Maeve Cullinan
Maeve Cullinan reports on global health security for The Telegraph, treating outbreaks and health threats as stories about power, systems and the people caught between them. Her beat spans infectious diseases, conflict, human rights, reproductive health and emerging threats, with a focus on how decisions taken far from the front line shape who lives and who dies. Her work combines clear, question-led explainers with reporting that tracks under-reported crises and the fragile infrastructure meant to contain them, and has been recognised with a newcomer-of-the-year award from a science writing body.
The catch-22 in the global battle to eradicate polio
In her coverage of the global effort to eradicate polio, Cullinan uses a long-running campaign to show how even “solved” diseases remain precarious when funding, politics and biology collide. She explains how a simple oral vaccine underpins decades of progress, while also introducing risks that create a strategic catch-22 for health agencies and governments. By setting out these trade-offs in plain language, she makes clear why eradication targets slip and why communities still face outbreaks despite the appearance of near-victory. The piece reflects a broader pattern in her work: she stays with protracted health struggles, unpacking the structural and scientific reasons progress is uneven rather than treating them as one-off flare-ups.
How deadly is the rare species of Ebola
Cullinan’s explainer on a rare species of Ebola shows how she handles fast-moving, high-anxiety threats. She structures the story around direct questions about deadliness, speed of spread and what is known so far, translating case fatality data, transmission patterns and early epidemiological signals into accessible terms. The piece situates a new outbreak within the wider history of Ebola and other viral haemorrhagic fevers, helping readers understand how this event compares to past crises and why health authorities are concerned. Her framing keeps the focus on evidence: what scientists and health officials can say with confidence, where uncertainty remains, and what that means for risk beyond the immediate outbreak area. This question-led, calmly analytical approach recurs across her global health security coverage when new pathogens or variants emerge.
Food poisoning kills more than 1.5 million people a year
In reporting on new analysis showing that food poisoning kills more than 1.5 million people a year, Cullinan turns a familiar nuisance into a major but often invisible driver of global mortality. She anchors the story in fresh global estimates, then breaks down which regions and populations carry the heaviest burden, drawing attention to the gap between everyday experience and the true scale of harm. The coverage links foodborne disease to weak surveillance, unsafe supply chains and unequal access to clean water and healthcare, framing it as a systemic failure rather than a series of isolated incidents. This focus on overlooked, routine hazards is a hallmark of her beat: she returns repeatedly to causes of death and disability that fall outside headline-grabbing pandemics but shape the health of millions.
10,000 infected in major cholera outbreak in northern Nigeria
Cullinan’s story on a cholera outbreak infecting 10,000 people in northern Nigeria underlines her attention to crises that test already stretched health systems. She tracks how quickly cases rise, what that implies for local capacity to respond, and how shortages of clean water, sanitation and medical resources amplify the threat. The reporting places the outbreak in the wider context of conflict, displacement and climate pressures, showing how these forces interact to drive waterborne disease. By highlighting a region-specific emergency that might otherwise receive little international attention, she reinforces a pattern in her work: she treats outbreaks in low- and middle-income countries as central to global health security, not as distant events.
Conflict, sexual violence and reproductive health as security issues
Alongside classic outbreak stories, Cullinan covers how conflict, sexual violence and reproductive health shape and are shaped by global health systems. She reports on how war and instability undermine vaccination campaigns and disease surveillance, connecting frontline disruptions to broader preparedness gaps. Her pieces on sexual and reproductive health examine access to care, bodily autonomy and rights as factors that determine resilience to crises, not adjunct social issues. Across these themes, she treats global health security as a web of interlocking vulnerabilities, showing that protecting populations depends as much on justice and services as on laboratories and stockpiles.
4 more health journalists.
Alex Storey
Alex Storey is a journalist at LBC whose work is driven by specific cases that test professional conduct and accountability in health and the public sector. He covers health as his main beat, focusing on the point where individual decisions by clinicians or officials meet public trust in institutions. His reporting is incident-first and case-led, using concrete episodes to show how rules, ethics and policy work in real life. Recent pieces include a disciplinary case where a nurse was struck off after linking a patient’s cancer to Covid jabs, and coverage of civil servants being “paid to play Grand Theft Auto” as “lived experience” training. Across these stories, he examines how professionals, regulators and officials explain their decisions, and what that reveals about trust, responsibility and the standards expected of people in positions of authority.
Alexandra Thompson
Alexandra Thompson is an assistant news editor focused on health who treats health claims as hypotheses to be tested rather than messages to be repeated. She works at New Scientist, combining editing with frontline reporting on ageing brains, cognitive health, chronic illness, contested treatments and infectious disease. Her beat centres on how neuroscience and psychology intersect with everyday health choices and on how scientific findings translate into real-world outcomes for people living with illness. She examines lifestyle advice, rehabilitation programmes and outbreak guidance against current evidence, clarifying risk without overstating it and giving space to controversy without sensationalising it. Alongside written news she appears in audio and video formats, bringing the same clear, news-driven approach to live discussions and helping shape the daily health agenda while keeping a tight focus on evidence and impact.
Alice Wilkinson
Alice Wilkinson investigates how everyday habits, products and routines shape sleep and long-term wellbeing, using test-driven health features to separate hype from real benefit. She holds a senior role on The Telegraph’s health features team, writing and shaping consumer-focused coverage that blends personal trial with clear expert evidence. Her core beat is sleep as a practical, solvable part of daily life, from detailed comparisons of magnesium supplements to service pieces on how sleeping position affects health over time. She treats supplements as a crowded, over-claimed market that demands careful testing and clear-eyed reporting. Alongside long-form features she writes weekly health desk dispatches on sleep, stress and concentration. Across her work she combines substantial self-testing, specialist insight and plain, unfussy prose to give readers measurable, realistic changes they can make.
Ally Head
Ally Head connects performance-focused fitness reporting with women’s health, sustainability and relationships, using her own endurance training and health history to stress-test trends against expert guidance. She is Senior Health, Sustainability and Relationships Editor at Marie Claire UK, where she shapes the health agenda across training, wellbeing and conscious living and writes and commissions news, topical features and SEO-led long-form pieces. A ten-time marathoner and Boston-qualifying runner, she focuses on structured, realistic training plans, strength and conditioning for women who run, and performance longevity. Her women’s health work centres on hormones, chronic conditions and fact versus fiction wellness claims. She also covers sustainability as conscious living and relationships, mental resilience and lifestyle features, favouring plain language, lived experience, specialist commentary and clear, repeatable routines. She has previously produced similar content for Women’s Health, Stylist, Glamour and Grazia.