Year: 2021

NASA touches the sun and looks to the future by traveling back through time. Plus, Japanese tourists visit the ISS, and a space-travel pioneer’s daughter follows in her father’s flying footsteps. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space. ...

Scientists in Hong Kong say the omicron variant of the coronavirus multiplies much faster in the airway passages, which could explain how the variant is spreading so fast around the globe. A preliminary report by a team of researchers at the University of Hong Kong says laboratory experiments on tissue samples show omicron grows about 70 times faster than delta in the bronchus, the main tubes from the windpipe to the lungs. The study also found that omicron grows 10 times slower in lung tissues than the original version, which could indicate a lower chance of a severe illness. Lead researcher Michael Chan Chi-wai cautions that the severity of disease is not only determined by how quickly the virus replicates, but also by each person’s immune response to the infection,…

The Israeli government on Wednesday said it was donating 1 million coronavirus vaccines to the U.N.-backed COVAX program. The Foreign Ministry said the AstraZeneca vaccines would be transferred in the coming weeks, a decision that was part of Israel’s strengthening ties with the African countries. “I am delighted that Israel can contribute and be a partner in eradicating the pandemic around the world,” said Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. The announcement said the vaccines would reach close to a quarter of African countries, though it did not provide a list. Israel has close ties with a number of African nations, including Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Israel also established relations with Sudan last year as part of a series of U.S.-brokered accords. COVAX is a global initiative that aims to provide coronavirus…

The White House COVID-19 Response team Wednesday said early data indicates the omicron coronavirus variant is spreading in the U.S., but current vaccine boosters appear to be effective in fighting it. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the variant is in 36 U.S. states and accounts for 3% of all U.S. COVID-19 cases, though it is higher in some areas, such as New York and New Jersey, where it may account for as much 13% of cases. Walensky said while the vast majority — 96% — of U.S. cases are still caused by the delta variant, she said early data show the omicron variant spreads faster than delta, with cases doubling in about two days. Walensky, along with White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci and COVID-19 Response coordinator Jeff Zients,…

The head of the South African Medical Association says there is a major difference between the delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus and warns politicians against hyping the threat from the new strain. Dr. Angelique Coetzee criticized Tuesday what she described as the “over-reaction” to the heavily mutated omicron variant by some European governments and cited Britain’s Boris Johnson, who she accused of creating “hysteria” about the new strain. On Tuesday, the House of Commons approved the reimposition of pandemic restrictions, and the introduction of some new ones, because of rising omicron cases in the country, although Johnson faced a major rebellion by a third of his parliamentary party and relied on opposition parties for the vote. Coetzee was one of the first medical practitioners in the world to…

African leaders have called on governments across the continent to invest more in healthcare to fight the coronavirus and future pandemics. The appeal came as the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the African Union this week held the first Conference on Public Health in Africa. Addressing the virtual meeting of African health workers and experts, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said governments could no longer ignore public health investment as the continent grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic.  “There needs to be renewed commitment by government and national parliaments to increase domestic financing for health in Africa. This has been a priority for the African Union for several years but progress has not been fast enough. We cannot continue to rely on external funding for something so important for…

The disfiguring disease Noma, found mainly in poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa that lack health care, kills 90% of victims, most of them children, when left untreated. Noma is preventable with awareness, and to that end, aid groups are urging the World Health Organization to add Noma to its list of neglected tropical diseases. Henry Wilkins reports from Kongoussi, Burkina Faso. ...

COVID-19 was first discovered in China, which became the first country to produce a vaccine. Sinovac and Sinopharm are China’s leading vaccine makers, and both manufacture World Health Organization-approved COVID-19 vaccines.   What’s the difference between the two companies?   Sinovac is a privately owned company, while Sinopharm is government-run. Scientists at both companies use the same method to make both vaccines.   How are the vaccines made?  Dr. Andrea Cox, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a special interest in immunization, has provided expert advice to VOA about COVID-19 vaccines. Cox told VOA that scientists take a type of bacteria — or in this case, a virus — and inactivate or kill it. They then inject it into people. Because the virus is dead, it can’t infect anyone. Then, if a vaccinated person is exposed to the live virus, that person’s body recognizes it and fights it off.   Are these vaccines effective?   According to Cox, the Chinese vaccines are not as effective as the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and…

U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is encouraged by data released by Pfizer Inc on its COVID-19 anti-viral medicine and his administration has ordered enough of the pills to treat 10 million Americans. "Getting vaccinated and getting your booster shot remain the most important tools we have to save lives. But if this treatment is indeed authorized “and once the pills are widely available” it will mark a significant step forward in our path out of the pandemic," Biden said in a statement. ...

A new study out of South Africa shows that Pfizer’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine provides a high degree of protection against hospitalization from the fast-spreading omicron variant. The real-world study, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council and Discovery Health, the country’s largest private health insurance administrator, was based on more than 211,000 positive COVID-19 test results between November 15 to December 7, with about 78,000 believed to be caused by omicron. The study concluded that while the vaccine offered only a 33% rate of protection against an overall infection, it provided 70% protection against hospitalization. It also concludes that while there was a higher risk of reinfection during this current surge, the risk of hospitalization among adults was 29% lower than during the initial wave. Pfizer developed the vaccine in collaboration…

In a major victory for sexual minority advocates, Canada last week banned conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that aims to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. The law makes it a crime to subject anyone in Canada to conversion therapy, profit from the practice or take a Canadian outside the country to undergo conversion therapy elsewhere. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to hail the ban of what he called "a despicable and degrading practice." University of Ottawa student Jonathan Di Carlo calls himself a conversion therapy survivor, having undergone sessions "primarily in religious settings" for more than a decade starting at age 13. "They included attempted demon exorcisms in front of people, forced one-on-one counseling where a pastor with no formal psychotherapy training convinced me…

Benin has adopted a new law legalizing abortion in most cases, one of the few African countries to do so. A conservative country, the law was passed by parliament to prevent a wave of clandestine abortions that have resulted in deaths. Kouam Joel Honoré has this report from Cotonou. ...

The World Health Organization and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a leading cancer center in the United States, are planning to provide cancer medication free-of-charge to children in developing countries. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing about 10 million people a year.  The World Health Organization estimates 400,000 children globally develop cancer every year, with nearly 100,000 dying. The most common types of childhood cancers include leukemias, brain cancers, lymphomas, and solid tumors.  WHO reports nearly nine in 10 children with cancer live in low-and-middle income countries. Andre Ilbawi, who heads WHO’s cancer division in the department of noncommunicable diseases,  said about 80 percent of children who have cancer in high-income countries survive  — a major achievement and improvement over the past decades. "But that progress has…

The Western U.S. is bracing for the brunt of a major winter storm expected to hit Monday, bringing travel headaches, the threat of localized flooding and some relief in an abnormally warm fall.  Light rain and snow fell in Northern California on Sunday, giving residents a taste of what’s to come. The multi-day storm could drop more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) of snow on the highest peaks and drench other parts of California as it pushes south and east before moving out midweek.  “This is a pretty widespread event,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Anna Wanless in Sacramento. “Most of California, if not all, will see some sort of rain and snow.”  The precipitation will bring at least temporary relief to the broader region that’s been gripped by drought…

The top U.S. infectious disease expert on Sunday urged eligible Americans to get booster coronavirus vaccinations to give them the best protection against the new omicron variant. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” show that omicron can evade the protection provided by the three vaccines available in the United States. Nearly 202 million Americans are considered fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but only 53.8 million of them have received booster shots. "If you want to be optimally protected, absolutely get a booster," he said. “The somewhat encouraging news is that preliminary data show that when you get a booster… it raises the level of protection high enough that it then does do well against the omicron,” Fauci said. Health experts say that early…

More than 400 million South Asian children have been affected by school closures extending into a second year in some countries during the COVID-19 pandemic according to a new UNICEF report. The United Nations agency has urged the region’s countries to fully reopen schools, warning that the consequences of lost learning are huge and will be long-lasting in a region where access to remote learning is limited. “The remarkable achievements our region has made in advancing child rights over recent decades are now at risk,” said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF regional director for South Asia. “If we fail to act, the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for decades to come,” he said. School closures in South Asia have lasted longer than in many other parts of the…

Six years ago today, nearly 200 nations signed the Paris Climate Accord, where they agreed to keep the rise in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Scientists say that threshold is an absolute minimum to avoid catastrophic climate change. “Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. "We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe.” As he wound up the recent COP26 in Glasgow, Guterres had that harsh warning for the 200 countries who had gathered to talk climate change — and how to slow it down. Hanging over the summit was the deadline of 2030 for a drastic reduction of greenhouse emissions that was set six years ago at COP21 in Paris. Former executive secretary of the U.N.…

Italy’s La Scala has postponed its ballet season premiere after a coronavirus outbreak in its ranks, just days after the famed Milan theater staged its high-profile opera season opener with a full-capacity audience. At least one of the four ballerinas who tested positive for COVID-19 also appeared in the Dec. 7 premiere of the opera Macbeth. Ten other people linked to the outbreak tested positive for the virus, all of them theater support personnel, including someone who worked in the hairdressing department, the theater said in a statement. Italian health authorities placed several other people in quarantine because they were in close contact with those confirmed infected, La Scala said. La Scala Theatre Ballet was scheduled to perform La Bayadere to open its season on Dec. 15. The performance has…

On a moonless summer night in Hawaii, krill, fish and crabs swirl through a beam of light as two researchers peer into the water above a vibrant reef. Minutes later, like clockwork, they see eggs and sperm from spawning coral drifting past their boat. They scoop up the fishy-smelling blobs and put them into test tubes. In this Darwinian experiment, the scientists are trying to speed up coral's evolutionary clock to breed "super corals" that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. For the past five years, the researchers have been conducting experiments to prove their theories would work. Now, they're getting ready to plant laboratory-raised corals in the ocean to see how they survive in nature. "Assisted evolution started out as this kind of crazy idea that you…

 Six years ago today, nearly 200 nations signed the Paris Climate Accord, where they agreed to keep the rise in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Scientists say that threshold is an absolute minimum to avoid catastrophic climate change. “Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. "We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe.” As he wound up the recent COP26 in Glasgow, Guterres had that harsh warning for the 200 countries who had gathered to talk climate change — and how to slow it down. Hanging over the summit was the deadline of 2030 for a drastic reduction of greenhouse emissions that was set six years ago at COP21 in Paris. Former executive secretary of the U.N.…

The eldest daughter of pioneering U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard blasted off aboard Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin commercial space tourism rocket on Saturday, 60 years after her late father's famed suborbital NASA flight at the dawn of the Space Age.   Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space, was one of six passengers buckled into the cabin of Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft as it lifted off from a launch site outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.   The crew capsule at the top of the fully autonomous, six-story-tall spaceship is designed to soar to an altitude of about 350,000 feet (106 km) before falling back to Earth, descending under a canopy of parachutes to the desert floor for a gentle…

There's no clear-cut definition for when a pandemic starts and ends, and how much of a threat a global outbreak is posing can vary by country. "It's somewhat a subjective judgment because it's not just about the number of cases. It's about severity and it's about impact," says Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization's emergencies chief. In January 2020, WHO designated the virus a global health crisis "of international concern." A couple months later in March, the United Nations health agency described the outbreak as a "pandemic," reflecting the fact that the virus had spread to nearly every continent and numerous other health officials were saying it could be described as such. The pandemic may be widely considered over when WHO decides the virus is no longer an emergency of international…