As the epidemic rages in a violent, embattled region, two important players — the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders — clash over how to end it.

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Ten years ago, Renee Bach left her home in Virginia to set up a charity to help children in Uganda. One of her first moves was to start a blog chronicling her experiences.

Among the most momentous: On a Sunday morning in October 2011, a couple from a village some distance away showed up at Bach’s center carrying a small bundle.

“When I pulled the covering back my eyes widened,” Bach wrote in the blog. “For under the blanket lay a small, but very, very swollen, pale baby girl. Her breaths were frighteningly slow. … The baby’s name is Patricia. She is 9 months old.”

Bach went on to write that Patricia had fallen sick three weeks earlier. But her parents had been unable to find anyone closer to home who could cure her.

Then, wrote Bach, “One of their relatives told them about a ‘hospital’ … with a ‘White Doctor.’ ”

Except Bach was not a doctor.

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False rumors that children are fainting or dying have led parents to turn away vaccinators, threatening the campaign to eradicate the disease.

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The year-old outbreak has now reached Goma, a heavily populated city near the border with Rwanda. The W.H.O. will ask experts again to decide whether to issue a declaration that could increase funding to fight the disease spread.

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Burrowing skin mites drive victims mad with itching, but distribution of a few pills can drive the infestation from entire communities.

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Over 200 million women and girls alive today have been circumcised. Four of them shared with The Times their pain, emotional trauma and sexual struggles — and their journey to feel whole.

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first vaccine for dengue, Dengvaxia, but placed significant restrictions on its use because the vaccine has been shown to put some people at heightened risk for a severe form of the disease.

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With malaria deaths rebounding worldwide, a pilot program testing a new and fiercely debated malaria vaccine began on Tuesday in Malawi.

Dr. Katherine O’Brien, the World Health Organization’s director of immunization, called the rollout “a historic moment in the fight against malaria,” and said the testing will soon expand to malarious regions of Ghana and Kenya.

But the vaccine, known as RTS,S, or Mosquirix, has been in development by GSK, the former GlaxoSmithKline, for more than 30 years, and it has serious drawbacks that have led some experts to argue that it does not work well enough to spend millions of dollars pursuing.

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Despite a worsening Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization on Friday again decided not to declare the outbreak a global health emergency.

While expressing “deep concern” about the number of increasing cases in parts of Congo, and the potential risk of the disease spreading to neighboring countries, the W.H.O. said the epidemic did not meet the criteria for declaring an international public health emergency.

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