The Lancet
Jul 11, 2015 Volume 386 Number 9989 p103-218
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

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Editorial
A plan to protect the world—and save WHO
The Lancet
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61225-9
Summary
“WHO must reestablish its pre-eminence as the guardian of global public health.” These words resonate throughout the final report of the Ebola Interim Assessment Panel, requested by WHO’s Executive Board, chaired by Dame Barbara Stocking, and published this week. The findings of the panel present a devastating critique of WHO and the chronic inaction of its member states, which together created the conditions for an Ebola virus disease outbreak of unprecedented ferocity and human tragedy. The Stocking Report, as it will come to be known, sets out in agonising detail how the entire global health system fatally let down the people of west Africa.

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Editorial
Cuba: defeating AIDS and advancing global health
The Lancet
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61227-2
Summary
On June 30, Cuba became the world’s first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV. As WHO Director-General Margaret Chan noted, this achievement is a “major victory” and “an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation”.

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Comment
The Global Financing Facility: country investments for every woman, adolescent, and child
Hailemariam Desalegn, Erna Solberg, Jim Yong Kim
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61224-7
Summary
On July 13–16, 2015, leaders from around the globe will meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the Third International Financing for Development Conference. The promise of this conference is in both finding new resources for development and doing development differently. We are setting a course of bold action for sustainable results to achieve a world in which every woman, child, and adolescent thrives and realises her full potential. The launch of the Global Financing Facility (GFF) at the conference in Addis Ababa will be an essential pillar to support this goal.

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Articles
Social network targeting to maximise population behaviour change: a cluster randomised controlled trial
David A Kim, BSc, Alison R Hwong, BSc, Derek Stafford, BSc, D Alex Hughes, BSc, Prof A James O’Malley, PhD, Prof James H Fowler, PhD, Prof Nicholas A Christakis, MD
Published Online: 04 May 2015
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60095-2
Summary
Background
Information and behaviour can spread through interpersonal ties. By targeting influential individuals, health interventions that harness the distributive properties of social networks could be made more effective and efficient than those that do not. Our aim was to assess which targeting methods produce the greatest cascades or spillover effects and hence maximise population-level behaviour change.
Methods
In this cluster randomised trial, participants were recruited from villages of the Department of Lempira, Honduras. We blocked villages on the basis of network size, socioeconomic status, and baseline rates of water purification, for delivery of two public health interventions: chlorine for water purification and multivitamins for micronutrient deficiencies. We then randomised villages, separately for each intervention, to one of three targeting methods, introducing the interventions to 5% samples composed of either: randomly selected villagers (n=9 villages for each intervention); villagers with the most social ties (n=9); or nominated friends of random villagers (n=9; the last strategy exploiting the so-called friendship paradox of social networks). Participants and data collectors were not aware of the targeting methods. Primary endpoints were the proportions of available products redeemed by the entire population under each targeting method. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01672580.
Findings
Between Aug 4, and Aug 14, 2012, 32 villages in rural Honduras (25–541 participants each; total study population of 5773) received public health interventions. For each intervention, nine villages (each with 1–20 initial target individuals) were randomised, using a blocked design, to each of the three targeting methods. In nomination-targeted villages, 951 (74·3%) of 1280 available multivitamin tickets were redeemed compared with 940 (66·2%) of 1420 in randomly targeted villages and 744 (61·0%) of 1220 in indegree-targeted villages. All pairwise differences in redemption rates were significant (p<0·01) after correction for multiple comparisons. Targeting nominated friends increased adoption of the nutritional intervention by 12·2% compared with random targeting (95% CI 6·9–17·9). Targeting the most highly connected individuals, by contrast, produced no greater adoption of either intervention, compared with random targeting.
Interpretation
Introduction of a health intervention to the nominated friends of random individuals can enhance that intervention’s diffusion by exploiting intrinsic properties of human social networks. This method has the additional advantage of scalability because it can be implemented without mapping the network. Deployment of certain types of health interventions via network targeting, without increasing the number of individuals targeted or the resources used, could enhance the adoption and efficiency of those interventions, thereby improving population health.
Funding
National Institutes of Health, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Star Family Foundation, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

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The Lancet Commissions
Defeating AIDS—advancing global health
Prof Peter Piot, PhD, Salim S Abdool Karim, PhD, Robert Hecht, PhD, Helena Legido-Quigley, PhD, Kent Buse, PhD, John Stover, MA, Stephen Resch, PhD, Theresa Ryckman, BA, Sigrun Møgedal, MD, Mark Dybul, MD, Eric Goosby, MD, Charlotte Watts, PhD, Nduku Kilonzo, PhD, Joanne McManus, Michel Sidibé, MSc on behalf of the UNAIDS–Lancet Commission – Listed at end of paper
Published Online: 24 June 2015
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60658-4
Summary
After more than a decade of major achievements, the AIDS response is at a crucial juncture, both in terms of its immediate trajectory and its sustainability, as well as its place in the new global health and development agendas. In May, 2013, the UNAIDS–Lancet Commission—a diverse group of experts in HIV, health, and development, young people, people living with HIV and affected communities, activists, and political leaders—was established to investigate how the AIDS response could evolve in a new era of sustainable development.