Author: Dmedia

Khalid Al-Khateb was born in Libya in the 1990s without the use of his legs. Despite wars and economic collapse in his country, the greatest challenge he has faced is trying to function in a world where disabilities are mostly ignored. From Tripoli, Libya, Malik Ghariani has this animated story. ...

DALLAS, TEXAS — The number of people with measles in Texas increased to 146 in an outbreak that led this week to the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, health officials said Friday.  The number of cases — Texas' largest in nearly 30 years — increased by 22 since Tuesday. The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in Texas and 20 patients have been hospitalized.  The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation's top health official and a vaccine critic, said Wednesday that the U.S. Department of the Health and Human Services was watching…

BASANKUSU, Democratic Republic of Congo — Authorities investigating the deaths of at least 60 people in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo suspect the water source in one of the areas may have been contaminated, the World Health Organization said Friday. But the agency said it's too early for a definitive conclusion. Doctors are investigating more than 1,000 illnesses that have emerged since late January in five villages in Congo's Equateur province, where high rates of malaria have complicated efforts to diagnose the cases and where officials have said they've been unable so far to confirm the main cause. WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said during an online briefing Friday that for one of the villages there is "a very strong level of suspicion ... related to the poisoning of a…

GABORONE, BOTSWANA — Southern Africa energy experts and political leaders pledged to improve access to energy at a summit in Botswana this week. The commitments come as most countries in the region still rely on coal, a major contributor to global warming. More than 500 participants from 16 Southern African Development Community, or SADC, member states, as well as other African countries, participated in the energy gathering. Moses Ntlamelle, a senior SADC programs officer, said pursuing a more inclusive transition to cleaner energy was one of the resolutions that regional representatives adopted at the summit. “The region is recommended to expedite just energy transition and explore the development of a regional renewable energy market,” he said. “This is to ensure that nobody is left behind. ... Inasmuch as we are going…

WASHINGTON — This year's harsh flu season — the most intense in 15 years — has federal health officials trying to understand if it sparked an increase in a rare but life-threatening brain complication in children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 19,000 people have died from the flu so far this winter, including 86 children. On Thursday, the CDC reported at least nine of those children experienced brain complications, and it has asked state health departments to help investigate if there are more such cases. There is some good news: The CDC also reported that this year's flu shots do a pretty good job preventing hospitalization from the flu — among the 45% of Americans who got vaccinated. But it comes a day after the Trump administration canceled…

A public-private partnership aims for a dark landing on the moon. Plus, a look at why Mars is red, and a phenomenon known as a planetary parade. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Katy Perry and Gayle King are headed to space with Jeff Bezos’ fiancee, Lauren Sanchez, and three other women. Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, announced the all-female celebrity crew on Thursday. Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, picked the crew who will join her on a 10-minute spaceflight from west Texas, the company said. They will blast off sometime this spring aboard a New Shepard rocket. No launch date was given. Blue Origin has flown tourists on short hops to space since 2021. Some passengers have gotten free rides, while others have paid a hefty sum to experience weightlessness. It was not immediately known who’s footing the bill for this upcoming flight. Sanchez invited singer Perry and TV journalist King, as well as former NASA…

TOKYO — The number of babies born in Japan fell to a record low of 720,988 in 2024 for a ninth consecutive year of decline, the health ministry said on Thursday, underscoring the rapid aging and dwindling of the population. Births were down 5% on the year, despite measures in 2023 by former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government to boost child-bearing, while a record number of 1.62 million deaths meant that more than two people died for every new baby born. Although the fertility rate in neighboring South Korea rose in 2024 for the first time in nine years, thanks to measures to spur young people to marry and have children, the trend in Japan has yet to show an upturn. Behind Japan's childbirth decline are fewer marriages in recent years,…

KINSHASA, CONGO — Unidentified illnesses in northwestern Congo have killed more than 50 people over the past five weeks, nearly half of them within hours after they felt sick.  The outbreaks in two distant villages in Congo's Equateur province began on Jan. 21 and include 419 cases and 53 deaths. Health officials still do not know the cause, or whether the cases in the two villages, which are separated by more than 190 kilometers (118 miles), are related. It's also unclear how the diseases are spreading, including whether they are spreading between people.  The first victims in one of the villages were children who ate a bat and died within 48 hours, the Africa office of the World Health Organization said this week. More infections were found in the other village,…

LUBBOCK, TEXAS — A person who was hospitalized with measles has died from measles in West Texas, the first death in an outbreak that began late last month.   Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center spokesperson Melissa Whitfield confirmed the death Wednesday.  It wasn't clear the age of the patient, who died overnight. Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 124 cases across nine counties, the state health department said Tuesday.   There are also nine cases in eastern New Mexico. Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours.   Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S.…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. will invest up to $1 billion to combat the spread of bird flu, including increasing imports of eggs, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said on Wednesday.   A three-year bird flu outbreak in U.S. poultry has killed 166 million chickens since 2022, according to USDA data.   The virus has also infected nearly 1,000 dairy herds and almost 70 people, including one death, since early 2024.  The USDA will spend up to $500 million to provide free biosecurity audits to farms and $400 million to increase payment rates to farmers who need to kill their chickens due to bird flu, Rollins said at a conference of state agriculture officials.   Some of the money will come from cuts to USDA spending by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, Rollins said in…

Earth is not in danger of being hit by an asteroid in the near future, NASA and the European Space Agency said Tuesday. The proclamations from the two agencies came after an asteroid dubbed 2024 YR4, discovered in December, had scientists speculating that it could strike Earth in December 2032. Scientists now project the asteroid will simply fly past our planet. That’s a good thing, because an asteroid that big, measuring 40 to 90 meters across, could cause a lot of damage. After two months of observation, scientists have significantly reduced the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth. At one point the likelihood of a strike was as high as 3%. ESA has reduced the odds to 0.001%, while NASA has reduced its odds to 0.0027%. "That's the outcome we…

KINSHASA, DR Congo — An unknown illness has killed over 50 people in northwestern Congo, according to doctors on the ground and the World Health Organization on Monday.  The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases, and “that’s what’s really worrying,” Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring center, told The Associated Press.  The latest disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo began on Jan. 21, and 419 cases have been recorded including 53 deaths.  According to the WHO’s Africa office, the first outbreak in the town of Boloko began after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours following hemorrhagic fever symptoms.  There have long been concerns about diseases jumping from animals to humans…

BOGOTA, Colombia — An annual United Nations conference on biodiversity that ran out of time last year will resume its work Tuesday in Rome with money at the top of the agenda. That is, how to spend what's been pledged so far — and how to raise a lot more to help preserve plant and animal life on Earth. The talks in Colombia, known as COP16, yielded some significant outcomes before they broke up in November, including an agreement that requires companies that benefit from genetic resources in nature — say, by developing medicines from rainforest plants — to share the benefits. And steps were taken to give Indigenous peoples and local communities a stronger voice in conservation matters. But two weeks turned out to be not enough time to get…

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — A village in the densely populated Philippine capital region launched a battle against dengue Wednesday by offering a token bounty to residents for captured mosquitos — dead or alive. The unusual strategy adopted by the Addition Hills village in Mandaluyong City reflects growing concern after the nearby city of Quezon declared an outbreak of the mosquito-borne illness over the weekend. Eight more areas reported an upsurge in cases of the potentially deadly viral infection. At least 28,234 dengue cases have been recorded in the Philippines this year up to Feb. 1, a 40% increase compared to the same period last year, according to health department statistics. Quezon City declared a dengue outbreak Saturday after deaths this year reached 10 people, mostly children, out of 1,769 residents infected. A…

CAIRO — A cholera outbreak in a southern Sudanese city killed nearly 60 people and sickened about 1,300 others over the last three days, health authorities said Saturday. The outbreak in the southern city of Kosti was blamed mainly on contaminated drinking water after the city’s water plant stopped due to an attack by a notorious paramilitary group, the Health Ministry said. The group has been fighting the country’s military for about two years. The ministry said in a statement the disease killed 58 people and sickened 1,293 others between Thursday and Saturday. The ministry said it has taken a series of measures to fight the outbreak, including launching a vaccination campaign against cholera in the city. The disease killed more than 600 and sickened over 21,000 others between July and…

JABALIA, GAZA STRIP — A third mass polio vaccination campaign began in Gaza on Saturday, AFP journalists reported, with the aim of delivering the first dose to nearly 600,000 children across the Palestinian territory. Scores of children under the age of 10 received the dose at a mosque in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, where a blistering Israeli military assault last year reduced many buildings to rubble. The vaccination campaign involves multiple U.N. agencies, including the Israeli-boycotted U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees, or UNRWA, and comes at a time when Israel and Hamas are observing a ceasefire that has largely halted the fighting. The United States, United Kingdom and other Western nations designate Hamas as a terror group. The World Health Organization said the campaign aims to vaccinate more…

The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 90 cases across seven counties, the state health department posted online Friday, and 16 people are hospitalized.  In neighboring eastern New Mexico, the measles case count is up to nine, though state public health officials said Thursday there's still no evidence this outbreak is connected to the one in Texas.  The West Texas cases are concentrated in eight counties in West Texas.   Texas state health department data shows that most of the cases are among people younger than 18. Twenty-six cases are in kids younger than 4 and 51 are in kids 5-17 years old. Ten adults have measles, and three cases are pending an age determination. The Ector County Health Department told the Odessa American its case was…

PARIS — Ice loss from the world's glaciers has accelerated over the past decade, scientists said on Wednesday, warning that melting may be faster than previously expected in the coming years and drive sea levels higher. The world's glaciers, which are important climate regulators and hold freshwater resources for billions, are rapidly melting as the world warms. In a first-of-its-kind global assessment, an international team of researchers found a sharp increase in melting over the past decade, with around 36% more ice lost in the 2012-23 period than in the years from 2000-11. On average some 273 billion tons of ice are being lost per year -- equivalent to the world population's water consumption for 30 years, they said. The findings are "shocking" if not altogether surprising as global temperatures rise…

An asteroid heading toward Earth will likely miss its chance to wipe out the planet. Plus, a possible new source of fuel for future flight. And the northern lights as only seen from above. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

Measles is making a comeback in the United States.  Fifty-eight cases of the highly contagious disease were reported Tuesday by health officials in rural West Texas, while eight cases were confirmed in neighboring eastern New Mexico.   Texas officials say the outbreak there, the largest in almost 30 years, is mainly confined to Gaines County, with 45 infections, but four other counties account for an additional 13 cases.    The Texas measles cases, according to health officials, have occurred mainly among a "close-knit, undervaccinated" Mennonite community.  Authorities say at least three of the New Mexico cases are in counties that border Texas' Gaines County.  Earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 14 measles cases across the country.   Mayo Clinic describes measles as "a childhood…

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to study how to expand access to in vitro fertilization and make it more affordable.  The order calls for policy recommendations to "protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments," according to the White House. On the campaign trail, Trump called for universal coverage of IVF treatment after his Supreme Court nominees helped to overturn Roe v. Wade, leading to a wave of restrictions in Republican-led states, including some that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception.  Trump, who was at his Florida residence and club Mar-a-Lago, also signed another executive order and a presidential memorandum. The second executive order outlined the oversight…

KAMPALA — Uganda discharged on Tuesday the last eight patients who recovered from Ebola, health authorities reported, and there were no other positive cases in the outbreak declared last month.  World Health Organization described the recoveries as a milestone that "reflects the power of Uganda's quick and coordinated response."  Most of the Ebola patients were treated at the main referral facility in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.  The lone Ebola victim was a male nurse who died the day before the outbreak was declared in Kampala on Jan. 30. His relatives are among those later hospitalized with Ebola.  Tracing contacts is key to stemming the spread of Ebola, which manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever. Ugandan officials documented at least 265 contacts, and at least 90 of them have completed a period…

Los Angeles — On a recent Sunday, Tracy Quinn drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to assess damage wrought upon the coastline by the Palisades Fire. The water line was darkened by ash. Burnt remnants of washing machines and dryers and metal appliances were strewn about the shoreline. Sludge carpeted the water's edge. Waves during high tide lapped onto charred homes, pulling debris and potentially toxic ash into the ocean as they receded. “It was just heartbreaking,” said Quinn, president and CEO of the environmental group Heal the Bay, whose team has reported ash and debris some 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the Palisades burn area west of Los Angeles. As crews work to remove potentially hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous materials from the Los Angeles wildfires, researchers…

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Chad health officials have sealed several dozen schools, sent thousands of children and their teachers home, and restricted movements to and from the Bologo district — 400 kilometers south of the capital, N'djamena — to contain a measles epidemic. Officials blame vaccine hesitancy for the rapid measles spread within the past two weeks. State TV reports that thousands of children in Chad's Bologo district have been ordered to stay home for a week as their schools remain closed to prevent measles from spreading. Many churches and mosques in the district are closed too. About 50 cases of measles were confirmed within the past two weeks, said Oumar Mahamat Traore, chief health official in Bologo, appointed by Chad's central government in N'djamena. He said the situation is very concerning…

U.S. health officials have banned Red Dye No. 3 from American foods, decades after the synthetic coloring was banned in Europe. As VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports, studies have linked the bright red color additive to cancer in male laboratory rats. ...

BALTIMORE — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's recent executive order aimed at restricting gender-affirming health care for transgender people under age 19. The judge's ruling came after a lawsuit was filed earlier this month on behalf of families with transgender or nonbinary children who allege their health care has been compromised by the president's order. A national group for family of LGBTQ+ people and a doctors organization are also plaintiffs in the court challenge, one of many lawsuits opposing one of the many executive orders Trump has issued. Judge Brendan Hurson, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, granted the plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order following a hearing in federal court in Baltimore. The ruling, in effect for 14 days, essentially puts Trump's…

NEW YORK — A new study shows that bird flu has silently spread from animals to some veterinarians. The study published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention echoes two smaller ones that detected evidence of infection in previously undiagnosed farmworkers. In those studies, several of the infected workers remembered having symptoms of H5N1 bird flu, while none of the veterinarians in the new paper recalled any such symptoms. The new study is more evidence that the official U.S. tally of confirmed human bird flu infections — 68 in the last year — is likely a significant undercount, said Dr. Gregory Gray, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. "This means that people are being infected, likely due to their occupational exposures, and not…