Helen Branswell
Helen Branswell is an infectious diseases correspondent at STAT whose reporting connects real-time coverage of outbreaks with the science, policy, and global politics that shape the response. She focuses on infectious diseases and global health, tracking threats such as measles, Ebola, mpox, bird flu, and West Nile virus alongside the systems meant to contain them. Her work combines long experience on the epidemic beat with sustained attention to how public health guidance, international agencies, and political decisions affect people during crises.
Outbreaks and evolving infectious threats
Branswell covers outbreaks as they unfold, with recent reporting on Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak, including case trends and measles-related deaths in the state. She follows Ebola outbreaks closely, including pieces that describe how a specific Ebola event revealed fractures in the broader outbreak response system.
Her archive shows recurring attention to mpox and bird flu, including stories on emergency declarations and risk assessments that explain how health authorities are gauging these evolving threats.
Her work moves across pathogens but stays rooted in the mechanics of transmission, surveillance, and control, whether she is writing about mpox being declared a global health emergency or bird flu risk being raised in official assessments. She also covers vector-borne infections such as West Nile virus, documenting both individual cases and broader public health concerns, including illness in high-profile figures.
Across these pieces, she keeps the focus on what is known, what is uncertain, and how health agencies are adjusting their strategies as new data arrives.
Vaccines, guidelines, and respiratory illness season
Branswell devotes substantial coverage to vaccines and clinical guidance, especially around respiratory illness season. A recent article examines how an OB-GYN association issued its own vaccine recommendations that diverged from federal guidance, highlighting tensions between specialty societies and central public health authorities. She has reported on doctors’ groups releasing vaccination guidelines ahead of respiratory illness season, explaining how timing and messaging are designed to prepare patients and clinicians before virus circulation peaks.
Her vaccine reporting extends beyond recommendations to implementation and access, including coverage of plans to offer seasonal flu shots to farmworkers in an effort to lower bird flu risk among people exposed to infected herds.
She explores debates over using cow vaccines to halt the spread of bird flu, capturing disagreements among experts about strategy and feasibility. Branswell also writes about specific products, such as an Ebola vaccine shown to offer substantial protection, tying clinical trial findings to the practical challenge of deploying vaccines in outbreak settings. Across these stories, she treats vaccines as tools embedded in policy and logistics, not just as scientific breakthroughs.
Global health policy and World Health Organization leadership
Branswell’s beat includes the politics of global health, particularly around the World Health Organization and its leadership. In a recent piece on the race to become the next director-general of the World Health Organization, she profiles at least five candidates and sets out the extraordinary challenges awaiting the winner.
The article traces the election process in detail, from a candidates’ forum to executive board shortlisting and a final secret-ballot vote at the World Health Assembly, showing how global governance unfolds through formal steps and behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
Her stories on WHO also cover operational issues, such as cautious optimism about efforts to control an Ebola outbreak and plans for launching clinical trials of Ebola vaccines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has reported on WHO convening expert panels to decide whether mpox constitutes a public health emergency, capturing the interplay between technical assessment and political consequence. Taken together, this work situates outbreaks within the structures of international decision-making, making clear that containment is as much about diplomacy and institutional capacity as it is about epidemiology.
Pandemic preparedness, response systems, and recognition
Branswell brings deep experience in epidemic reporting to STAT’s coverage of preparedness and response. Her biography notes that she has covered bird flu, the H1N1 pandemic, Ebola, Zika, polio, mpox, and led STAT’s coverage of Covid-19, building a long-running record of reporting on global health threats across multiple waves and regions. In work such as her piece on how an Ebola outbreak exposed a fractured response system, she shows how weaknesses in coordination, funding, and infrastructure can magnify the impact of an outbreak.
She has been with STAT since its launch and is described there as a senior writer or correspondent for infectious diseases and global health, underscoring that this beat is the core of her role. Over the course of her pandemic coverage she has received major recognition, including the George Polk Award for Public Service for her Covid-19 reporting, being named a Pulitzer finalist with colleagues, and winning the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting.
These honors align with the breadth and depth of her archive, which combines daily news, newsletter formats, and longer analyses to examine how well-prepared health systems and institutions are for whatever comes next.
4 more health journalists.
Alanna Smith
Alanna Smith is a national health reporter whose work links health policy and politics to real access to care, with a constant focus on health equity, infectious disease and the toxic drug crisis. She reports for The Globe and Mail on infectious diseases, hospitals and long-term care, mental health, drug policy and the pressures on health systems in Western Canada. Her stories connect big-picture decisions to patients, families, front-line workers and volunteers, showing how funding, privatization and federal standards shape public care. She has covered trauma care inequities, proposed public‑private models in Alberta, drug toxicity and overdose policy, respiratory virus surges, measles elimination, gene‑editing advances and gender‑affirming health care laws. Her work combines narrative reporting, data, legal and policy analysis, and has been recognized by national journalism and press freedom organizations.
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is a historian and author whose journalism uses the past to explain present-day issues. He writes for the Winnipeg Free Press, including the Now & Then column, which examines current events through history. His subjects include public health, disease, medical treatment, health systems, politics, social conflict, strikes, wars, antisemitism and Canadian public life. His polio reporting traces Manitoba epidemics, hospital pressures, treatment, mortality and the arrival of vaccines through archival data and medical history. He also writes about the Winnipeg General Strike and Jewish communities, including discrimination, rights and security. His work draws on books about Canadian political leaders, Jewish history and the wartime economy, including The Dollar A Year Men. He writes long-form, analytical pieces that combine dates, statistics, policy decisions and narrative storytelling to connect people and institutions with broader historical change.
Angela Amato
Angela Amato is a digital news producer with CTV News, and her coverage is distinct for linking health research and public safety concerns to legal and policy decisions that shape daily life. She reports on health, justice, politics, business, arts and culture, crime and public-interest stories. Her health work covers academic and clinical research, including studies on vaping and lung blood flow, exercise tolerance and early heart dysfunction in young adults. She also reports on motorcycle gang arrests, homicide and death investigations, Indigenous justice stories, wildfire evacuations, ambulance contracts, property taxes, labour negotiations and political advocacy rules. She explains complex findings in plain language and stays close to documents, data and expert sources. Her background includes investigative and daily newsrooms, and she has earned nominations for national journalism awards.
Apoorva Mandavilli
Apoorva Mandavilli covers the collision of infectious disease science, vaccine policy and public health agencies for The New York Times, following how research, regulation and politics shape outbreaks and access to vaccines. She reports on science and global health with a steady focus on infectious diseases and pandemics, including Covid-19, mpox, H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis, treating them as ongoing global threats. Her work explains complex epidemiology and virology in clear narratives about risk, evidence and the consequences of scientific decisions. She repeatedly returns to vaccine policy, law and misinformation, tracing how court fights and agency disputes affect immunization schedules and public trust. She also reports on global health programs, funding cuts and inequity in care and technology. A longtime science journalist and former founding editor in chief of Spectrum, she has written widely on science and health and received major honors for medical science reporting and pandemic coverage.