What did the Go4Health policy research project contribute to the policy discourse on the sustainable development goals? A reflexive review.

BACKGROUND: In 2012, the European Commission funded Go4Health-Goals and Governance for Global Health, a consortium of 13 academic research and human rights institutions from both Global North and South-to track the evolution of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and provide ongoing policy advice. This paper reviews the research outputs published between 2012 and 2016, analyzing the thematic content of the publications, and the influence on global health and development discourse through citation metrics. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION: Analysis of the 54 published papers showed 6 dominant themes related to the SDGs: the formulation process for the SDG health goal; the right to health; Universal Health Coverage; voices of marginalized peoples; global health governance; and the integration of health across the other SDGs. The papers combined advocacy---particularly for the right to health and its potential embodiment in Universal Health Coverage-with qualitative research and analysis of policy and stakeholders. Go4Health's publications on the right to health, global health governance and the voices of marginalized peoples in relation to the SDGs represented a substantial proportion of papers published for these topics. Go4Health analysis of the right to health clarified its elements and their application to Universal Health Coverage, global health governance, financing the SDGs and access to medicines. Qualitative research identified correspondence between perceptions of marginalized peoples and right to health principles, and reluctance among multilateral organizations to explicitly represent the right to health in the goals, despite their acknowledgement of their importance. Citation metrics analysis confirmed an average of 5.5 citations per paper, with a field-weighted citation impact of 2.24 for the 43 peer reviewed publications. Citations in the academic literature and UN policy documents confirmed the impact of Go4Health on the global discourse around the SDGs, but within the Go4Health consortium there was also evidence of two epistemological frames of analysis-normative legal analysis and empirical research-that created productive synergies in unpacking the health SDG and the right to health. CONCLUSION: The analysis offers clear evidence for the contribution of funded programmatic research-such as the Go4Health project-to the global health discourse.

Did the right to health get across the line? Examining the United Nations resolution on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Since the new global health and development goal, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, and its nine targets and four means of implementation were introduced to the world through a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution in September 2015, right to health practitioners have queried whether this goal mirrors the content of the human right to health in international law. This study examines the text of the UN SDG resolution, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, from a right to health minimalist and right to health maximalist analytic perspective. When reviewing the UN SDG resolution's text, a right to health minimalist questions whether the content of the right to health is at least implicitly included in this document, specifically focusing on SDG 3 and its metrics framework. A right to health maximalist, on the other hand, queries whether the content of the right to health is explicitly included. This study finds that whether the right to health is contained in the UN SDG resolution, and the SDG metrics therein, ultimately depends on the individual analyst's subjective persuasion in relation to right to health minimalism or maximalism. We conclude that the UN General Assembly's lack of cogency on the right to health's position in the UN SDG resolution will continue to blur if not divest human rights' (and specifically the right to health's) integral relationship to high-level development planning, implementation and SDG monitoring and evaluation efforts.

West Nile virus NS2A protein facilitates virus-induced apoptosis independently of interferon response.

The flavivirus NS2A protein is a small, multifunctional protein, involved in replication, virion formation and regulation of the innate immune response. Using the Kunjin strain of West Nile virus (WNV(KUN)) we previously demonstrated that a single amino acid change from alanine to proline at position 30 of the NS2A protein (A30P) reduced viral cytopathicity in cells and virulence in mice. To further investigate functions of the NS2A protein we have substituted alanine at position 30 with different amino acids (A30 mutants) in a WNV(KUN) infectious clone. The virulence of mutant viruses in wild-type (WT) and IRF3/IRF7 double-knockout mice was influenced by the amino acid change and ranged from high to low in the order of WT>A30L>A30E>A30P/A30G. Moreover, infection of beta interferon (IFN-ß)-deficient Vero cells with A30P virus showed less pronounced chromosomal DNA degradation and lower percentage of cells with positive TUNEL labelling than in WT virus infection, indicating a role for the WT NS2A protein in IFN-independent apoptotic cell death.

RNA structures required for production of subgenomic flavivirus RNA.

Flaviviruses are a group of single-stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses causing ∼100 million infections per year. We have recently shown that flaviviruses produce a unique, small, noncoding RNA (∼0.5 kb) derived from the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of the genomic RNA (gRNA), which is required for flavivirus-induced cytopathicity and pathogenicity (G. P. Pijlman et al., Cell Host Microbe, 4: 579-591, 2008). This RNA (subgenomic flavivirus RNA [sfRNA]) is a product of incomplete degradation of gRNA presumably by the cellular 5'-3' exoribonuclease XRN1, which stalls on the rigid secondary structure stem-loop II (SL-II) located at the beginning of the 3' UTR. Mutations or deletions of various secondary structures in the 3' UTR resulted in the loss of full-length sfRNA (sfRNA1) and production of smaller and less abundant sfRNAs (sfRNA2 and sfRNA3). Here, we investigated in detail the importance of West Nile virus Kunjin (WNV(KUN)) 3' UTR secondary structures as well as tertiary interactions for sfRNA formation. We show that secondary structures SL-IV and dumbbell 1 (DB1) downstream of SL-II are able to prevent further degradation of gRNA when the SL-II structure is deleted, leading to production of sfRNA2 and sfRNA3, respectively. We also show that a number of pseudoknot (PK) interactions, in particular PK1 stabilizing SL-II and PK3 stabilizing DB1, are required for protection of gRNA from nuclease degradation and production of sfRNA. Our results show that PK interactions play a vital role in the production of nuclease-resistant sfRNA, which is essential for viral cytopathicity in cells and pathogenicity in mice.