Claudia Hammond presents a special edition of Health Check from the Northern Ireland Science Festival, where she’s joined by a panel of experts to discuss the psychology of hope.With a live audience in Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Centre, Claudia speaks to Dr Karen Kirby, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Ulster; Dr Kevin Mitchell, associate professor of genetics and neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin; and author Sinéad Moriarty.Topics include the role of hope in medical scenarios, if we can learn to be hopeful, and how we can hold onto hope in the modern world. We also hear questions from our audience, including whether or not we should all just lower our expectations.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Dan Welsh

As the recent surge in cases of dengue fever continues across Latin America and the Caribbean, Puerto Rico declares a public health emergency. Claudia Hammond is joined by Professor of Global Health and Epidemiology at Boston University, Matt Fox, to hear how warmer temperatures have lead to outbreaks of the mosquito-borne disease around the world, with millions of cases reported so far this year.We speak to the artist Jason Wilsher-Mills at his latest exhibition inspired by his childhood experiences of disability, and hear the role it played in his journey into the arts.Claudia and Matt discuss the spread of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with cases reported in all but 3 of the country’s 26 provinces.We hear from Uganda about the project hoping to help provide essential equipment for safe anaesthesia in children’s surgery. And the study that says just two nights of broken sleep are enough to make us feel years older.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Dan Welsh

A groundbreaking pig kidney transplant, risks of non-melanoma skin cancer for outdoor workers, the impact of extreme heat on pregnancy outcomes, unregulated sale of traditional medicines on intercity buses in Cameroon, dangers of fake drugs in traditional medicine practices, and debunking claims of intermittent fasting linked to heart-related death risk.

Most people with Covid-19 make a full recovery within 12 weeks, but some patients have experienced ongoing symptoms for much longer. This has become known as ‘long Covid’. However, new research suggests that the rates of ongoing symptoms and functional impairment after Covid are indistinguishable from other post-viral illnesses, and that long Covid may have appeared to be a distinct and severe illness because of high volumes of Covid-19 cases during the pandemic. Presenter Claudia Hammond is joined in the studio by BBC Health reporter Philippa Roxby to discuss the findings. If long Covid is not unique, could this new spotlight encourage research that would help sufferers of other post-viral conditions? The use of heart pacemakers have become a standard procedure in many countries. Pacemakers are small electrical devices implanted in the chest that send electrical pulses to the heart to keep it beating regularly and not too slowly. The devices can be lifesaving for some people. But devices can malfunction, there can be problems with leads and the batteries in them don’t last forever. Over half of all pacemaker patients live long enough to require a battery replacement operation, which carries a risk of serious complications including life-threatening infection. This can have big cost implications for health systems and devastating consequences for patients. Reporter Hannah Fisher attends one of these operations to find out more. An initiative to make the right to abortion part of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights has been introduced to the European Parliament. This comes on the heels of France making abortion a constitutional right earlier this month, in stark contrast to the removal of abortion as a constitutional right in the USA in 2022. We assess the initiative’s chances of success and discuss the ripple effect of US politics on abortion rights across the rest of the world.Amputees who use prosthetic limbs have to get used to the fact that they do not experience the sensations that they were previously used to. But now researchers in Italy and Switzerland have developed a temperature-sensitive robotic hand that allows amputees to discriminate between objects of different temperatures and sense bodily contact with other humans. Solaiman Shokur of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne tells Claudia how it works. And Philippa brings the story of Paul Alexander, a polio survivor who spent most of his life inside an iron lung. An iron lung is a metal cylinder enclosing the body up to the neck, with bellows to force the lungs to inflate and deflate. The device has been obsolete since the 1960s, but he continued to use his until he died recently. 72 years after Paul contracted polio, we look at how the disease has nearly been eradicated worldwide. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Ben Motley and Margaret Sessa-Hawkins(Photo: Man in bed. Credit: Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images)

The podcast explores a new global study on asbestos-related cancer, Mike's kidney transplant journey, updated Hepatitis B treatment guidelines in Africa, a breakthrough in mesothelioma treatment, a novel cancer treatment method in Brazil, and the challenges of disease spread amid a dengue outbreak.

Over one billion people are obese globally; underweight numbers decreasing. Sleep deprivation raises type 2 diabetes risk; healthy diet can't compensate lack of sleep. Study shows screen time affects language development in children. Podcast covers global malnutrition shift, kidney transplant impact, and films in health education.

More than 1,600 junior doctors have been on strike in South Korea in a dispute about working conditions and Government plans to add more medical school placements. BBC health reporter Smitha Mundasad joins Claudia Hammond to explain the latest. Smitha also brings Claudia new research about the first ever prehistoric case of a child with genetic condition Edwards’ syndrome. And some innovative solutions to get blood to so called ‘blood deserts’; large rural areas where there is no access to blood transfusion. Claudia and Smitha also hear how one American woman Lynn Cole’s fight with serious blood infection helped scientists understand more about phage therapy. Lynn died in 2022, but Claudia speaks to her daughter Mya. Health Check also continues to follow British journalist Mike Powell as he prepares for a kidney transplant operation. This week he is in conversation with Justin Pham in Los Angeles, who also has kidney failure and has been on dialysis since last year.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Clare Salisbury

Research shows that large numbers of Covid deaths could have been prevented if people in low and middle income countries had better access to vaccines. But this week the World Trade Organisation said it could not reach a consensus on waiving intellectual property rights on Covid-19 tests and treatments for poorer countries. Claudia Hammond is joined by BBC Africa health correspondent Dorcas Wangira in Nairobi, to discuss the impact of vaccine inequity on her part of the world.Dorcas also brings news of a new Ebola study showing that even people vaccinated once they were already infected with Ebola had a substantially lower risk of dying. It suggests that not only does the vaccine help prevent Ebola, it also improves the survival odds of people who have already contracted it.Oral Rehydration Salts are a lifesaving and inexpensive treatment for diarrhoeal disease, a leading cause of death for children around the world. It is cheap, effective and has been recommended by the World Health Organization for decades - so why is it under-prescribed? That’s a question that researchers at the University of Southern California set out to answer by sending ‘mystery patients’ to thousands of healthcare providers in India. Prof Neeraj Sood tells Claudia what they discovered.And, a new study suggests that if the fourth digit on the hand of a professional footballer is longer than their second digit, they can metabolise oxygen more efficiently. This comes on the back of previous research about how differences in finger length can be a marker of heart attack and severity of Covid-19. Can you really make predictions about someone’s health based on the way their hand looks?

Carnival hits the streets in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this week. As well as preparations for the crowds and colourful processions, health authorities have also been putting in extra measures to try to contain a huge outbreak of dengue fever. Last week a health emergency was declared in the city. And as Claudia hears from Peruvian health journalist Fabiola Torres, cases are rising to levels not seen for decades across the whole of Latin America. Consultant in public health Dr Ike Anya is in the Health Check studio to take a deeper look at Dengue. He also brings news from Alaska, USA where an elderly man has become the first person to die from Alaskapox, a viral disease more commonly found in small animals like shrews and voles. And could new UK research on 50,000 people’s blood, help us get one step closer to a predictive blood test for Alzheimer’s disease?Claudia and Ike hear from British journalist Mike Powell who has serious kidney failure. Last week Mike’s kidney transplant operation had to be cancelled due to his donor’s health. He’s hoping for some better news this week.And Claudia speaks to Dr Ruth Namazzi at Makerere University in Uganda. She is co-author of new research that suggests that a common drug for treating the symptoms of sickle cell anaemia could have a transformative effect amongst children with the blood condition in sub-Saharan Africa.Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Clare Salisbury and Ben Motley Assistant producer: Imaan Moin

Doctors in remote South Sudan face challenges in vaccinating for hepatitis E; cirrhosis misdiagnosed as dementia; India's effort to control rabies; China's 'One Egg Program'; incorporating eggs in South Sudanese school nutrition; journalist's kidney transplant saga