Year: 2021

As South Africa struggles with a new surge of COVID-19 infections due to the omicron variant of the coronavirus, a new study suggests omicron could be less severe than other forms of the virus. The New York Times reports doctors at the Steve Biko Academic and Tshwane District Hospital Complex in Pretoria observed 42 patients who had been admitted last week with COVID-19.They found that 29 patients were breathing ordinary air, while four of 13 patients who were using supplemental oxygen were doing so for reasons unrelated to the virus. Dr. Fareed Abdullah, the director of the Office of HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis Research at the South African Medical Research Council, told the Times that the 166 coronavirus patients who were admitted to the hospital between November 14 and November 29…

More than 5 million people worldwide have had their lives cut short by COVID-19, and the number keeps rising as many countries experience another wave of transmission.  The best defense against this disease is a vaccine, experts say.    Since the outbreak was first reported in 2019, the best scientists all over the world have been working on a vaccine to protect against SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The acronym stands for “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” to distinguish it from the first SARS outbreak in 2003.  Historically, when scientists make vaccines, they have used a live virus that is so weak it can't reproduce, or they use a dead virus. When these weakened or inactive viruses are injected into the body, the body recognizes them as intruders, produces antibodies and fights them off.   Polio vaccines have used both weakened live viruses as well as dead ones with enormous success.…

More than 5 million people worldwide have had their lives cut short by COVID-19, and the number keeps rising. The best defense against this virus is a vaccine. VOA's Carol Pearson explains one approach in making a vaccine that's been effective against polio, measles, Ebola and a host of other viruses.   ...

Three 2021 Nobel Prize laureates said Monday that climate change is the biggest threat facing the world — yet they remain optimistic — as this year's winners began receiving their awards at scaled-down local ceremonies adapted for pandemic times.  For a second year, COVID-19 has scuttled the traditional formal banquet in Stockholm attended by winners of the prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics, which were announced in October. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded separately in Oslo, Norway.  Literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah was first to get his prize in a lunchtime ceremony Monday at the Swedish ambassador's grand Georgian residence in central London. Ambassador Mikaela Kumlin Granit said the U.K.-based Tanzanian author had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his "uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the…

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the U.S. space agency, NASA, says it has new software that will allow its Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) to better assess potential threats posed by asteroids that can come close to Earth.  In a press release on Monday, NASA astronomers said they have upgraded their impact software, called Sentry, with its next generation, Sentry-II, to better evaluate near-Earth asteroid (NEA) impact probabilities.  NASA said to date, almost 28,000 NEAs have been found by survey telescopes that continuously scan the sky, making about 3,000 new discoveries per year. But with better technology and newer, bigger telescopes scheduled to come online, that number is expected to multiply quickly, necessitating the software upgrade.  Contrary to what some might believe, asteroids are extremely predictable celestial…

Rick Levin is trying to keep the waters of Chesapeake Bay clean by building oyster reefs. VOA's Zdenko Novacki visits him in Pasadena, Maryland, to learn how oysters filter water and about the benefits of oyster reefs for the environment and other marine life.  Camera: Philip Alexiou, Zdenko Novacki  Produced by: Zdenko Novacki ...

In early 2020, a team of scientists from the University of Vermont, Tufts University and Harvard University took stem cells from African clawed frog embryos and turned them into tiny living robots. As if that isn’t amazing enough, then something unexpected happened. Maxim Moskalkov has the story. ...

The World Health Organization reports a significant rise in malaria cases and deaths in 2020 due to COVID-19 disruptions in malaria services. Over the past two decades, global malaria death rates have been cut in half, saving the lives of 10.6 million people. New data gathered by the WHO show COVID-19 has stopped and even reversed the progress made in reducing deaths from this preventable, treatable disease. The WHO’s World Malaria Report estimates 241 million malaria cases and 627,000 malaria deaths globally have occurred in 2020.This represents an increase of 14 million cases and 69,000 deaths compared to the previous year. WHO links the increase to disruptions of malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services during the pandemic. Director of WHO’s Global Malaria Program, Pedro Alonso, said the situation could have…

One of the scientists behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is warning that the next pandemic may be more contagious and more lethal unless more money is devoted to research and preparations to fight emerging viral threats. In excerpts released before a speech Monday, Professor Sarah Gilbert says the scientific advances made in fighting deadly viruses “must not be lost” because of the cost of fighting the current pandemic. “This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods,” Gilbert is expected to say. “The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.” Gilbert is scheduled to make the remarks Monday night when she delivers this year’s Richard Dimbleby lecture, named after the late broadcaster who…

America's winter wonderland is starting out this season as anything but traditional.  The calendar says December, but for much of the country, temperatures beckon for sandals. Umbrellas, if not arks, are needed in the Pacific Northwest, while snow shovels are gathering cobwebs in the Rockies.  Meteorologists attribute the latest batch of record-shattering weather extremes to a stuck jet stream and the effects of a La Nina weather pattern from cooling waters in the equatorial Pacific. It's still fall astronomically, but winter starts December 1 for meteorologists. This year, no one told the weather that.  On Thursday, 65 weather stations across the nation set record high temperature marks for December 2, including Springfield, Missouri, hitting 24 Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) and Roanoke, Virginia, 22 Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit). Cheyenne, Wyoming, and…

Cameroon has begun a measles vaccination drive on its northern border with Nigeria after several dozen children were found with the infection at a demobilization center. Cameroon says most of those infected are children of former fighters fleeing Boko Haram terrorism. A mother comforts her 13-month-old baby in Kanuri, a language spoken in Meri, a commercial town on Cameroon's northern border with Nigeria. The 24-year-old mother says she hopes her child's life will be saved after inoculation against measles, as promised by vaccination agents deployed to her town. Prosper Essomba is the Cameroon government's chief medical officer in Meri. He is supervising a vaccination campaign launched Friday against measles. Essomba says he first inoculated his 1-year-old son to convince people that vaccination will protect their children from a measles outbreak.…

The World Health Organization has recognized Botswana for its efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV from expectant mothers to unborn children. Officials say no children born to HIV-positive mothers this year had the virus. WHO awarded Botswana the ‘silver tier’ status this week; The silver tier certification is given to countries that have lowered the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate to under five percent and provided prenatal care and anti-retroviral treatment to more than 90 percent of pregnant women. Botswana has achieved the WHO’s target of an HIV case rate of fewer than 500 per 100,000 live births. WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, in awarding the certificate in Gaborone on Thursday, said Botswana has demonstrated that an AIDS free generation is possible. “I want to applaud, this is huge accomplishment by Botswana, which we know has one of the most severe HIV epidemics. This achievement demonstrates that an HIV/AIDS…

White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci said Friday it should be about two weeks before scientists fully understand how transmissible and severe the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 truly is, and until then, people need to get vaccinations and booster shots.  During a briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team, Fauci said South African researchers are leading the way but even their studies will take another week or two to get clinical data. The omicron variant was first identified in South Africa and there are more and longer-term cases to study there, he said.  The White House response team repeated a message delivered earlier this week by President Joe Biden, that omicron is a variant of concern. Fauci presented new data showing both the Moderna…

New Zealand will adopt what is being called a “traffic light” system to curb the spread of COVID-19 and limit the use of lockdowns. New Zealand’s planned traffic light system has red, amber and green categories, and gives more freedoms to the fully vaccinated. The biggest city, Auckland, is a red zone, mainly because of its high number of COVID-19 cases. Residents there are allowed into cafes, gyms and hairdressers, but there are limits on capacity and proof of vaccination is mandatory. Much of the country is under the less stringent amber traffic light. The settings will be reviewed in two weeks. Michael Baker, a public health and epidemiology professor at the University of Otago in Wellington, said the new system is designed to boost vaccination rates. “There is a…

Multiple cases of the omicron coronavirus variant have been detected in New York, health officials said Thursday, including a man who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November and tested positive for the variant when he returned home to Minnesota. In addition to the conventioneer, tests showed five other people recently infected with COVID-19 had the variant, health officials said. They included a person in the city's Long Island suburbs who had recently traveled to South Africa, residents of Brooklyn and Queens, and another case possibly linked to travel. "No cause for alarm. We just want to make sure that the public is aware of information when we receive it," said Governor Kathy Hochul. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the geographic spread of the positive…

Omicron is unlikely to have completely outsmarted the vaccines, experts say, even with its unusual array of mutations.  There are a lot of unknowns, but they expect that the shots will still do what they do best: Keep people out of the hospital and out of the grave. Omicron raised alarms when it was first identified during a sharp spike in cases in South Africa. The World Health Organization added it to its list of variants of concern last week. The virus contains dozens of mutations, including several that are thought to make it more infectious and others that appear to help it evade the immune system. "But I think it's still very possible that vaccines will hold up against severe disease, even with those mutations," said Dr. Carlos del…

Two astronauts with the U.S. space agency, NASA, left the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday to conduct a spacewalk to replace a broken antenna system, two days after the walk was postponed over concerns about space debris. NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron stepped out of the ISS airlock early Thursday to replace the faulty antenna, used to communicate voice and data to ground control. The operation was expected to last six-and-a-half hours. The spacewalk had originally been scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed late Monday after NASA said it had received a notification of space debris that it needed to assess. The space agency said once it determined the debris did not pose a risk, the operation was rescheduled for Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether the…

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized an "irresponsible" Russian test that endangered the International Space Station with debris, and the Biden administration laid out a new strategy for responsible use of space.  Harris convened the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council and asked members of the government body to promote responsible civil, commercial and national security-related behavior in space, where there are growing commercial interests and concerns about Chinese and Russian competition.  "Without clear norms for the responsible use of space we stand the real risk of threats to our national and global security," Harris said.  She said Russia's "irresponsible act" of testing anti-satellite technology last month created debris that endangered the International Space Station (ISS).  U.S. officials have fretted over rising security activity by Washington's major…

Marking the 33rd annual World AIDS Day on Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would ramp up its domestic and international efforts to fight the HIV virus, which has killed 36 million people worldwide in four decades. President Joe Biden also released Wednesday the domestic-focused National HIV-AIDS Strategy, which aims for a 90% reduction in new HIV cases in the U.S. over the next nine years. Currently, about 1.2 million Americans are thought to be living with the virus. The epidemic peaked in the U.S. in the 1980s. The administration has said that racism that leads to unequal medical care is itself "a public health threat" that needs to be acknowledged in the battle against the virus.  The president offered two new measures aimed at ending the epidemic in the…

The Biden administration in its new HIV/AIDS strategy calls racism "a public health threat" that must be fully recognized as the world looks to end the epidemic. The strategy released Wednesday on the annual commemoration of World AIDS Day is meant to serve as a framework for how the administration intends to shape its policies, research, programs and planning over the next three years. The new strategy asserts that over generations "structural inequities have resulted in racial and ethnic health disparities that are severe, far-reaching, and unacceptable." New HIV infections in the U.S. fell about 8% from 2015 to 2019, but Black and Latino communities — particularly gay and bisexual men within those groups — continue to be disproportionately affected, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. African…

European Union leaders said Wednesday they are considering a number of public health options, including vaccine mandates, to address the growing threat posed by the omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.  Speaking to reporters in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said little is currently known about the variant, but enough is known to be concerned. She said they expect scientists to have a handle on the nature of the variant in about two to three weeks, but in the meantime are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.  Von der Leyen said the best use of that time is to get more people vaccinated, and those who are inoculated should get booster shots. She said more than one-third of the European population —…

The World Health Organization (WHO) Wednesday began a lengthy process to develop an international agreement on the prevention and control of future pandemics. The WHO’s World Health Assembly – the organization's decision-making body – approved the effort at the end of a rare, three-day special session at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. The plan, entitled "The World Together," was created as the world is facing the new omicron variant of coronavirus.  WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the decision, saying the pandemic has exposed shortcomings in the application and implementation of international health regulations established by the WHO in 2005. The agreement would establish international standards on issues ranging from data sharing and genome sequencing of emerging viruses to equitable distribution of vaccine and drugs.  Wednesday’s decision begins the process…