Month: June 2021

Britain is hosting a two-day summit of health ministers from the Group of Seven nations, with a focus on sharing vaccines and better identifying threats to global health security. The talks in Oxford on Thursday and Friday come ahead of a summit of G-7 leaders next…

YouTube videos that cause an autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR, are likely something school-age kids know all about. Their parents? Not so much. Karina Bafradzhian looks at a new trend that some people say helps them deal with pandemic-induced stress. Camera: David Gogokhia     …

The World Health Organization’s program to secure and distribute billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world's poorest countries has received a major financial boost.   The COVAX initiative received nearly $2.4 billion in pledges Wednesday during a virtual summit hosted by Japan, which made…

In the span of just five days last month, China gave out 100 million shots of its COVID-19 vaccines.After a slow start, China is now doing what virtually no other country in the world can: harnessing the power and all-encompassing reach of its one-party system…

The new White House science adviser hopes that for the next pandemic, a vaccine will be ready in 100 days. Eric Lander tells The Associated Press in his first interview since he was sworn in that he’s pushing for better preparedness for the next pandemic. He says that…

President Joe Biden is launching a monthlong nationwide push to get 70% of American adults vaccinated by Independence Day on July 4. But the administration has not yet outlined its vaccine-sharing strategy with the rest of the world. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this…

U.S. President Joe Biden is concerned about the nation splitting into two groups: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated."I don't want to see the country that is already too divided become divided in a new way, between places where people live free from fear of COVID,…

NASA is returning to sizzling Venus, our closest yet perhaps most overlooked neighbor, after decades of exploring other worlds.The space agency's new administrator, Bill Nelson, announced two new robotic missions to the solar system's hottest planet, during his first major address to employees Wednesday."These two…

Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.   And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.   Researchers examined the…

Hundreds of Zimbabweans protested Wednesday about a shortage of COVID-19 vaccines as the country awaits more doses from China.  The government wants to inoculate at least 60% of Zimbabwe's more than 14 million people by the end of the year but has struggled to get the…

Australian scientists are leading an international consortium that is building one of the world’s most powerful ground-based telescopes. It promises to see further and clearer than the Hubble Space Telescope and unlock mysteries of the early Universe.The telescope is called MAVIS, or Multi-conjugate-adaptive-optics Assisted Visible…

Authorities in Australia’s southern state of Victoria have extended a one-week lockdown for its capital, Melbourne, to contain the spread of a new COVID-19 outbreak. The lockdown was initially imposed across the entire state last week after health officials detected a highly infectious variant of the…

US President Joe Biden's administration announced Tuesday it was halting petroleum development activity in the Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a move by former president Donald Trump to allow drilling. The Interior Department said it was notifying firms of the freeze, pending a comprehensive environmental…

The World Health Organization has granted emergency approval for the use of a Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccine for adults 18 and older.   The U.N. health agency approved a vaccine Tuesday made by Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company. It was the second time the WHO…

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns the United States and countries in the Caribbean and Central America to be prepared for what is expected to be another above-normal Atlantic hurricane season.The outlook for this year’s hurricane season, which began Tuesday, is grim. Last year’s record-breaking…

Violent confrontations continue between armed groups on the Colombia-Venezuela border, displacing thousands of people.  One Venezuelan nurse is crossing into Colombia to help those in need. For VOA, Jair Diaz has the story from Arauquita, Colombia, in this report narrated by Cristina Smit. Camera: David…

Member nations of the World Health Organization have approved a plan to negotiate the terms of an international pandemic response treaty.Attendees at the closing session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva voted Monday on resolution to create a special WHO assembly session in November…

A man in eastern China has contracted what might be the world’s first human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, but the risk of large-scale spread is low, the government said Tuesday. The 41-year-old man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, was hospitalized…