Year: 2020

It is not only doctors who are exposed to the deadly coronavirus every day – there are all the non-medical employees at hospitals who face the same risks every day. Maia Kay reports on how they are coping with today’s harsh reality. ...

You can count on viruses to change. VOA explains the process and why it could pose problems for researchers who are working on a COVID-19 vaccine. ...

China’s health commission is reporting a spike in new COVID-19 cases in several provinces, prompting health officials to urge citizens to use personal protection. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.At a Beijing news conference, National Health Commission spokesperson Mi Feng said 17 new cases were reported Monday, up from 14 the day before. This marked the first double-digit increase in new cases in 10 days.The spokesman said seven of the new cases were listed as “imported” into the inner-Mongolia region from overseas, while five were in the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, where a strict lockdown was lifted last month.Another five cases were spread across three northeastern provinces, including Jilin, where authorities suspended train service in and out of a county after a cluster was…

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage on, an invisible fight is emerging for many at home, triggered by the anxiety, joblessness, death, isolation and uncertainty that accompany the virus.May is mental health awareness month, and never before has the topic of mental health been more relevant. Federal agencies and experts are reporting increasing rates of mental health problems and predict that this is only the beginning of a lasting mental health crisis.Nearly half the people in the United States say the coronavirus pandemic is adversely affecting their mental health, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. The tracking poll, which surveyed 1,226 Americans from March 25-30 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points, indicates 45% of adults say the crisis has had a negative impact on…

A main coronavirus vaccine trial — a joint venture between an American and a German company — got underway this week in the United States. Some participants are U.S. medical students. This trial joins others around the world, as pharmaceutical companies compete to discover the breakthrough for COVID-19. VOA's Carolyn Presutti takes us through what’s being done and how. ...

Five players in Spain's top two divisions have tested positive for COVID-19 since clubs began testing players and staff members last week, organizing body La Liga said in a statement on Sunday.La Liga said the players would remain at their homes where they would continue individual training before being tested again "in the next few days" to determine whether they can return to their club's training ground.Many clubs including champions Barcelona have returned to individual training as part of the second stage of La Liga's four-phase protocol for getting back to activity after play was halted in early March due to the pandemic.Real Madrid are due to resume training for the first time in two months on Monday, while La Liga has said it hopes matches will resume, without spectators,…

Stone by stone, digital artists and game developers from Mosul are rebuilding Nineveh's heritage sites in the digital world.By looking through a virtual reality headset, a person can see the wonders of ancient Iraq. Via VR, it's possible to fly over Nergal Gate, built 2,700 years ago, and see two winged bulls at its entrance."Since we started the virtual reality lab, we tried to focus on Mosul's archaeological sites," said project co-ordinator Moyasser Nasseer. "It is an opportunity for people to discover archaeological sites that still exist as well as sites recently destroyed by Daesh (Islamic State) when they occupied Mosul."QAF Media Lab designers want to create an immersive game, in which players solve mysteries to discover Nineveh's heritage sites. They hope it might also draw tourists. (Reuters video screenshot)Nineveh…

Coinciding with Friday’s observance of the African Day for the Reduction of Maternal and Newborn Mortality, Cameroon disclosed that tens of thousands of newborn babies continue to die at birth and thousands of women continue to lose their lives while giving birth each year in the central African of 25 million. Health officials say the situation is worse on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, where most mothers do not go to hospitals.   Martina Lukong Baye, Cameroonian Coordinator of the National Multisector Program to Combat Maternal, Newborn and Child Mortality, says it is unfortunate that the number of mothers and babies dying in Cameroon has remained high due to many women neglecting prenatal care and some delivering at home using untrained traditional birth attendants.   "We are counting about 4,000…

As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the World Health Organization reports the methods used to rid the world of the devastating disease can be used today to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.In the 20th century alone, more than 300 million people died from smallpox until it was eradicated in 1975 in an effort led by the World Health Organization. Observers agree the monumental achievement was made possible by global unity and cooperation, in which even the U.S. and Russia collaborated during the height of the Cold War.Rosamund Lewis, the head of WHO's Smallpox Secretariat, told VOA the parallels today with COVID-19 have to do with the methods used decades ago to eradicate smallpox."That was achieved through basic public health, basic epidemiology, shoe-leather epidemiology, of basically…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly found its suggestions for fighting the coronavirus outbreak taking a backseat to other concerns within the Trump administration. That leaves public health experts outside government fearing the agency's decades of experience in beating back disease threats are going to waste.   "You have the greatest fighting force against infectious diseases in world history. Why would you not use them?" said Dr. Howard Markel, a public health historian at the University of Michigan. The complaints have sounded for months. But they have become louder following repeated revelations that transmission-prevention guidance crafted by CDC scientists was never adopted by the White House. The latest instance surfaced Thursday, when The Associated Press reported that President Donald Trump's administration shelved a CDC document containing step-by-step…

As some states moved to open their economies from the pandemic lockdown this week, Salon owner Shelley Luther reacts as supporters chant for her after she was released from jail in Dallas, May 7, 202 for refusing to keep her business closed amid concerns of the spread of COVID-19.Best guessIn the absence of experience, models provide policymakers with the best guesses available for what the implications of their decisions will be. But with a virus that scientists discovered less than six months ago, there is a tremendous amount that modelers don't know. And it changes all the time."All of these models are dependent entirely upon the assumptions that you put into them," said Mark Roberts, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Public Health Dynamics Lab. "Unfortunately, there's just a tremendous amount…

Marine life in the politically disputed South China Sea took another hit over the past year, researchers said, due to overfishing and lack of international efforts to protect species.Vessels from multiple Asian countries are going farther out into the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea and casting deeper because coastal waters yield increasingly little, scholars and published research indicate. Giant clam harvesting, added to use of  cyanide and dynamite bombing for fish, damaged coral reefs last year, the analysts said.Marine life in the sea that stretches from Taiwan southwest to Singapore comes into focus every May, when China declares a moratorium on fishing above the 12th parallel, which encompasses waters most frequented by China but bisecting both Vietnam and the Philippines. The bans that began in 1995 will last this year from May…

On May 9th, 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the world’s first commercially produced oral contraceptive. The birth control drug — popularly known as ‘The Pill’ — was hailed by supporters as “revolutionary” but 60 years later, insufficient access to the drug and other methods of birth control around the world have hampered what many hoped would be the magic pill for female reproductive rights. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more. ...

The focus of future U.S. missions to the moon may soon shift from research to commerce. Meanwhile, European scientists have discovered the closest black hole to our solar system. VOA's Arash Arabasadi explores This Week in Space. ...

The World Health Organization says it is “deeply troubled by reports that domestic violence has spiked dramatically in many areas of Europe during COVID-related lockdowns.”Speaking from Copenhagen Thursday, the WHO Europe chief, Dr. Hans Kluge, said he had seen reports of increases in reports of domestic and other interpersonal violence against men, women and children from countries including Belgium, Britain, France, Russia, Spain and others amid the coronavirus pandemic.FILE - Padlocks and ribbons signed "Free for Khachaturyan sisters" are attached on the Patriarshy Bridge during an action against domestic violence, with the Kremlin in the background, in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 14, 2019.While statistics are difficult to come by, Kluge estimates that 60% of women are suffering domestic violence, and that calls to help hotlines have jumped about five times. What perhaps…

The International Organization for Migration warns growing discrimination against migrants, who often are blamed for spreading the coronavirus, impede efforts to tackle the pandemic.The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a serious blow to global migration. The International Organization for Migration reports work visas for migrants have practically come to a halt, and the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers in third countries has been temporarily suspended.   It says thousands of migrants are stranded in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America because of border closures and travel restrictions.  It says many migrants who want to return to countries of origin because of the pandemic are blocked and forced to live in difficult conditions with minimal care.   IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino says migrants in countries of destination too often are…

Microbes carried on the bodies of visiting astronauts are being sampled on board the International Space Station in hopes of learning how to better protect their health and the health of people on Earth.“Microbial tracking” is a series of experiments in which samples are taken by ISS crew members and studied by researchers on the ground. The experiments have shown microorganisms living on surfaces inside the space station so closely resembled those on an astronaut’s skin that scientists could tell when a new crew member arrived and departed, just by looking at the microbes left behind.The findings show how monitoring microbes will be important for protecting the health of astronauts on the ISS and in future long-term space projects. But they could also tell us something about relatively closed environments…

As she was treated for COVID-19 in a hospital isolation ward in Kuwait City, Amnah Ibraheem wanted to credit those caring for her. The nurses were all South Asian, the radiologist was African, another of her doctors was Egyptian. The only fellow Kuwaiti she saw, briefly, was a lone volunteer. Ibraheem pointed this out on Twitter, in a rejoinder to some voices in Kuwait and other parts of the Gulf who have stoked fear and resentment of foreigners, blaming them for the spread of the coronavirus. "We can't decide right now to be racist and to say that expats are free-riders, because they're not," the 32-year-old political scientist and mother of two told The Associated Press. "They're the ones working on our health right now, completely holding our health system…

The decision to wear a mask in public is becoming a political statement — a moment to pick sides in a brewing culture war over containing the coronavirus.   While not yet as loaded as a "Make America Great Again" hat, the mask is increasingly a visual shorthand for a debate pitting those willing to follow health officials' guidance and cover their faces against those who feel it violates their freedom or buys into a threat they think is overblown.   That resistance is fueled by some of the same people who object to other virus restrictions. The push back has been stoked by President Donald Trump — he didn't wear a mask during a Tuesday appearance at a facility making them — and some other Republicans, who have flouted…

A team of European astronomers has discovered a black hole 1,000 light years from Earth, the closest yet found to our solar system.According to the authors of a study, published Wednesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the black hole is close enough that two stars affected by it can be seen with the naked eye. Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and other institutes found evidence for the invisible object by tracking the two companion stars using a 2.2-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. They were able to confirm that something about four or five times the mass of our sun was pulling on the inner star and concluded it could only be a black hole.They say finding a black hole this close could be just…

If life on Earth has become tedious with coronavirus restrictions, celestial activity this week promises some excitement. In addition to an ongoing meteor shower, the year's last supermoon is out and will be seen at its best Thursday.The annual Halley's Comet meteor shower peaked Monday, but the meteor streaks will still be visible in the sky by the end of the week. The world's best-known comet produces a meteor shower, officially known as Eta Aquariids, which can be seen once a year in the spring when the Earth crosses the comet's path.Halley's Comet is the best known because it can be seen with the naked eye as it passes by periodically. It was first noticed more than 2,000 years ago. Astronomers have observed and documented its appearances, which has helped…

British and Kenyan scientists have discovered a microbe that they say has "enormous potential" toward the possible eradication of one of the world's most dreaded diseases — malaria.The study published in the journal Nature Communications says the microbe completely protects mosquitoes from being infected by malaria.The microbe is called Microsporidia MB, and scientists discovered it inside the guts and genitalia of mosquitoes living around Lake Victoria in Kenya. They report that they could not find a single mosquito with the microbe in its guts carrying the malaria bug. "The data we have so far suggest it is 100% blockage, it's a very severe blockage of malaria," insect expert Dr. Jeremy Herren told the BBC. "It will come as a quite a surprise. I think people will find that a real big breakthrough."The…

A government scientist was ousted after the Trump administration ignored his dire warnings about COVID-19 and a malaria drug President Donald Trump was pushing for the coronavirus  despite scant evidence it helped, according to a whistleblower complaint Tuesday.Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, filed the complaint Tuesday with the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency responsible for whistleblower complaints.He alleges he was reassigned to a lesser role because he resisted political pressure to allow widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug favored by Trump. He said the Trump administration wanted to "flood" hot spots in New York and New Jersey with the drug.Bright's complaint comes as the Trump administration faces criticism over its response to the pandemic, including testing and supplies of ventilators,…

A new study led by the U.S. government has found that a new strain of the novel coronavirus that is prevailing worldwide is spreading faster than earlier versions.The study led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory said the new strain, a mutated form of the original coronavirus, was detected three months ago in Europe. It traveled quickly to eastern U.S. states before becoming the world’s most dominant strain since mid-March.The scientists who wrote the report said their findings have prompted an “urgent need for an early warning” to vaccine and drug developers to produce solutions that will be effective against the new strain.The new strain has rapidly infected many more people than the earlier iterations that spread beyond the city of Wuhan, China, the report said. Within weeks, it…