Month: August 2020

As millions of children head back to school, the World Health Organization has issued its recommendation on whether they need to wear face masks.The WHO and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have broken their new guidelines into age groups, and they say children younger…

A region in Africa that includes 43 nations has been certified free of the wild polio virus (Aug. 24) after Nigeria, the last endemic country, recorded no new cases for the past three consecutive years. Nigeria's polio survivors are celebrating the eradication of the virus,…

A new study suggests researchers have developed a method to significantly improve “anti-solar” panels - a new clean, sustainable way to generate energy at night.   Solar panels work because they are colder than the light given off by the sun, so they can capture that…

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday nine vaccines are being evaluated by its cooperative COVAX facility which now has 172 nations as contributing partners. The FILE - World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland,…

A lot of eyebrows were raised when Russia announced it was the first to approve a vaccine for the coronavirus, and even more so when Vietnam said it would buy up to 150 million doses.  Not many were expecting the news, but if it comes to…

The World Food Program reports Burkina Faso is facing an acute shortage of food, with more than 3.2 million people going hungry in this conflict-ridden country.There has been a 50 percent rise in the number of people struggling to feed themselves and their families since…

The U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama - home to "Space Camp" – faced permanent closure as COVID-19 forced the internationally popular science and technology center to turn students and visitors away. But as VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports, an online campaign to “Save…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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: …

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…

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…

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…

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…