Month: February 2021

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is calling on the world community to make sure Africa gets a fair share of COVID-19 vaccines.     Ahead of a visit to the Central African Republic, one year after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported there, ICRC President Peter Maurer said in a statement Friday that “[i]t is a moral imperative that Africa’s access to needed vaccines is drastically improved, but also that COVID vaccination campaigns do not come at the cost of other key health concerns.”     He said as new COVID-19 variants start to spread, “[n]o one is safe until everyone is safe,” adding that “equitable access to its vaccine today is a critical step towards more equitable access to vaccines more generally.”   The…

The Australian Open in Melbourne is underway, but without any spectators. Instead of enjoying the tournament, tennis fans and the millions of people who live in Victoria state are under a five-day snap shutdown, following a coronavirus outbreak at a quarantine hotel in Melbourne, Victoria’s capital. Tennis players have been classified as essential workers. Germany is banning travel from its Czech border regions and Austria’s Tyrol because of an alarming COVID surge in the two locations.  The restrictions go into effect Sunday.Missionaries in some remote areas of Brazil have convinced some Indigenous people that the COVID-19 vaccine is not good for them. The residents of one Amazon village picked up bows and arrows to fight off healthcare workers set on inoculating the region’s residents. Brazil has 9.7 million COVID-19 cases, coming in third place in the world’s infections, behind only India with 10. 8 million and the U.S. with 27.3 million cases. There are more than 107 million global infections. FILE - Packages of protective face…

A warning by the World Health Organization that the COVID-19 pandemic could harm efforts to eradicate malaria appears to be coming true in Nigeria. Nigerian officials say people are refusing to get treatment for fear of catching the virus at a clinic.Fatima Mohammed is in her home at a camp for displaced people in Abuja, tending to her two sons who are currently down with malaria.She says she's can't afford huge hospital bills and is afraid that taking them to the hospital could potentially expose them to COVID-19 or result in a misdiagnosis."I don't have money to take them to the hospital — and, again, at the hospital, they'll easily call it coronavirus,” she said. “I don't have money for that.”Malaria and COVID-19 present similar symptoms, but fear and stigma…

Health experts say allocating and delivering adequate supplies of COVID-19 vaccines to the developing world will continue to be a challenge. They add that collective and cooperative solutions will be needed -- and failing to provide them will imperil human health worldwide. More with VOA’s Mariama Diallo. ...

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday criticized his predecessor’s vaccination program and urged Americans to be patient as he fixed it."My predecessor — I'll be very blunt about it — did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions," Biden said at the National Institutes of Health."We won't have everything fixed for a while. But we're going to fix it," he added.Biden also announced that the United States had acquired enough vaccines to inoculate 300 million of the 328 million U.S. population by the end of July.President Joe Biden listens as Kizzmekia Corbett, an immunologist with the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, speaks during a visit at the NIH Feb. 11, 2021, in Bethesda, Md. NIH Director Francis…

Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that by April, anyone in the United States who wants a COVID-19 vaccination should be able to get one.   In an interview with the NBC morning television program “Today,” Fauci, who also is the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said projections indicate top priority groups, such as U.S. frontline workers and the elderly, should have received their vaccinations by April.   Fauci said after that, it would be “open season, namely, virtually everybody and anybody, in any category, could start to get vaccinated.” From there, he said, given logistics, it likely would take several more months to get vaccines to all who want them.     Fauci was hopeful that by July or August, “the overwhelming majority…

It’s a busy time on the Red Planet as three Mars missions from three countries converge on their target.  Plus, there’s money to be made on what space drops on our planet.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the Week in Space.Camera: NASA/Reuters/AP/CCTVProduced by: Arash Arabasadi   ...

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) European office announced Thursday it will partner with the European Union to deploy COVID-19 vaccines in six eastern European nations.Speaking at his headquarters in Copenhagan, WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge said the nearly $50 million program will target Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.Kluge said the program is intended to ensure equitable access to vaccines throughout Europe. “Vaccines offer a way to emerge faster from this pandemic, but only if we ensure that all countries, irrespective of income level, have access to them," he said.UK COVID Variant Will Likely 'Sweep the World,' British Scientist WarnsScientists will probably be tracking global spread of mutations for at least next decade, Sharon Peacock of COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium saysKluge said the program will focus on vaccine readiness,…

A British scientist says the coronavirus variant first discovered in that country late last year has “swept the country” and will “sweep the world in all probability.” Sharon Peacock, the head of the COVID-19 Genomics U.K. consortium, made the prediction Wednesday during an interview with the BBC.     The more transmissible strain was first detected in the southern British county of Kent back in September, and has since been identified in more than 50 countries, including the United States.      The COVID-19 Genomics U.K. consortium tracks the genetic mutations of the novel coronavirus.  Peacock said the newly developed vaccines are effective against the current mutations, but she warned that scientists will be tracking new mutations at least for the next decade until the virus “mutates itself out of…

A World Health Organization panel of immunization experts Wednesday recommended the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for all ages and in regions where variant strains of the virus are prevalent.The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunization made the recommendation from agency headquarters in Geneva. The panel reviewed the vaccine this week after South Africa halted its use Sunday in response to a study by a university there that indicated the drug provided only minimal protection from the variant that was first discovered in that country.FILE - Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization speaks in Geneva, Jan. 21, 2021.The panel made the evaluation at the request of WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and for the benefit of health care workers around the world…

Chinese state media reported Wednesday a spacecraft known as Tianwen-1 has successfully entered orbit around Mars, the first step in an ambitious mission that includes landing a rover on the surface of the planet. In a statement, China’s National Space Administration said the spacecraft conducted a 15-minute burn of its thrusters, slowing it down enough to be pulled into Mars’ gravity, making it the country’s first artificial satellite orbiting the planet. The space agency says that in May or June, the Tianwen-1 will attempt to land a capsule carrying a 240-kilogram rover onto the surface of Mars, in a massive plain in the northern hemisphere known as Utopia Planitia. If all goes as planned, the rover will conduct a 90-day mission studying soil, looking for indications of water, and searching for signs…

The heads of the World Health Organization and the U.N. Children's Fund are appealing for scaled-up COVID-19 vaccine production and equitable distribution, warning that the global rollout is dangerously uneven. "Of the 128 million vaccine doses administered so far, more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for 60% of global GDP," said WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore in a joint statement on Wednesday. "As of today, almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose." A three star general receives the Sinopharm vaccine from China during the first day of COVID-19 vaccinations at a hospital in Phnom Penh, Feb. 10, 2021.If this continues, they warn, it "will cost lives and livelihoods," and create…

South Africa will begin vaccinating frontline health care workers with an unapproved coronavirus vaccine by the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company next week to see if it provides protection from the variant sweeping the country.   Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said Wednesday South Africa dropped plans to use the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for now because of concerns it may not be effective against mild to moderate cases of the N501Y variant.     The health minister said the country’s scientists will continue to examine the AstraZeneca vaccine and offer advice on whether to swap out the vaccine before it expires.     The Associated Press reports Mkhize said in a national broadcast the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine is safe, based on testing of 44,000 people in South Africa, the United…

South Korea has approved the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University for all adults, despite concerns over the lack of data on its effectiveness among the elderly.  The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety granted emergency use for the two-dose vaccine Wednesday, but only on the condition that the British-Swedish drugmaker provide the results of its current late-stage clinical trials on adults 18 years of age and older.  The ministry has also issued a precautionary warning about inoculating South Koreans older than 65 years of age.  Inoculations of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the first to be approved for use in South Korea, will begin on February 26.  Limits on use of AstraZeneca vaccineSeveral European countries, including Germany and France, have limited use of the  AstraZeneca vaccine to people between 18…

Vaccines against COVID-19 will be distributed to community health centers across the United States in the coming weeks, the White House said Tuesday.Washington has identified People wait in line to get their COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site set up in a park in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, Feb. 9, 2021.Forty-three million doses of the vaccine have been administered, with just over 3% of the U.S. population fully vaccinated, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.The number of available doses is expected to increase as a third vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson is expected to receive approval for emergency use sometime this month.Currently, both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both of which require two doses, are being distributed across the United States.U.S. is world…

Across global cities big and small, the coronavirus pandemic has forced a shutdown of cultural life. But that’s changing in the Russian capital, where a mass vaccination program is in full swing. Charles Maynes reports from Moscow.Camera:  Ricardo Marquina Montanana  Produced by: Bronwyn Benito   ...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) space agency announced Tuesday that its unmanned Mars probe has arrived at the red planet and successfully entered orbit.   The Emirates Mars Mission — known as the Amal, or Hope Probe — announced the arrival from its official Twitter account.  "Success! Contact with #HopeProbe has been established again. The Mars Orbit Insertion is now complete," the tweet said. The probe's successful drop into orbit makes the UAE the fifth nation in the world to reach the red planet and the first in the Arab world.  A laser show celebration is put on ahead of a live broadcast of the Hope Probe attempting to enter the Mars orbit as a part of Emirates Mars mission, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 9, 2021.Ground controllers at the UAE's…

The leader of international experts investigating the origins of COVID-19 in China says they saw no evidence of large outbreaks of the disease prior to its December 2019 discovery in the city of Wuhan.  Peter Ben Embarek, an expert in viral illnesses for the World Health Organization, said Tuesday in Wuhan that his team’s findings indicate COVID-19 probably originated in bats, but says it is unlikely the bats were in Wuhan.  The team visited the city’s Huanan Seafood Market, which was initially believed to be the epicenter of the outbreak, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and laboratories at state facilities, including the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.  Embarek said at a news conference the theory that the virus leaked from a laboratory is extremely unlikely, and that his team will not investigate it…

The World Health Organization expressed concern Monday over new reports that vaccines against the coronavirus may not sufficiently protect against new variants. On Sunday, South Africa suspended its vaccination campaign against COVID-19 after a new study revealed that the AstraZeneca vaccine is less effective against a variant of the virus found in the country. Speaking at a media briefing a day later, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing that the decision is "a reminder that we need to do everything we can to reduce circulation of the virus with proven public health measures." FILE - A clinical trial patient receives a dose of AstraZeneca test vaccine at the University of Witwatersrand facility in Soweto, South Africa, Nov. 30, 2020.The study, conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg…

Public opinion is mixed on how well Western governments have handled the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, which also questioned people on their attitudes regarding compulsory vaccinations.Seventy-seven percent of Germans thought their government did a good job in handling the outbreak, while 58% of Americans say the U.S. government is doing a bad job.More than 4,000 adults were questioned in the United States, Britain, France and Germany.The survey was conducted in November and December 2020, before U.S. President Joe Biden took office in mid-January and just as vaccination programs were beginning to roll out in the United States and Britain.The European Union has been far slower in getting its vaccination programs under way, leading to some criticism of the bloc’s vaccine approval and…