Month: February 2021

Spacewalking astronauts ventured out Sunday to install support frames for new, high-efficiency solar panels arriving at the International Space Station later this year.NASA’s Kate Rubins and Victor Glover put the first set of mounting brackets and struts together, then bolted them into place next to the station’s oldest and most degraded solar wings. But the work took longer than expected, and they barely got started on the second set before calling it quits.Rubins will finish the job during a second spacewalk later this week.The spacewalkers had to lug out hundreds of pounds of mounting brackets and struts in 2.5-meter (8-foot) duffel-style bags. The equipment was so big and awkward that it had to be taken apart like furniture, just to get through the hatch.Some of the attachment locations required extra turns of the power drill and still weren’t snug enough, as indicated by black lines. The astronauts had to use a ratchet wrench to deal with the more stubborn bolts, which slowed them down. At one point, they were two hours behind.”Whoever painted this black line painted outside the lines a little bit,” Glover said at one particularly troublesome spot.”We’ll work on our kindergarten skills over here,” Mission Control replied, urging him to move on.With more people and experiments flying on the space station, more power will be needed to keep everything running, according to NASA. The six new solar panels — to be delivered in pairs by SpaceX over the coming year or so — should boost the station’s electrical capability by as much as 30%.Rubins and Glover tackled the struts for the first two solar panels, set to launch in June. Their spacewalk ended up lasting seven hours, a bit longer than planned.”Really appreciate your hard work. I know there were a lot of challenges,” Mission Control radioed.The eight solar panels up there now are 12 to 20 years old — most of them past their design lifetime and deteriorating. Each panel is 34 meters (112 feet) long by 12 meters (39 feet) wide. Tip to tip counting the center framework, each pair stretches 73 meters (240 feet) longer than a Boeing 777’s wingspan.Boeing is supplying the new roll-up panels, about half the size of the old ones but just as powerful thanks to the latest solar cell technology. They’ll be placed at an angle above the old ones, which will continue to operate.A prototype was tested at the space station in 2017.Rubins’ helmet featured a new high-definition camera that provided stunning views, particularly those showing the vivid blue Earth 435 kilometers (270 miles) below.  “Pretty fantastic,” observed Mission Control.Sunday’s spacewalk was the third for infectious disease specialist Rubins and Navy pilot Glover — both of whom could end up flying to the moon.They’re among 18 astronauts newly assigned to NASA’s Artemis moon-landing program. The next moonwalkers will come from this group.Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris put in a congratulatory call to Glover, the first African American astronaut to live full time at the space station. NASA released the video exchange Saturday.”The history making that you are doing, we are so proud of you,” Harris said. Like other firsts, Glover replied, it won’t be the last. “We want to make sure that we can continue to do new things,” he said.Rubins will float back out Friday with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to wrap up the solar panel prep work and to vent and relocate ammonia coolant hoses.Glover and Noguchi were among four astronauts arriving via SpaceX in November. Rubins launched from Kazakhstan in October alongside two Russians. They’re all scheduled to return to Earth this spring.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally authorized the use of the Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine Saturday, clearing the way for shots to go into arms as early as Monday.The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is 85% effective against serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to data from a study that spanned three continents. The shot kept its protection even in the countries where the South African variant is spreading.The one-and-done inoculation has been eagerly awaited by health officials who want to speed vaccinations in a race against the coronavirus and its worrisome mutations. As of Saturday evening, more than 28.5 million Americans have had COVID-19 and nearly 512,000 have died from the disease, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Biden: Don’t let upPresident Joe Biden praised the “exciting news for all Americans” in a statement Saturday evening but urged Americans not to let their “guard down now.”“I want to be clear: This fight is far from over,” he said. “I urge all Americans — keep washing your hands, stay socially distanced and keep wearing masks. As I have said many times, things are still likely to get worse again as new variants spread, and the current improvement could reverse.”An FDA advisory panel unanimously endorsed the vaccine Friday, paving the way for the agency’s authorization.Edmond Lomas III receives his COVID-19 vaccination at Second Ebenezer Church in Detroit, Feb. 27, 2021.The one-dose vaccine is the third coronavirus inoculation approved by the FDA, after the two-dose vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.By the end of March, Johnson & Johnson has said it expects to deliver 20 million doses to the U.S., and 100 million by summer, The Associated Press reported. Johnson & Johnson is also seeking authorization for emergency use of its vaccine in Europe and from the World Health Organization.Auckland lockdownIn New Zealand, residents of Auckland, a city of nearly 2 million people, began a seven-day lockdown Sunday, the second in the month since the more contagious U.K. variant of the coronavirus emerged there.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the lockdown Saturday because of a person who was infectious for a week but had not isolated.”It is more than likely there will be additional cases in the community,” Ardern told a press conference Sunday, although no new cases had been recorded.New Zealand, a nation of 5 million people, identified its first COVID-19 case on February 29, 2020, and since then has seen almost 2,400 cases of COVID-19 and 26 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins data. 
Japan reported 329 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, slightly down from 337 a day earlier, according to national broadcaster NHK. FILE – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks at the Hallam Conference Centre in London, Dec. 18, 2019.Meanwhile, Britain’s Trades Union Congress said in a study that the pandemic had provided a “mirror to the structural racism” in Britain, with the unemployment rate for communities of color double that of their white contemporaries during the pandemic.In Russia, the coronavirus crisis center confirmed 11,359 new coronavirus cases on Sunday and 379 deaths in the past 24 hours. The total number of infections in the country stands at 4,246,079 to date and the death toll at 86,122. Elsewhere, the Vatican’s ambassador to Iraq, Archbishop Mitja Leskovar, has tested positive for COVID-19. The announcement comes a week before Pope Francis’ March 5-9 trip to the country. Leskovar, whose title is apostolic nuncio, said in a statement that he was experiencing only light symptoms so far. “This is not going to influence the pope’s program, which is going on as planned,” he said. 
France will impose weekend lockdowns in Paris and 19 other regions at the beginning of March if coronavirus infections continue to accelerate. A Nice resident and her dog go for a bike ride during virus-related confinement in Nice, southern France, Feb. 27, 2021. Nice and the surrounding coastal area will be under weekend lockdowns for at least two weeks.France will impose weekend lockdowns in Paris and 19 other regions at the beginning of March if coronavirus infections continue to accelerate. The Czech government announced tighter restrictions beginning March 1. In Latin America, new containment measures were imposed in several Brazilian cities and states. The U.S. continues to lead the world in the number of coronavirus infections with more than 28.5 million cases, followed by India with over 11 million infections and Brazil with more than 10.5 million.   
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The U.S. moved a step closer Friday to having another vaccine in its coronavirus arsenal, after an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously endorsed Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose COVID vaccine.Formal authorization for the vaccine could come in the next few days. The one-dose vaccine would become the third coronavirus inoculation approved by the FDA after the two-dose vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.Members of the Congressional Black Caucus went on television Friday to encourage African Americans to receive the COVID-19 inoculations.“We’re looking at historic fear of vaccines and a fear of the health care industry,” said Rep. Barbara Lawrence, a Democrat from Michigan.Black and Latino communities are being inoculated at lower rates in the U.S. than their white counterparts, public health officials say.Meanwhile, Britain’s Trades Union Congress says in a study that the pandemic has provided a “mirror to the structural racism” in Britain, with the unemployment rate for communities of color double that of their white contemporaries during the pandemic.Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reports early Saturday more than 113 million global COVID infections with more than 2.5 million deaths.The U.S. continues to lead the world in the number of coronavirus infections with more than 28 million cases, followed by India with over 11 million infections and Brazil with more than 10 million.Former British prime minister Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change has issued a report titled The New Necessary: How We Future-Proof for the Next Pandemic that calls for international cooperation in the future to identify and test for any new outbreak. The report also called on countries to work together to produce vaccines.Blair told The Guardian, “Had there been global coordination a year ago, I think we could have shaved at least three months off this virus,” in a reference to the outbreak of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
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U.S. health advisers endorsed a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson on Friday, putting the nation on the cusp of adding an easier-to-use option to fight the pandemic. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to quickly follow the recommendation and make Johnson & Johnson’s shot the third vaccine authorized for emergency use in the U.S. Vaccinations are picking up speed, but new supplies are urgently needed to stay ahead of a mutating virus that has killed more than 500,000 Americans. After daylong discussions, the FDA panelists voted unanimously that the benefits of the vaccine outweighed the risks for adults. If the FDA agrees, shipments of a few million doses could begin as early as Monday. More than 47 million people in the U.S., or 14% of the population, have each received at least one shot of the two-dose vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which FDA authorized in December. But the pace of vaccinations has been strained by limited supplies and delays because of winter storms.While early Johnson & Johnson supplies will be small, the company has said it can deliver 20 million doses by the end of March and a total of 100 million by the end of June. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine protects against the worst effects of COVID-19 after one shot, and it can be stored up to three months at refrigerator temperatures, making it easier to handle than the previous vaccines, which must be frozen. EffectivenessOne challenge in rolling out the new vaccine will be explaining how protective the Johnson & Johnson shot is after the astounding success of the first U.S. vaccines. The two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots were found to be about 95% effective against symptomatic COVID-19. The numbers from Johnson & Johnson’s study are not that high, but it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. One dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 85% protective against the most severe COVID-19. After adding in moderate cases, the total effectiveness dropped to about 66%. Some experts fear that lower number could feed public perceptions that Johnson & Johnson’s shot is a “second-tier vaccine.” But the difference in protection reflects when and where Johnson & Johnson conducted its studies.Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was tested in the U.S., Latin America and South Africa at a time when more contagious mutated versions of the virus were spreading. That wasn’t the case last fall, when Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were wrapping up testing, and it’s not clear if their numbers would hold against the most worrisome of those variants. Importantly, the FDA reported this week that, just like its predecessors, the Johnson & Johnson shot offers strong protection against the worst outcomes, hospitalization and death. Studying 2nd doseWhile Johnson & Johnson is seeking FDA authorization for its single-dose version, the company is also studying whether a second dose boosts protection. Panel member Dr. Paul Offit warned that launching a two-dose version of the vaccine down the road might cause problems. “You can see where that would be confusing to people thinking, ‘Maybe I didn’t get what I needed,’ ” said Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s a messaging challenge.” Johnson & Johnson representatives said they chose to begin with the single shot because the World Health Organization and other experts agreed it would be a faster, more effective tool in an emergency. Cases and hospitalizations have fallen dramatically since the January peak that followed the winter holidays. But public health officials warned that those gains may be stalling as more variants take root in the U.S. “We may be done with the virus, but clearly the virus is not done with us,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, speaking at the White House on Friday. She noted that new COVID-19 cases have increased over the past few days. While it’s too early to tell if the trend will last, Walensky said adding a third vaccine “will help protect more people faster.” More vaccines are in the pipeline.  On Sunday, a CDC panel is expected to meet to recommend how to best prioritize use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 
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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday her government is supporting a new project using drones designed to monitor and protect the Maui dolphin, one of the world’s rarest marine mammals.  Maui dolphins are found only in a small stretch of ocean off the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island, and current estimates suggest there are only 63 adult members of the species left.  The new Māui Drone Project is a one-year collaboration between the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), nonprofit wildlife technology organization MAUI63 and the World Wildlife Fund-New Zealand.  The project is designed to use the small, unmanned vehicles to find and track Maui dolphins, fly over them without disturbing them, and collect data on their habitat, population size and other behaviors.  Ardern told reporters the drones will allow government agencies and others to focus conservation efforts where they are needed most to protect the animals.”We have drawn basically geographical areas where we have restricted certain types of fishing, but this will help us understand where they are, their movements, where the extra protections are required,” she said. Maui dolphins are the smallest of the world’s dolphin species, measuring less than two meters long, and weighing up to 50 kilograms. Unlike other dolphins, they have distinctive round dorsal fins, and short snouts. They breed slowly, adding only one individual dolphin per year, and have relatively short lifespans, facts which may have contributed to their decline. 
 
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International crime fighting agencies say organized crime groups have all the networks and methods needed to smuggle falsified, substandard and stolen COVID-19 vaccines across Africa.  
 
Interpol crime intelligence analyst John-Patrick Broome said, as is the case in the rest of the continent, criminal gangs in East Africa import fake medicines from Asia, mostly China and India. The fake drugs often lack any active ingredients and many actually have harmful substances, he said.  
 
“Illicit medications are primarily entering the market in eastern Africa through … avoidance of regulations, there’s violence-based criminality and there’s corruption as well, and corruption which is at a number of different levels,” Broome said.  
 
China and India are expected to produce much of Africa’s vaccine supply.  That’s already a “big red flag,” says Nigerian journalist Ruona Meyer, whose work has exposed government officials and pharmaceutical company executives working with criminals to distribute falsified medicines in West Africa. Both countries are known as sources for faked pharmaceuticals.  Meyer says there won’t be enough vaccines, and as infection rates and deaths spike in some countries, criminals will introduce fakes into supply chains.  FILE – A chemist displays hydroxychloroquine tablets in New Delhi, India, April 9, 2020.She points out they did that easily with chloroquine, when demand for the anti-malarial drug skyrocketed last year after it was touted as a coronavirus treatment.  
 
“So, you had people who started producing fakes. You had people who started breaking down these routes. You had cases where these things were hijacked at ports. Again, they want to break that supply chain,” Meyer said.  
 
Authorities throughout West and Central Africa seized large quantities of fake and substandard chloroquine. Police in Cameroon shut down several pharmaceutical manufacturers producing fake chloroquine.  
 
“The infrastructure alone is mind-boggling, to be able to do all these things. Nobody does all these things if there is no demand,” she said.  
One sign of the corruption sometimes found in medicine distribution is the 2015 conviction of two Dutch former United Nations consultants for rigging a contract for life-saving drugs in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A court in Britain found Guido Bakker and Siibrandus Scheffer guilty of accepting a bribe of more than $900,000 to steer a contract to a Danish pharmaceutical company.  Lawyers Marius Schneider and Nora Ho Tu Nam represent some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies when their products are faked in Africa.  
 FILE – An agent stands next to a container full of illegal and fake drugs seized by Ivorian authorities in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Nov. 6, 2018.Ho Tu Nam said criminal organizations have been waiting eagerly for immunization programs to start, and for vaccine shortages.   
 
“Now people are aware that the vaccine exists; people know it’s being rolled out in certain countries, and I think it’s a perfect time for those syndicates to come in and say, ‘We have the vaccine; you’re not getting it in the hospitals, you’re not getting it in your private clinics, so come to us.’” she said.  
 
And they have been successful in the past. Schneider says groups dealing in black market vaccines do their best to make their products look legitimate.  
 
“We have seen instances where NGOs … have been engaged in the distribution of these vaccines. These NGOs had as a mission to distribute real vaccines to the people. Employees on the ground in African countries were implicated in vaccine traffic,” Schneider said.  
Investigators say often such cases are settled out of court, in confidential settlements. But in one known case, employees of a multi-national pharmaceutical company were caught helping a criminal network distribute fake vaccines in Africa.  
 
Mark Micallef of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime says North Africa could be a major entry point for falsified and substandard vaccines.  
 
He said “uncontrolled” trafficking of fake medicines, such as the pain reliever tramadol, has been happening across the vast region for decades.  
 
“Fake vaccines — I think there’s a big danger of that in the Maghreb itself, so unregulated territories in Libya, definitely. But, also in Tunisia and maybe border areas of Egypt, less so in Algeria, perhaps, but especially in the northern Sahel,” Micallef warned.  
 
Criminals dealing in fake medicines exploit gaps in health services and this will be especially true of COVID-19 shots, and that, Micallef said, will make the crime very difficult to control in North Africa.  
 
“This form of trafficking is tapping an actual health sector need. And the fear is that in the case of the vaccines, a similar scenario might unfold where there are shortages, especially in the border areas, that are preyed upon by criminal enterprise trying to fill that gap,” he said.  
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The World Health Organization on Friday said there is low risk of human-to-human spread of the H5N8 strain of bird flu, after a case of the virus being transmitted to people was recorded Feb. 20 in Russia.  
 
The WHO statement comes after seven workers were infected at a poultry plant in Astrakhan, near the Volga river. According to Russian state media, the workers became mildly unwell with sore throats.  
 
“All seven people… are now feeling well,” said the Anna Popova, head of Russia’s consumer health watchdog.
 
She added that adequate measures were taken quickly to stop the spread of the virus and that there were no signs of transmission between humans.
 
“All close contacts of these cases were clinically monitored, and no one showed signs of clinical illness,” said Popova.  
 
According to WHO, outbreaks of the same strain were reported last year in poultry or wild birds in Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Russia.  
 
Avian flus typically only affect birds and there are multiple strains of bird flu.  
 
A separate strain, H1N1, spread worldwide among humans in 2009 and 2010, leading to the WHO declaring it an influenza pandemic. The outbreak was mild among humans but deadly among poultry.  
 
Most cases of human infection come from contact with infected poultry or surfaces contaminated with infected bird saliva, nasal secretions, or feces. 
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A NASA unmanned resupply ship docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday carrying more than 3,600 kilograms of research equipment and supplies to the orbiting laboratory. The spacecraft, built by aerospace company Northrop Grumman, was bolted into place on the Earth-facing port of the ISS shortly after arrival.  Along with basic supplies for the space station, the ship’s cargo included equipment to conduct science investigations into the creation of artificial retinas for treating degenerative human eye diseases, zero-gravity advanced computer capabilities, and the cause of muscle weakening that astronauts can experience in microgravity using tiny worms. Northrop Grumman named the supply capsule the S.S. Katherine Johnson, after the African American NASA mathematician whose work was made famous in the movie “Hidden Figures.” Her calculations contributed to the February 20, 1962, flight in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. The supply ship blasted off from Wallops Island in Virginia on Saturday. It will remain at the space station until May, when it will depart for Earth carrying several tons of trash. 
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World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Monday said some of the world’s wealthiest nations are hampering efforts by his agency and its partners to get vaccines to world’s poorest nations.Tedros took part in a joint, virtual news conference, along with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to talk about the WHO- facilitated international vaccination initiative COVAX, designed to obtain and equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccines throughout the world.Speaking from WHO headquarters in Geneva, Tedros said some high-income countries are entering into contracts with vaccine manufacturers that undermine the deals that COVAX has with those same companies, reducing the number of doses COVAX can buy. He did not name the countries.The WHO chief said making sure there are enough vaccines to be shared with the world’s poorest nations helps everyone.“This is not a matter of charity. It’s a matter of epidemiology. Unless we end the pandemic everywhere, we will not end it anywhere,” he said.Tedros said it is in the interest of all countries, including high-income countries, to ensure that health workers, older people and other at-risk groups are first in line for vaccines globally.The WHO chief reiterated the comments during his regular news briefing from Geneva. Top U.S. Infectious disease expert and presidential health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci took part in the briefing remotely from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.In his comments, Fauci agreed with Tedros’s call for all countries to support the efforts of the COVAX facility. He said there is a need for vaccines to be produced and distributed in an equitable way.“An outbreak in any part of the world, is an outbreak for the entire world,” Fauci said, noting the world’s nations must commit to helping distribute vaccine to allow of global control of the pandemic. 
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Tanzania’s President John Magufuli appears to be acknowledging the problem of COVID-19 in the country, after months of claiming the virus had been defeated through prayer and steam treatments. While not specifically naming the virus, Magufuli on Sunday urged Tanzanians to begin wearing face masks for “respiratory” illnesses that are becoming a problem.It is almost a year since  Magufuli declared his country to be free from COVID-19 and said prayer helped to defeat the virus.COVID-19 Cases Increase in Tanzania, Despite Government DenialResidents and doctors point to a growing number of illnesses and deaths; opposition politicians say government’s stance is endangering livesBut on a Sunday church mass in the capital Dodoma, Magufuli urged citizens to take precautions including traditional remedies and wear face masks – but only locally made ones.We should take health precautions as it was announced, Magufuli said.  He said we should put God first, while searching for an alternative, in line with steam inhalation. He said that his own children got sick, some of his little ones got sick and they recovered. It’s all about putting God first, he said, adding that steam inhalation should not be ignored.At the end of last week, Magufuli called on citizens for three days of prayer to defeat unnamed respiratory diseases amid warnings from the Catholic church, the U.S. embassy and others that Tanzania is seeing a deadly resurgence in coronavirus infections.Tanzanians such as Baraka Kila found President’s remarks unsettling.Kila says at first they were convinced that it really did not exist. But looking at social networks like Twitter and Facebook, various people were posting about deaths caused by a coronavirus and it was causing a lot of controversies and the government disagreed. To a large extent, he says, we must continue to believe that some of the deaths that occurred were caused by COVID-19. We are scared because when the president admits the existence of coronavirus, it means it has spread a lot, adds Kila.Tanzania’s President Criticized for Dismissing COVID-19 Vaccines John Magufuli claimed that Tanzanians vaccinated abroad had brought a coronavirus variant back to the country and repeated his stance that praying and inhaling steam offered better protection against the virusRecho Nzengo, a student at the University of Dar es Salaam, says the move will awaken those who were not taking the virus seriously in Tanzania.After the president spoke, she thinks Tanzanians will start to protect themselves.  She says that people have been squeezing into community buses without taking precautions. Nzengo adds that she thinks it’s a good thing that yesterday Magufuli talked; people will start to protect themselves because we see people dying every day and they say that there is no disease.Maguful spoke after the death of the vice president of the Zanzibar region, Seif Sharif Hamad.  Hamad’s death drew widespread attention after his party said he had died of COVID-19.Tanzania has refused to track coronavirus cases, so there are no figures on how many people have fallen ill or died from the virus.  However, other East African countries have experienced thousands of cases, and there is no reason to think Tanzania has been spared.The president’s speech may change people’s perceptions and prompt doubters of COVID-19 to take serious precautions for the first time.
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The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is appealing for $9.4 million to fund efforts to prevent a new Ebola outbreak from spreading across West Africa.   
 
The IFRC said Monday the money will be used to step up “surveillance and community sensitization efforts” in Guinea, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
 
“Ebola does not care about borders,” said Mohammed Mukhier, the IFRC’s Regional Director for Africa.  “Close social, cultural and economic ties between communities in Guinea and neighboring countries create a very serious risk of the virus spreading to Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone, and potentially even further.”
 
Health officials in Guinea declared an epidemic Sunday after three cases were detected in Gouécké, a rural community in N’Zerekore prefecture. At least one victim there has died. It is the first Ebola outbreak in Guinea since 2016.
 
The 2014 Ebola outbreak, the biggest in history, killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
 
Guinea was expecting the delivery of 11,000 doses of Ebola vaccine from the World Health Organization Sunday, but the Reuters news agency says the shipment was delayed due to heavy dust brought by winds from the Sahara Desert.  The shipment is now due to arrive in Conarky on Monday, with vaccination efforts due to begin on Tuesday.   
 
Guinea is also expecting another 8,600 doses of vaccine from the United States.   
 
There have also been four confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including two deaths. WHO has around 20 experts supporting national and provincial health authorities in the DRC.
 
The United Nations announced it is releasing $15 million from its emergency relief fund to help fight the outbreaks in both Guinea and the DRC.
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Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country’s worst ecological disasters.Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel’s coast last week after a heavy storm. The deposits have wreaked havoc on local wildlife, and the Israeli Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry determined Sunday that a dead young fin whale that washed up on a beach in southern Israel died from ingesting the viscous black liquid, according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster.  Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority has called the spill “one of the most serious ecological disasters” in the country’s history. In 2014, a crude oil spill in the Arava Desert caused extensive damage to one of the country’s delicate ecosystems.  The Environmental Protection Ministry and activists estimate that at least 1,000 tons of tar, a product of an oil spill from a ship in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, have washed up on shore. The ministry is trying to determine who is responsible. It declined commenting on details of the investigation because it was ongoing.  Yoav Ratner, coordinator of the ministry’s oil spill contingency plan, said that there were still many “unknown unknowns” about the extent of the ecological damage and therefore it was difficult to say how long cleanup would take.  Thousands of volunteers took to the beaches on Saturday to help clean up the tar, and several were hospitalized after they inhaled toxic fumes. The military also deployed thousands of soldiers to assist in the operation.  The Environmental Protection, Health and Interior Ministries issued a joint statement Sunday warning the public not to visit the entire length of the country’s 195-kilometer (120-mile) Mediterranean coastline, cautioning that “exposure to tar can be harmful to public health.”  Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel told Hebrew media that her department estimates the cleanup project will cost millions of dollars.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured one of the country’s tar-pocked beaches on Sunday and praised the ministry’s work.Representatives from a coalition of Israeli environmental groups said in a press conference on Sunday that the ministry was woefully underfunded, and that existing legislation did little to prevent or address environmental disasters.  Arik Rosenblum, director of the Israeli environmental group EcoOcean, said that the Environmental Protection Ministry is “fighting this situation and many other situations with their hands tied behind their back” because of inadequate legislation.  They cautioned that this disaster should be a wake-up call for opposition to a planned oil pipeline connecting the United Arab Emirates and Israeli oil facilities in Eilat — home to endangered Red Sea coral reefs.
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Israel has reopened many schools, malls and gyms that were closed for several weeks. Some venues, however, are open only to those with a “green passport,” a document showing they have received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine. The opening comes amid reports that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine works better than expected.  Malls reopened after almost two months, and there were lines outside some of the stores. Parking lots were jammed, and many children went back in school for the first time in months. But some venues, like gyms, cultural events and hotels, are open only to those with a green passport, a document showing that they have either received both shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, or have recovered from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel is not imposing an obligation to get vaccinated.   Edelstein said that contrary to what he called “fake news,” Israel is not imposing sanctions on anyone who does not get vaccinated.   At the same time, some in Israel said that limiting venues like gyms and hotels to those who have been vaccinated was in effect a sanction on those who hadn’t received the shots.   FILE – Israelis receive a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from medical professionals at a coronavirus vaccination center set up on a shopping mall parking lot in Givataim, Israel, Feb. 4, 2021.So far, about one-third of Israel’s population of 9.2 million has received both doses, and nearly half have received the first shot. A further 3 million Israelis are not eligible to receive the vaccine, either because they are under 16 or because they have recovered from the infection. The director of Israel’s Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Ronni Gamzu, says the results of the Pfizer vaccine are even better than in clinical trials. They show that the vaccine is very effective and very, very minor side effects almost, you know what, almost none, we have seen cases here and there, and we have seen the effectiveness is what was stated in the studies of Pfizer and Moderna, around 95 percent, and if you look at people admitted to the hospital it is even more than that. The protection is solid, said Gamzu.Israel’s Health Ministry said that after two doses, Israelis saw their risk of illness from the coronavirus drop 98.5 percent, and their risk of hospitalization drop almost 99 percent. The statement was based on data from a poll  of 1.7 million Israelis who had received both shots by the end of January.  Among those being vaccinated are Arab citizens of Israel, and Palestinians in east Jerusalem, which is under Israeli control; but, the 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have yet to be inoculated.  The Palestinian minister of health said on Friday that Israel has agreed to vaccinate 100,000 Palestinian laborers who work regularly in Israel. Some human rights groups say that because Israel controls entry and exit into the West Bank and Gaza, it is responsible for providing vaccinations for the residents there.   
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