Month: November 2022

Australia can expect another wave of COVID-19 infections in coming weeks, according to experts, as new variants circulate. Coronavirus cases are rising quickly in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia’s most populous states. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. The declaration is still active. In Australia, life is resembling what it was before the virus. Most disease-control measures, such as mandatory mask-wearing on public transport and self-isolation for people testing positive to COVID-19, have been scrapped. Some restrictions, however, still apply to health, disability and aged-care facilities. Public health authorities in the states of New South Wales and Victoria have warned that another surge in infections is approaching. Official data has shown that in the last week of October, coronavirus case numbers increased…

Tanzania's Ministry of Tourism released a census this week showing the country's elephant population has stabilized. Tanzania's elephants were among the hardest hit by poaching in Africa, with numbers dropping 60 percent between 2009 and 2014. But authorities say joint efforts with conservation groups and local communities have drastically reduced poaching and helped to attract tourist dollars. Just under 20,000 elephants were recorded in a survey that covered about 90,000 square kilometers of the Katavi-Rukwa and Ruaha-Rungwa landscapes in western Tanzania, including parks, game reserves and other protected areas. The government said the results confirm that the landscape remains the most important in East Africa in terms of elephant numbers and contains the largest population on the continent outside Zimbabwe and Botswana. Ernest Mjingo, a managing director of the Tanzania…

A private spaceflight giant has a busy week sending satellites into orbit. Plus, massive meteor strikes on Mars, and the Pillars of Creation get an eerie makeover. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

The United Nations reports that up to 222 million people globally are facing acute hunger — and that 47 million of them in the Greater Horn of Africa. Most parts of the region are battling the worst drought in 40 years. After four consecutive years of drought and a fifth season of failed rains looming, health experts fear great loss of life. A new World Health Organization analysis of seven countries in the region finds disease outbreaks and climate-related emergencies have reached their highest level this century. Analysts have recorded a total of 39 health emergencies this year in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda. Egmond Evers, the WHO’s Incident Manager for Greater Horn of Africa Food Insecurity and Health, said the food insecurity crisis in the…

Europe has warmed more than twice as much as the rest of the world over the past three decades and has experienced the greatest temperature increase of any continent, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization.  The report on the state of the climate in Europe follows a summer of extremes. A record-breaking heat wave scorched Britain, Alpine glaciers vanished at an unprecedented rate and a long-lasting marine heat wave cooked the waters of the Mediterranean.   "Europe presents a live picture of a warming world and reminds us that even well-prepared societies are not safe from impacts of extreme weather events," WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas said in a statement.   From 1991 to 2021, temperatures over Europe warmed at an average of 0.5 degree Celsius per decade, the report…

A landmark deal to allow grain exports from Ukraine, which was back on track Wednesday after being briefly suspended, has played a crucial role in easing a global food crisis sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and signed by Moscow and Kyiv on July 22, the agreement established a protected sea corridor to allow grain shipments to resume for the first time since the fighting began in February Here is what we know about the deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative: Why was it needed? When Russian troops attacked in late February, Moscow imposed a blockade on Ukraine's Black Sea ports, halting all agricultural exports from one of the world's breadbaskets. The move left 20 million metric tons of grain…

The World Health Organization warned Wednesday that Ebola's arrival in the Ugandan capital highlighted the high risk of further spread of the deadly virus, calling on neighboring countries to boost their preparedness.  Since Uganda's health ministry first declared the outbreak on September 20, the country has registered more than 150 confirmed and probable cases, including 64 deaths, WHO said.  And since the deadly disease spread to Kampala last week, 17 cases have been confirmed there, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.  "Although these cases are linked to known clusters, the very fact that there are cases in a densely populated city underscores the very real risk of further transmission," he said, speaking from WHO headquarters in Geneva.  There is a "very urgent need for increased readiness in districts and…

Advocacy groups are welcoming a decision by India's Supreme Court that bans what is known as a "two-finger" test on rape survivors, calling it a patriarchal and invasive practice and ruling that anyone violating the directive will face misconduct charges. Medical experts have used the test to determine whether a woman has engaged in regular sexual intercourse. Calling the practice regressive and unscientific, a two-judge panel said, "the probative value of a woman's testimony does not depend upon her sexual history. It is patriarchal and sexist to suggest that a woman cannot be believed when she states that she was raped, merely for the reason that she is sexually active." New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement, "The judgment brings hope that the justice system will finally stop…

Ahead of the COP27 climate talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh next week, there are concerns that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reversed progress on tackling climate change. But as Henry Ridgwell reports, some say the war could have a positive impact in the longer term ...

Three of the largest U.S. pharmacy chains — CVS, Walgreens and Walmart — are reported to have tentatively agreed to pay more than $13 billion to settle more than 3,000 state and local lawsuits involving the dispensing of opioid painkillers.  Sources close to the negotiations report CVS will pay $5 billion over 10 years, Walgreens will pay $5.7 billion over 15 years and Walmart will pay $3.1 billion, mostly up front. The sources remained anonymous as they were not authorized to speak publicly about the agreement.    In a statement released Wednesday, CVS Health said it has agreed it will pay approximately $5 billion — with $4.9 billion to states and political subdivisions and approximately $130 million to Native American tribes — over the next 10 years beginning in 2023. …

New research shows vaccinating pregnant women helped protect their newborns from the common but scary respiratory virus called RSV that fills hospitals with wheezing babies each fall. The preliminary results buoy hope that after decades of failure and frustration, vaccines against RSV may finally be getting close. Pfizer announced Tuesday that a large international study found that vaccinating moms-to-be was nearly 82% effective at preventing severe cases of RSV in their babies' most vulnerable first 90 days of life. At age 6 months, the vaccine still was proving 69% effective against serious illness — and there were no signs of safety problems in mothers or babies. "Moms are always giving their antibodies to their baby," said virologist Kena Swanson, Pfizer's vice president of viral vaccines. "The vaccine just puts them…

Lebanon received a first batch of vaccines Monday to combat a worsening cholera outbreak - together with sharply worded criticism of its crumbling public health infrastructure from France, which facilitated the donation of the doses. By Sunday, cases of cholera - a disease typically spread through contaminated water, food or sewage - stood at 1,447, with 17 deaths, since the first were recorded in the country a month ago, Lebanon's health ministry said. Lebanon had been cholera-free since 1993, but its public services are suffering under a brutal economic crisis now in its fourth year, while infighting among the country's faction-riven elite has paralyzed its political institutions. The outbreak has reached Beirut, but authorities say most cases remain concentrated where it started in the northern town of Bebnine, where health…

On Tuesday, Nov. 1, Australia's most populous state is banning a range of single-use plastic, including straws, cutlery and bowls. Polystyrene foam food containers are also banned under the new rules in New South Wales, along with some face, body and hair products that contain plastic micro beads.    Businesses that breach the regulations could face fines of tens of thousands of dollars.   Minister for Environment and Heritage James Griffin said in a statement in September that the ban was just the start of a "massive shift away from single-use plastic."   He has predicted the ban would stop 2.7 billion items of plastic ending up as litter over the next 20 years.  The laws in New South Wales are part of a nationwide push to curb waste. State authorities in Queensland…

Research in Africa found a one-time dose of an experimental drug protected adults against malaria for at least six months, the latest approach in the fight against the mosquito-borne disease.  Malaria killed more than 620,000 people in 2020 and sickened 241 million, mainly children under 5 in Africa. The World Health Organization is rolling out the first authorized malaria vaccine for children, but it is about 30% effective and requires four doses.  The new study tested a very different approach — giving people a big dose of lab-made malaria-fighting antibodies instead of depending on the immune system to make enough of those same infection-blockers after vaccination. "The available vaccine doesn’t protect enough people," said Dr. Kassoum Kayentao of the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies in Bamako, Mali, who helped…