The Bulletin of the World Health Organization is an international journal of public health with a special focus on developing countries. Since it was first published in 1948 the Bulletin has become one of the world's leading public health journals. As the flagship periodical of the World Health Organization (WHO) the Bulletin draws on WHO experts as editorial advisers reviewers and authors as well as on external collaborators. In this month's issue: Shortages of medicines: a complex global challenge; Treatment of opioid dependence: a call for papers; Elimination of paediatric HIV in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa: large-scale assessment of interventions for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission; Improving public health information: a data quality intervention in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa; Community case management of childhood illnesses: policy and implementation in Countdown to 2015 countries;External quality assessment of national public health laboratories in Africa 2002-2009; Birth attendants as perinatal verbal autopsy respondents in low- and middle-income countries: a viable alternative?; The global burden of cholera; Practical measurement of affordability: an application to medicines; Accounting for water quality in monitoring access to safe drinking-water as part of the Millennium Development Goals: lessons from five countries; Putting the priorities first: medicines for maternal and child health; Surgical epidemiology: a call for action; Ethical tensions in dealing with noncommunicable diseases globally; Reinforcing cholera intervention through prediction-aided prevention.