Month: April 2022

One in four children in Latin America and the Caribbean does not have vaccine protection against three potentially deadly diseases, a U.N. report said Monday, warning of plummeting inoculation rates.  While 90% of children in the region in 2015 had received the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP3), by 2020 coverage had dropped to three-quarters, according to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), a regional office of the World Health Organization.   This means that some 2.5 million children were not fully protected — and 1.5 million of them have not had even one dose in the three-shot regimen.  Globally, according to WHO, 17.1 million infants did not receive an initial dose of the DTP3 vaccine in 2020, and another 5.6 million…

In advance of World Malaria Day, the World Health Organization recommends the expanded use of the first malaria vaccine, calling it a potential game changer in the fight against malaria. Malaria is a preventable, treatable disease.  Yet, every year, malaria sickens more than 200 million people and kills more than 600,000.  Most of these deaths, nearly half a million, are among young children in Africa.  That means every 60 seconds a child dies of malaria. Despite this bleak news, the outlook for malaria control is promising, thanks to the development of the world’s first malaria vaccine.  The World Health Organization calls the achievement a historic breakthrough for science. A pilot program was started in 2019 in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi.  Since then, the World Health Organization reports more than a…

Climate change and habitat loss from big agriculture are combining to swat down global insect populations, with each problem making the other worse, a new study finds. While insects may bug people at times, they also are key in pollinating plants to feed people, making soil more fertile and they include beautiful butterflies and fireflies. Scientists have noticed a dramatic drop both in total bug numbers and diversity of insect species, calling it a slow-motion death by 1,000 cuts. Those cuts include pesticides and light pollution. Big single-crop agriculture that leaves less habitat and leafy food for bugs plus higher temperatures from climate change are huge problems for insects, but a new study in the journal Nature Wednesday based on more than 750,000 samples of 18,000 different species of insects…

The World Health Organization said on Saturday that at least one child death had been reported following an increase of acute hepatitis of unknown origin in children, and that at least 169 cases had been reported in children in 12 countries. The WHO issued the figures as health authorities around the world investigate a mysterious increase in severe cases of hepatitis -- inflammation of the liver -- in young children. The WHO said that as of April 21 acute cases of hepatitis of unknown origin had been reported in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Israel, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, France, Romania and Belgium. It said 114 of the 169 cases were in the United Kingdom alone. The cases reported were in children aged from 1 month…

Maggie Mulligan said her dogs could sense the panic while she and her husband packed them up, agonized over having to leave horses behind and fled a fast-moving wildfire barreling toward their home in northeast New Mexico. "We don't know what's next," she said. "We don't know if we can go back to the horses." Mulligan and her husband, Bill Gombas, 67, were among the anxious residents who hurriedly packed up and evacuated their homes Friday ahead of ominous Western wildfires fueled by tinder-dry conditions and ferocious winds. Over a dozen sizable fires were burning in Arizona and New Mexico, destroying dozens of homes and as of Saturday burning more than 451 square kilometers. Winds that howled Friday remained a concern Saturday in northern New Mexico where two fires merged…

The number of women in Lebanon dying from pregnancy-related complications has nearly tripled amid a crushing three-year economic crisis that has seen doctors and midwives leave the country, the U.N. children's agency UNICEF said Wednesday. The crisis is also affecting children, especially among Syrian refugees who have fled over the border into Lebanon. UNICEF said a third of children could not access health care by October 2021, and the number of children who die within the first four weeks after birth "increased dramatically among refugees in four provinces assessed, from 65 neonatal deaths in the first quarter of 2020 to 137 in the third quarter." Lebanon hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees, making up about a quarter of the population, according to official estimates. "Repeatedly, anguished parents and families are unable…

Authorities in Pakistan have confirmed the first case of wild polio virus in more than a year, dealing a setback to the country’s progress against the highly infectious disease. A 15-month-old boy was paralyzed by the virus in the turbulent North Waziristan district, which borders Afghanistan, according to an official announcement Friday. “This is, of course, a tragedy for the child and his family and it is also very unfortunate both for Pakistan and polio eradication efforts all over the world,” said Aamir Ashraf, a top health ministry official in Islamabad. “We are disappointed but not deterred.” Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio continues to paralyze children, although case numbers in recent years have significantly dropped on both sides of the border.  The last time…

A new case of Ebola has been confirmed in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, the National Institute of Biomedical Research said Saturday, four months after the end of the country's last outbreak. The case, a 31-year-old male, was detected in the city of Mbandaka, capital of Congo's Equateur province, the institute said. A health ministry spokesperson confirmed the discovery. The patient began showing symptoms on April 5 but did not seek treatment for more than a week. He was admitted to an Ebola treatment center on April 21 and died later that day, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement. “Time is not on our side,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's Regional Director for Africa.”The disease has had a two-week head start and we are now playing…

The World Health Organization warns the health system in eastern Ukraine has all but collapsed, putting the lives of thousands of people trapped in Mariupol and other besieged areas at risk.    U.N. health officials say it is critical they be granted immediate access to Mariupol and other areas hardest hit by fighting in eastern Ukraine. They say they have received reports that nearly all health facilities and hospitals in areas like the Luhansk region either are damaged or destroyed.   The WHO is appealing for access to affected areas to assess health needs and to provide critical medical supplies to the sick and injured. Speaking from Lviv in western Ukraine, WHO spokesman Bhanu Bhatnagar said the WHO so far has not been able to enter Mariupol and does not know the…

Devastating floods in South Africa this week, as well as other extreme weather events across the continent linked to human-caused climate change, are putting marine and terrestrial wildlife species at risk, according to biodiversity experts.  Africa has already faced several climate-related woes in the past year: the ongoing fatal floods follow unrelenting cyclones in the south, extreme temperatures in western and northern regions, and a debilitating drought which is currently afflicting eastern, central and the Horn of Africa.  Conservation and wildlife groups say it's critical to protect species from these climate change-related weather events.  "Climate change is disrupting ecosystems and affecting the survival and suitability of species to live in their usual habitats," said Shyla Raghav, who heads the climate change division at Conservation International. "Massive disruption to ecological stability…

Most Americans support a flexible approach to the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, with cities reimposing mask mandates when cases surge, even as a growing number are eager to get on with their lives, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Friday found. The results of the two-day poll illustrate the balancing act facing U.S. officials as they navigate a health crisis that will not go away. Sixty-four percent of U.S. adults — including 83% of Democrats and 46% of Republicans — said cities and states should impose mask mandates for indoor public places if there is a resurgence of COVID-19 in their area, the poll found. At the same time, 44% of respondents said that Americans need to get back to normal and get on with their lives, up from 36% in a poll…

Environmentally, the planet was on a downward slide well before the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution designating April 22 in 2009 as International Mother Earth Day. The aim of this day is to celebrate the wonders of Mother Earth. The day also is meant to shed light on the issues threatening the health of the world’s ecosystems to ensure their survivability. Unfortunately, says U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, humans have been poor custodians of our fragile planet, which is facing a triple planetary crisis. “Climate disruption. Nature and biodiversity loss. Pollution and waste. The triple crisis threatening the well-being and survival of millions of people around the world. The building blocks of happy, healthy lives—clean water, fresh air, a stable and predictable climate—are in disarray, putting the Sustainable Development Goals…

U.S. President Joe Biden has chosen Earth Day on Friday to sign an executive order to protect some of the country's largest and oldest trees. The order the president is scheduled to sign in Washington State will require the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service to identify threats to older trees, such as wildfire and climate change, and develop policies to safeguard them. Old trees are an ally in fighting climate change because they absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming.  Scientists say redwood forests are among the world's most efficient means of removing and storing carbon dioxide.  Thousands of U.S. redwoods have been destroyed in recent years. Biden's order will require federal land managers to define and count mature…

Australia’s most populous states will on Friday abolish a raft of coronavirus rules, including compulsory isolation for close contacts. Some vaccine mandates for key workers will also be scrapped.  Health officials in New South Wales and Victoria say the overhaul to the rules is a “big step” and is part of a plan to “co-exist with COVID-19." The new policy is a major overhaul of coronavirus restrictions for more than half of the Australian population. Those who may have come into close contact with COVID-19 in the states of New South Wales and Victoria will no longer have to isolate for seven days. They must, however, wear a mask indoors and be tested regularly. They also need special permission to visit hospitals, nursing homes or prisons. Many business leaders said…

Every year on Earth Day — April 22 — people come together to raise awareness about environmental problems. And this year they will focus on accelerating the transition to a prosperous green economy.     During the event, also known as International Mother Earth Day, some 1 billion people in 190 countries take part in activities that often include planting trees, removing litter from land and water sites, and educating others about the environment.     As curtailing climate change remains at the forefront of the global environmental agenda, Earth Day this year focuses on a business aspect of that goal: investing in our planet.    More businesses need to be pulled into the effort to safeguard the planet, especially to fight climate change, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Earthday.org.…

A U.K. patient with a severely weakened immune system had COVID-19 for almost a year and a half, scientists reported, underscoring the importance of protecting vulnerable people from the coronavirus. There's no way to know for sure whether it was the longest-lasting COVID-19 infection because not everyone gets tested, especially on a regular basis like this case. But at 505 days, "it certainly seems to be the longest reported infection," said Dr. Luke Blagdon Snell, an infectious disease expert at the Guy's & St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. Snell's team plans to present several "persistent" COVID-19 cases at an infectious diseases meeting in Portugal this weekend. Their study investigated which mutations arise — and whether variants evolve — in people with super long infections. It involved nine patients who tested…

Scientists have successfully bred a threatened species of coral as part of a project that hopes to restore damaged reefs off the coast of Florida that are under threat by a relatively new disease, a coral rescue organization said on Thursday. Reefs in Florida and the Caribbean are facing growing threat of destruction by the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease that strips coral of its color and ultimately its life altogether. The Florida Coral Rescue Center has in recent weeks bred hundreds of new coral of a species called rough cactus coral at a 185.80-square-meter facility that houses a total of 18 Florida coral species that are threatened by the disease. "There is potential to propagate these corals... on a level, that you could return some of these corals to…

Also, Russian cosmonauts put in work at the International Space Station. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi wraps up The Week in Space. ...

Farmers across the country and around the world might one day leave the confines of their tractor cabs and operate autonomous tractors remotely through an app. But will farmers, big and small, be willing to trust the technology? VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. ...

Palestinian militants fired a rocket into southern Israel for the first time in months on Monday, in another escalation after clashes at a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, a series of deadly attacks inside Israel and military raids across the occupied West Bank. Israel said it intercepted the rocket, and there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Israel holds Gaza's militant Hamas rulers responsible for all such projectiles and usually launches airstrikes in their wake. It was the first such rocket fire since New Year's Eve. Early Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets carried out a series of airstrikes in southern Gaza Strip, targeting a "weapons manufacturing site" for Hamas, the Israeli military said. There were no reports of injuries. Hours earlier, the leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group,…

The flight debut of NASA's mega moon rocket faces additional delays following a string of failed fueling tests.  Officials said Monday it will be challenging to meet a launch window in early to mid-June. The next opportunity to send an empty capsule to the moon on a test flight would be at the end of June or July.  The 30-story Space Launch System rocket has been on the pad at Kennedy Space Center for the past month. It will return to the hangar next week for valve and fuel leak repairs. The problems cropped up earlier this month, preventing NASA from filling the rocket's fuel tanks for a critical dress rehearsal.  The rocket will likely spend weeks in the hangar before heading back to the pad for a testing redo,…

Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after six months aboard their country's newest orbital station in the longest crewed mission to date for China's ambitious space program. The Shenzhou 13 space capsule landed in the Gobi desert in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, shown live on state TV. During the mission, astronaut Wang Yaping carried out the first spacewalk by a Chinese woman. Wang and crewmates Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu beamed back physics lessons for high school students. China launched its first astronaut into space in 2003 and landed robot rovers on the moon in 2013 and on Mars last year. Officials have discussed a possible crewed mission to the moon. On Saturday, state TV showed images from inside the capsule as it traveled at 200…