Category: News

The World Health Organization is concerned by the rapid increase and spread of the deadly Ebola virus in remote, densely forested areas of Equateur province in the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.Health officials report 100 people in DRC have been infected with Ebola in fewer than 100 days, killing nearly half or 43 of those who have contracted this highly contagious disease.      The WHO says the virus is continuing to spread and is already in 11 of the province’s 17 health zones. This is of particular concern because of the difficulty of reaching affected communities in the geographically vast area.   WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says there currently is a delay of about five days from the onset of symptoms to when an alert…

The head of the World Health Organization says he hopes the coronavirus pandemic will end in less than two years – less time than it took to stop the 1918 Spanish flu. Speaking Friday at his regular briefing in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it is easier for a virus to spread today than 100 years ago because "we are more connected now." However, he said, "at the same time, we have also the technology to stop it and the knowledge to stop it."  FILE - Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks during a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 30, 2020."So we have a disadvantage of globalization, closeness, connectedness but an advantage of better technology," Tedros said. He said the key to stopping the virus…

A recently approved rapid saliva test for COVID-19 is already being used on college campuses across the United States. Also called spit tests, they produce results in less than 24 hours, cost about $10, and are less invasive than the standard swab that is placed deep into the nose.Faster, Easier COVID-19 Test Approved as US Testing Rates Fall A Yale-developed, NBA-funded test uses saliva to detect the coronavirusYale University School of Public Health in Connecticut partnered with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association in June, the school said, to devise the test, called SalivaDirect.“Direct saliva testing can address bottlenecks of time, cost and supplies,” said Dr. Martin Burke, a chemistry professor who helped design a saliva test at the University of Illinois in collaboration with Yale University.  “Once…

The U.S. National Weather Service is predicting that two storm systems in and around the Caribbean Sea will strengthen and could both be hurricanes next week in the Gulf of Mexico.The National Hurricane Center reports Tropical Storm Laura formed early Friday just northeast of the Lesser Antilles, and by last report, was 280 kilometers east of the northern Leeward Islands in the Caribbean.This satellite image released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Storm Laura in the North Atlantic Ocean, Aug. 21, 2020.The Washington Post reports Laura is the earliest forming “L” named storm on record, beating out Tropical Storm Luis, which formed Aug. 29, 1995. The season has already featured the earliest-forming C, E, F, G, H, I, J and K storms on record.Meanwhile, further to the…

China's Sinopharm Laboratory will begin human clinical trials for a possible vaccine against COVID-19 in Peru on Monday.Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra announced Thursday that 6,000 volunteers will participate in the trials.Vizcarra expects a second clinical trial, by the firm AstraZeneca in association with Oxford University, will begin by the end of August.Vizcarra said Peru will be part of the World Health Organization initiative to vaccinate at least 20% of the global population, which would mean around 6.6 million Peruvians. So far, Peru has reported more than 560,000 coronavirus cases and more than 27,000 deaths.  ...

Sometime next year, genetically modified mosquitoes will be released in the Florida Keys in an effort to combat persistent insect-borne diseases such as Dengue fever and the Zika virus.The plan approved this week by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District calls for a pilot project in 2021 involving the striped-legged Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is not native to Florida. But it does transmit several diseases to humans, particularly in the Keys island chain where nearly 50 cases of Dengue fever have been reported so far this year.The plan by the Oxitec biotechnology company is to release millions of male, genetically altered mosquitoes to mate with the females that bite humans because they need the blood. The male mosquitoes, which don't bite, would contain a genetic change in a protein that…

U.S. space weather forecasters say the Earth on Thursday received a glancing blow from a "coronal mass ejection" (CME) – effectively, a solar eruption – first detected on the surface of the sun four days ago.  The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency responsible for monitoring the weather for much of North America, also does its best to monitor "weather" in space.   NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center Lead Forecaster Bob Rutledge said space weather is, for the most part, solar activity. The forecasters use satellites and other Earth-based instruments to monitor what the sun is sending out. For example, solar wind consisting of protons and electrons in a state known as a plasma continuously flows out of the sun. But during periods of high solar activity, Rutledge said,…

The man-made mega constellation orbiting Earth grew again this week after another history-making commercial launch.  Satellite images document a quarter century of melting ice on Earth, plus images of our home planet from space and of space from our home planet.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.Produced by:  Arash Arabasadi ...

Environmentalists are increasingly alarmed at the growing pace of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.  With the fire season under way, Brazil’s rainforests face the threat of even more destruction. The number of trees destroyed has accelerated since Jair Bolsonaro became president in 2019.  Facing criticism, the Brazilian leader is defending his policy on rainforests and countering critics by enacting what he says is a zero-tolerance campaign to stop those who are illegally burning down the country’s forests.  Edgar Maciel in Sao Paulo has the story, in this report narrated by Jonathan Spier.Camera: Edgar Maciel, TV Brazil      Produced by:  Jon Spier  ...

The World Health Organization's (WHO’s) Europe office said it has begun discussions with Russia regarding the COVID-19 vaccine that the nation approved last week without the advanced trials normally required to prove a vaccine works.In a virtual news conference from the organization’s Copenhagen office, the WHO Europe’s senior emergency official Catherine Smallwood said there have been several direct discussions between Russia’s teams and the WHO’s pre-qualification colleagues, primarily on how the organization is going to assess the potential vaccine.The WHO Europe's regional director, Hans Kluge, said that while any potential vaccine is good news, all must go through the same vigorous assessments. Smallwood added "This concern that we have around safety and efficacy is not specifically for the Russia vaccine, it's for all of the vaccines under development."  Smallwood acknowledged…

While medical school students gain key healing skills as their education progresses, one important quality seems to wane: empathy.According to a study from FILE - Medical students hug during a demonstration, June 5, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah.DOs are fully licensed physicians who practice in all areas of medicine, according to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM),  and empathy is an important part of their program.“Emphasizing a whole-person approach to treatment and care, DOs are trained to listen and partner with their patients to help them get healthy and stay well,” according to the American Osteopathic Association.  In the study, women score higher in empathy than male students, African American students score higher than white students, and Asian Americans score the lowest. But everyone shows a…

Firefighters in Brazil say strong winds and hot dry weather are making it difficult to battle thousands of blazes burning in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said it spotted more than 3,100 fires in the first two weeks of August — five times as many as the same period last year. “We saw hundreds of fires along the journey throughout the day,” Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said Tuesday. “Places where the planes and firemen have fought the fires directly without stopping, but still the fires are causing great damage to fauna, flora and to the Pantanal region.”  The Pantanal is 10 times the size of Florida’s Everglades. The World Wildlife Fund says it is home to more than 4,700 plant and animal species,…

Police on Mauritius have arrested the captain of the Japanese carrier that ran aground off the coast last month, spilling 1,000 metric tonnes of oil and causing possible irreparable damage to coral reefs.Sunil Kumar Nandeshwar, the Indian captain of the MV Wakashio, was charged Tuesday with “endangering safe navigation.” He faces a bail hearing next week.The ship’s first officer was also arrested, and investigators say they are interviewing all crew members.The investigation will center on why the Wakashio went off course. It was supposed to stay at least 16 kilometers from the shore but was about two kilometers away when it ran aground on a coral reef.“The route set five days before the crash was wrong and the boat navigation system should have signaled that to the crew, and it…

Scientists in Kenya have harvested 10 eggs from the last two remaining northern white rhinos in the race to keep the species from total extinction.The two females – Najin and Fatuwill who are mother and daughter – live at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Because neither one would be able to carry a pregnancy to full term, the scientists hope to create viable embryos and implant them into southern white rhinos. Czech and German experts are leading the effort.“If you want to start a population of the northern white rhino, one baby is not enough, you need as many babies as possible,” Jan Stejskal of the Czech Republic's Dvůr Králové Zoo says.Eggs harvested from Najin and Fatuwill last year resulted in three viable embryos that are now frozen.Conservationists are waiting for the onset…

The World Meteorological Organization says temperatures of 54.4 degrees (Celsius) reported Sunday at Furnace Creek, Death Valley in the U.S. state of California, may be the third hottest on Earth.The U.N. weather agency is assembling an international team of atmospheric scientists to verify the temperatures reported in Death Valley are legitimate. The WMO says that is a very complicated procedure and is likely to take several months to complete.   If validated, however, World Meteorological scientists say it would qualify as the third highest temperature ever recorded on the planet. The hottest temperature ever recorded was 56.7 degrees (Celsius) in Death Valley on July 10, 1913. The second hottest was set in July 1931 in Kebili, Tunisia, at 55 degrees (Celsius).   The scorching conditions come as sweltering heat grips…

One of the hottest air temperatures recorded anywhere on the planet in at least a century, and possibly ever, was reached on Sunday afternoon at Death Valley in California's Mojave Desert where it soared to 130 Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius). An automated observation system run by the U.S. National Weather Service in the valley's sparsely populated Furnace Creek reported the record at 3:41 p.m. at the crest of an extreme heat wave, a more frequent occurrence because of climate change. It was a dry heat: Humidity fell to 7%. But it felt "insanely hot" all the same, according to meteorologist Daniel Berc at the weather service's Las Vegas bureau. A heat wave roasting much of the Western United States would continue all week, he said on Monday. "It's literally like being…

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general Tuesday issued another warning against “vaccine nationalism,” -- countries putting their own interests ahead of others in trying to secure supplies of a possible vaccine.  At the agency’s regular briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, "Nationalism exacerbated the pandemic and contributed to the total failure of the global supply chain," noting shortages of protective gear when the pandemic first hit caused by some nations hoarding resources.The WHO chief said that countries needed to work together to "prevent vaccine nationalism," so in the event a vaccine or vaccines are developed, those at the highest risk will have equal access.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a session of the WHO Executive Board held virtually by video-conference, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, May 22, 2020,…

A U.S. based vaccine development company is set to begin the second phase of human testing for its COVID-19 vaccine in South Africa, which is in the midst of a surge in coronavirus cases.  Novavax said in a statement that the clinical trials will include 2,665 healthy adults in South Africa. The trials will also compare the vaccine's effect on 240 medically stable adults with HIV whose immune responses may differ from individuals without HIV. Preliminary findings from the first trial showed people receiving the two doses generated neutralizing antibodies, which can prevent the virus from entering cells, after receiving a second dose of the vaccine.  Along with evaluating the immune response in the phase 2b trial in South Africa, Novavax will also organize a phase 2 trial in the United States and Australia in the near future. In Novavax's statement, Dr. Gregory Glenn, president of research…

South Africa, with the continent’s highest burden of COVID-19, has reached the peak of the pandemic, according to the president and top health officials.  President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a loosening of restrictions but said that he is not yet breathing a sigh of relief. A ray of hope for the Rainbow Nation, as the president announced that South Africa, with the continent’s heaviest known burden of the coronavirus, has passed its viral peak since reporting its first cases in early March.President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking late Saturday, said that over the past three weeks, the number of new confirmed cases has dropped from an daily average of about 12,000 to around 5,000 per day.FILE - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visits the COVID-19 treatment facilities at the NASREC Expo Centre in Johannesburg,…

NASA scientists say a small but significant “dent” in Earth’s magnetic field is expanding and splitting and continuing to weaken intensity, which could impact low-orbit satellites circling the globe.According to scientists, Earth’s magnetic field acts like a protective shield, blocking and trapping charged particles — or radiation — from the sun that could otherwise cause harm but are more likely to affect electronic equipment, like satellites.But the “dent,” or weak spot, in the magnetic field over South America, known to scientists as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), allows radiation to penetrate Earth’s surface. The scientists have observed no ill effects to daily life on the planet. But they have observed the anomaly is moving westward and appears to be splitting.Scientists say Earth is a bit like a bar magnet with north and…