Month: June 2024

A public-private partnership in Kenya provides female students with free sanitary napkins dispensed from converted ATMs at school. The goal is to provide pads to young women from poor families so they don't miss school because they are menstruating. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi, Kenya. ...

Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was an international surrogacy hub. Relatively low cost and a favorable legal framework led to thousands of babies born every year thanks to Ukrainian surrogate mothers, many of them for overseas parents. Despite the war and the risks, hopeful foreigners keep coming to Ukraine. Mariia Prus has the story. ...

Sydney — Australia’s national science agency warns a lack of scientists specialized in plant breeding could lead to ‘dire’ food security implications around the world. Researchers say plant breeding is a critical science that underpins the global production of food, animal feed and fuel. The finding is among the conclusions of a recently published paper by researchers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.       A joint paper published earlier this month by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, in collaboration with Lincoln University in New Zealand and McGill University in Canada, warns that highly-skilled plant breeding experts, who are reaching the end of their careers, are not being replaced by sufficient numbers of university graduates, many of whom are choosing other areas of plant science including molecular biology.…

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Sydney — Bird flu continues to spread in the Australian state of Victoria, where more than 500,000 chickens have been euthanized.  Strict quarantine zones restricting the movement of birds and equipment have also been put in place.  Australian health authorities say bird flu spreads mainly among wild water birds. The highly pathogenic H7N3 strain of avian influenza has been found on four farms, while another virus, H7N9, has been detected at a fifth property over the past seven weeks in Victoria state.  The Australian farms have been put into lockdown.  At least 580,000 birds have been destroyed as part of sweeping biosecurity controls. Japan and the United States have temporarily banned imports of poultry from Victoria as a precaution. In Australia, some supermarkets are restricting the number of eggs that consumers…

WASHINGTON — A closely watched Alzheimer's drug from Eli Lilly won the backing of federal health advisers Monday, setting the stage for the treatment's expected approval for people with mild dementia caused by the brain-robbing disease.  Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously that the drug's ability to slow the disease outweighs its risks, including side effects like brain swelling and bleeding that will have to be monitored.  “I thought the evidence was very strong in the trial showing the effectiveness of the drug,” said panel member Dean Follmann, a National Institutes of Health statistician.  The FDA will make the final decision on approval later this year. If the agency agrees with the panel's recommendation, the drug, donanemab, would only be the second Alzheimer’s drug cleared in the U.S. that's been…

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After Russia invaded Ukraine, the West responded, sending military weaponry and aid to the embattled nation. But as the war drags on, there is also a need for doctors. One nonprofit is sending American surgeons to Ukraine, and Ukrainian surgeons to train in the United States. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Pavlo Terekhov. ...

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KAMPALA, Uganda — Early last year, Caroline Ikendi was in distress after undergoing an emergency Caesarean section to remove one stillborn baby and save two others. Doctors said one of the preterm babies had a 2% chance of living. If the babies didn't get breast milk — which she didn't have — Ikendi could lose them as well. Thus began a desperate search for breast milk donors. She was lucky with a neighbor, a woman with a newborn baby to feed who was willing to donate a few milliliters at a time. "You go and plead for milk. You are like, 'Please help me, help my child,'" Ikendi told The Associated Press. The neighbor helped until Ikendi heard about a Ugandan group that collects breast milk and donates it to mothers…

ROME — The total global volume of fish, shrimp, clams and other aquatic animals that are harvested by farming has topped the amount fished in the wild from the world's waters for the first time ever, the United Nations reported Friday. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, in its latest report on fisheries and aquaculture — or farming in water — says the global catch and harvest brought in more than 185 million tons of aquatic animals in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Experts say the milestone in human history had been expected, as the hauls from fisheries have largely stagnated over the last three decades — largely because of limits in nature. Manuel Barange, who heads FAO's fisheries and aquaculture division, said aquaculture has benefited…

GENEVA — Scientific evidence documented in a series of articles presented by the World Health Organization this week highlights the harmful impact of climate change at key stages of the human life cycle. “These provide important scientific evidence on how the health of pregnant women, newborns, children, adolescents and older people is affected by air pollution and different climate hazards, including wildfires, flooding and extreme heat,” Anayda Portela, director of the WHO’s department of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and aging, said at a briefing Friday for journalists in Geneva. “This evidence is critically important, because it shows the leading health risks for each of these groups for these different climate events,” Portela said. She noted that the collection of articles published in the Journal of Global Health shows that…

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MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Parts of the north side of Montgomery are defined by what it has lost: restaurants, grocery stores and a convenient pharmacy, the latter of which closed five years ago. People who still live in the historically Black neighborhood of Newtown, like Sharon Harris, are frustrated. She goes to a different location of the same pharmacy chain, which is four miles from her home. "You have to come back sometimes," she said, "and then they wait so long to fill the prescription." In cities across the U.S., major retail pharmacies have closed hundreds of stores over the past few years and independents can't always afford to stay open. That can leave residents of color without easy access to a business that provides not only prescriptions but also fundamental public…

NEW YORK — The mysterious death of a man in Mexico who had one kind of bird flu is unrelated to outbreaks of a different type at U.S. dairy farms, experts say. Here's a look at the case and the different types of bird flu. What happened in the Mexico bird flu case? A 59-year-old man in Mexico who had been bedridden because of chronic health problems developed a fever, shortness of breath and diarrhea in April. He died a week later, and the World Health Organization this week reported it. The WHO said it was the first time that version of bird flu — H5N2 — had been seen in a person. What's been happening in the U.S. with bird flu? A different version of bird flu — H5N1 —…

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seattle, washington — Retired Major General William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90. His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press. "The family is devastated," Greg Anders said. "He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly." Anders said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, given the ecological and philosophical impact it had, along with making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked. A report came in around 11:40 a.m. local time that an older-model…

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Zimbabwe is facing long hours of power cuts due to its dilapidated infrastructure and the impact of recurring droughts on hydropower. To help, the United Nations Development Program is installing solar panels on government-owned health facilities. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Bulawayo. ...

nairobi, kenya — An estimated 70 percent of Africa's urban households buy food from informal sources, such as street vendors, kiosks, and traditional market sellers, recent studies have found.   Now, the African Union and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), are joining forces to design the first-ever guidelines to help African governments improve food safety in informal food markets. Starting Friday, these new guidelines will aim to help African governments engage with and improve regulatory oversight of  informal food markets, which are vital sources of affordable food and income for millions in Africa. Silvia Alonso, an epidemiologist at the institute, said improving food safety in the informal markets will help improve the health of the people and the countries' economies.  "A large portion of those informal markets have been rather neglected," said…