Year: 2020

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said it was very unfortunate that the 20 major industrialized nations did not come together in March, as he suggested then, to establish a coordinated response to suppress COVID-19 worldwide.In an interview with the Associated Press, Guterres said he hopes that as the G-20 summit is coming next month, the international community understand “they need to be much more coordinated in fighting the virus.”Guterres said the U.N. will be “strongly advocating” for a coordinated response to the disease, in addition to seeking a “guarantee” that any developed vaccine be treated as “a global public good” and be made “available and affordable for everyone, everywhere.”Scores of researchers around the world are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more…

The United Nations warns of a looming health crisis in Sudan following historic floods which have created conditions for deadly insect-transmitted diseases to thrive.     Some 875,000 people across the country are affected by torrential rains and floods, which have caused widespread damage to homes, crops and livelihoods.      The floods have left behind stagnant water pools which are perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that more than 4.5 million people are at risk of mosquito-transmitted diseases such as malaria, chikungunya and viral hemorrhagic fevers, or VHF.     Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health has already reported increasing numbers of suspected VHF cases, which include dengue, yellow fever and Rift Valley fever.  The agency reports 2,226 cases, most…

Belgian officials Friday announced new COVID-19 restrictions but stopped short of a lockdown to stem the surging rate of infections, which are now averaging more than 10,000 per day.At a news conference in Brussels, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced, among other restrictions, fans are now banned from sports matches; zoos and theme parks will be closed; and limits will be placed on the number of people in cultural spaces. Teleworking remains the rule wherever possible.Belgium had already closed cafes, bars and restaurants and imposed a curfew, and has Europe’s second highest infection rate per capita after the Czech Republic. New infections hit a peak of 10,500 on Thursday.De Croo said Belgium is “pressing the 'pause' button” for a few goals, “to ensure that our doctors and hospitals can keep…

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said it was very unfortunate that the 20 major industrialized nations did not come together in March, as he suggested then, to establish a coordinated response to suppress COVID-19 worldwide.In an interview with the Associated Press, Guterres said he hopes that as the G-20 summit is coming next month, the international community understand “they need to be much more coordinated in fighting the virus.”Guterres said the U.N. will be “strongly advocating” for a coordinated response to the disease, in addition to seeking a “guarantee” that any developed vaccine be treated as “a global public good” and be made “available and affordable for everyone, everywhere.”Scores of researchers around the world are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more…

At a time when growing numbers of people are shunning vaccines, the polio vaccine proves that they work. As VOA's Carol Pearson reports, despite setbacks and a coronavirus pandemic, the world is making headway in eliminating the crippling disease. ...

U.S. regulators on Thursday approved the first drug to treat COVID-19: remdesivir, an antiviral medicine given to hospitalized patients through an IV.The drug, which California-based Gilead Sciences Inc. is calling Veklury, cut recovery time from 15 days to 10 on average in a large study led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.It has been authorized for use on an emergency basis since spring, and it now becomes the first drug to win full Food and Drug Administration approval for treating COVID-19. President Donald Trump received it when he was diagnosed earlier this month with the disease caused by the coronavirus. Veklury is approved for people at least 12 years old and weighing at least 40 kilograms (88 pounds) who are hospitalized for a coronavirus infection. For patients younger than 12,…

Using blood of recovered COVID-19 patients, the so-called convalescent plasma, as a potential treatment is of little benefit in helping hospitalized patients fight off the infection, according to results of a clinical trial in India.Published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) on Friday, the results show that convalescent plasma, which delivers antibodies from COVID-19 survivors to infected people, failed to reduce death rates or halt progression to severe disease.The findings, from a study of more than 400 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, are a setback for a treatment that U.S. President Donald Trump touted in August as a "historic breakthrough." The United States and India have authorized convalescent plasma for emergency use.Other countries, including Britain, are collecting donated plasma so that it could be widely rolled out if shown to be effective."The…

Healthy volunteers will be deliberately infected with the coronavirus to try to speed up the development of a vaccine, under plans announced by the British government this week.  The trial will involve healthy volunteers ages 18 to 30. Most coronavirus vaccine trials involve giving volunteers the potential vaccine or a placebo and then waiting until enough of them have been exposed to the virus through their everyday lives. That can take months or years. Britain announced this week it plans to begin the so-called "human challenge" trials in May 2021 to speed up the development of vaccines.  Several young people have already volunteered, among them Danica Marcos, 22, a recent university graduate from London. "So many people [are] struggling right now. I want this pandemic to be over," Marcos told The Associated Press. "Every…

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed Thursday that the military alliance would establish a space center at the Allied Air Command base in Ramstein, Germany.Speaking in Brussels after a virtual conference of NATO foreign ministers, Stoltenberg confirmed reports regarding the space center made earlier this week by European news agencies."NATO is determined to keep our cutting edge in all domains," he said, including “land, sea, air, cyber and space."During a meeting last December, Stoltenberg declared "space as an operational domain for NATO. And today we took another important step.”In his comments, the NATO chief said the Allied Air Command space center would help to coordinate allied space activities and provide support for NATO missions and operations from space using satellite communications and imagery. Stoltenberg said the center also would help protect NATO-allied space…

The Czech Republic will get 30 ventilators from the European Union and is seeking more help and equipment abroad to help grapple with the continent's worst outbreak of the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Thursday. The country of 10.7 million has seen daily cases soar to nearly 15,000, and the government fears a spike in hospitalizations could overwhelm its health system within two or three weeks unless the trend is broken soon. Hospitals were treating 4,417 coronavirus patients as of Wednesday, a four-fold increase this month, and have cut most non-urgent care. The government has sought to boost numbers of beds, equipment and personnel, including at a 500-bed field hospital in Prague, with the aim of being able to take in 15,500 COIVD-19 patients at once. "Commission…

The head of Germany’s disease control institute sounded an alarm Thursday, warning of a possible uncontrollable spread of COVID-19 as the country reported a daily record of 11,287 new infections.Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases, told reporters in Berlin that infection numbers are rising among all age groups, not just young people, though he said their tendency to attend social gatherings is a significant cause for the spread. Wieler also disputed claims that the rise in new cases was the result of increased testing.Koch said the situation was serious and that the country must prepare for it to get worse.“We must anticipate the virus heavily spreading further, at least in some German regions, and that there might even be an uncontrolled spread."The 11,287 new infections…

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he has canceled a deal to buy a Chinese-developed vaccine against the coronavirus, a day after his health minister announced Brazil would purchase millions of doses of CoronaVac.Bolsonaro said Wednesday that the intentions of Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria, one of his leading opponents, were distorted, saying he already canceled the deal before Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello signed it.Pazuello said in a statement that there was “no commitment” to buy the vaccine, only a "non-binding memorandum of understanding between the health ministry and the Butantan Institute” to test and produce the vaccine.Bolsonaro, who said he would not let Brazilians be guinea pigs for the Sinovac drug, is promoting the purchase of another vaccine developed by Oxford University in Britain.Brazil is helping to test both of…

The number of nations with more than 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases has risen to seven.Spain and France are the latest nations to reach the unfortunate mark, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. The United States tops the list with more than 8.3 million total cases, followed by India (7.6 million), Brazil (5.3 million), Russia (1.4 million) and Argentina, which has 1,037,325. Spain is in sixth place with 1,005,325 cases, followed by France with 1,000,369.Spain and France are also the first nations in Western Europe to record more than 1 million COVID-19 infections.Scores of researchers around the world are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19, which has killed more than 1.1 million people around the globe and sickened more than…

As Australia’s most populous state eases more COVID-19 restrictions, experts say the nation has brought the epidemic “right under control.” One leading commentator says he “can't find another country that has smashed the virus” as well as Australia.Life in much of Australia is beginning to resemble what it was before COVID-19.On Friday, more restrictions will be relaxed in the state of New South Wales. Places of worship will be allowed to have up to 300 people, while the capacity of gyms will also increase. Some 40,000 sports fans are expected to attend the final of the National Rugby League competition in Sydney on Sunday.Across Australia, a nation of 25 million people, there is cautious optimism that, for now, at least, the coronavirus is being contained. More than 27,400 COVID-19 cases…

Having a cold might protect sufferers from a severe case of COVID-19, new research shows.COVID-19 patients who had recently been infected with a common cold virus were less likely to die or require intensive care compared with those who did not have a recent cold, according to the study published recently in the Medical staff of the intensive care unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic in the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, Oct. 21, 2020. (Associated Press)Sagar and his colleagues compared people who’d had a recent common cold infection with those who had not. They found that both groups contracted COVID-19 at the same rate, but people who had recently beaten a common cold experienced less severe COVID-19 symptoms.“They were much less likely to require admission to the intensive care…

The U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday that Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin, pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges and agreed to pay more than $8 billion in fines.   OxyContin is a prescription drug that many experts said helped spark a nationwide opioid epidemic in the U.S. that is responsible for more than 470,000 overdose deaths since 2000.   As part of the settlement, Purdue Pharma admitted that it misled the federal government by falsely stating it maintained a program to avoid the transfer of controlled substances from individuals for whom they were prescribed to other people for illicit use.   Purdue Pharma also admitted it violated federal laws by paying physicians to write more prescriptions for its opioids and to use electronic health records…

British Prime Boris Johnson pushed back again Wednesday on opposition efforts to implement a two-week "circuit-breaker" nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus cases in the country.In the House of Commons, Opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer said Johnson's regional three-tiered alert system has not been working and that more drastic measures need to be put in place.The system, implemented more than a week ago, classifies regions of the country as medium, high or very high virus risk, based on their levels of new cases. In the highest risk areas, pubs are closed, residents from one household are barred from mixing with another, and travel in and out of the area is discouraged.An information on COVID-19 sign is seen during stricter restrictions due to the coronavirus disease outbreak in…

A Senegalese anti-cancer group is encouraging women to get mammograms after a drop in the number of women getting screened because of coronavirus concerns, as Estelle Ndjandjo reports from Dakar.Camera: Estelle NdjandjoProduced by: Barry Unger ...

A spacecraft from the U.S. space agency NASA briefly touched an asteroid Tuesday on a mission to collect dust and pebbles to bring back to Earth.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft — an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer — carried out the operation on the asteroid Bennu located about 321 million kilometers from Earth.NASA said telemetry data from the spacecraft indicated the mission went as expected, but that scientists will need a week to confirm how much material the spacecraft was able to collect.NASA Plans to Land First Woman on the Moon in 2024Lunar landing will be America’s first since 1972If the amount is not enough, the spacecraft will carry out a second attempt at another location on Bennu in January.Scientists are interested in Bennu because they believe it…

A FILE - Personnel at the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention work at the Emergency Operations Center in response to the 2019 novel coronavirus, Feb. 13, 2020, in Atlanta.The CDC found that the number of excess deaths of adults between 25 and 44 years of age rose 26.5 during that time frame, the biggest increase among all age groups.  There was also a high percentage of excess deaths among people of color: Hispanics experienced a 56% increase, while Blacks sustained a 33% rise, far higher than the 12% increase among white Americans. Hispanics and Blacks, as well as elderly Americans, have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. FILE - A 'promotora' (health promoter) from CASA, a Hispanic advocacy group, tries to enroll Latinos as volunteers to test a potential…

Doctors know that viruses can affect pregnant women and their developing fetuses. They are scrambling now to understand the effects of COVID-19 on pregnancies. VOA's Carol Pearson has more.Producer: Bronwyn Benito   ...

Hispanics, Blacks and Asian Americans in the U.S. have been dying at disproportionately higher rates from the coronavirus compared to white Americans, government health experts reported Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a new report that from late January — when the pandemic first hit U.S. shores from China and Europe — through early October, deaths of white people were about 12% higher than in the same months of the four previous years. But the CDC said deaths of Hispanics in that 2020 timeframe were 53.6% higher than in recent years, with deaths of Blacks up 32.9% and Asian Americans by 36.6%. "These disproportionate increases among certain racial and ethnic groups are consistent with noted disparities in COVID-19 mortality," the CDC said. The federal health agency said the largest percentage…

U.S. first lady Melania Trump will not join President Donald Trump on the campaign trail Tuesday because of a lingering cough from COVID-19, according to her chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham. Grisham said Tuesday that Mrs. Trump’s health continues to improve daily after she and the president announced in early October that they had contracted the infectious disease. The first lady has decided not to accompany Trump to a campaign rally Tuesday night in Erie, Pennsylvania, “out of an abundance of caution,” Grisham said. Melania Trump, who announced last week that she had recovered from COVID-19, made her last public appearance during the September 29 debate between Trump and Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.   ...

Britain’s finance minister Tuesday defended the government's localized three-tiered approach to fighting the spread of COVID-19 in the country, saying another national lockdown would carry too heavy a cost.Finance Chief Rishi Sunak, also known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke to the House of Commons Tuesday about the government’s approach and said the government did not rule out tougher restrictions. But when opposition party members called for a temporary two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown — as suggested last week by Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), Sunak asked the members to “acknowledge the stark reality” of the economic impact of such a lockdown.   He said the circuit breaker lockdown would cause unnecessary pain and suffering on those in parts of the country where the virus prevalence is low. A…