his toes in both oceans. The stories chronicled the economic, social and political changes along the violent frontier.
In 2002, Beaubien joined NPR after volunteering to cover a coup attempt in the Ivory Coast. Over the next four years, Beaubien worked as a foreign correspondent in sub-Saharan Africa, visiting 27 countries on the continent. His reporting ranged from poverty on the world's poorest continent, the HIV in the epicenter of the epidemic, and the all-night a cappella contests in South Africa, to Afro-pop stars in Nigeria and a trial of white mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea.
During this time, he covered the famines and wars of Africa, as well as inspiring preachers and Nobel laureates. Beaubien was one of the first journalists to report on the huge exodus of people out of Sudan's Darfur region into Chad, as villagers fled some of the initial attacks by the Janjawid. He reported extensively on the steady deterioration of Zimbabwe and still has a collection of worthless Zimbabwean currency.
In 2006, Beaubien was awarded a Knight-Wallace fellowship at the University of Michigan to study the relationship between the developed and the developing world.
Beaubien grew up in Maine, started his radio career as an intern at NPR Member Station KQED in San Francisco and worked at WBUR in Boston before joining NPR.
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UNICEF says nearly 130 nations — home to more than a third for the world's population — have yet to administer a single dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
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A small study in South Africa has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine, particularly in fighting virus variants. -
As wealthier countries horde doses, the Latin American nation is struggling to obtain an ample supply for its population while dealing with a daunting caseload. -
Even as the European Union began vaccine rollouts on Sunday, nations around the globe are instituting severe lockdowns and travel restrictions. Fear of the U.K. variant is a key reason. -
The No. 1 and 2 causes of death remain the same, but there have been a number of notable changes. And now there's a new disease to assess on the global landscape: COVID-19.
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A new report by the World Health Organization shows the Top 10 leading causes of death globally. Heart disease remains at the top of that list.
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Regeneron — the pharmaceutical company developing COVID-19 treatments — has received FDA approval for the first drug aimed at another infectious disease that's been in the headlines. -
Per capita deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 and other causes are 85% higher than in countries like Germany and Israel. "The United States really has done remarkably badly," a study author says. -
As businesses reopen, tech firms are offering monitoring systems to screen for the coronavirus. They range from apps that ask about symptoms to software that tracks employees' movements at work. -
Despite the high numbers of cases, most of the world's population is still vulnerable to getting infected and this pandemic is far from over, the WHO's head of emergencies Dr. Michael Ryan says.
