Author: Dmedia

Windhoek, Namibia — A top Namibian health official tells VOA the southern Africa country is set to begin distribution of the HPV vaccine to adolescent girls in April as a preventative measure in the fight against cervical cancer. Namibia has a population of about 1 million women ages 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Each year, about 375 women in Namibia are diagnosed with the disease, and the fatality rate is over 50%. The Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, known as HPV, has been proven to greatly lessen the chance of getting cervical cancer. Ben Nangombe, executive director at Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services, says health workers will begin vaccinating about 183,000 girls between the ages of nine and 14 next month. He says the…

Malawi has embarked on trials of genetically modified maize aimed to curb recurrent hunger and pests like fall armyworms and caterpillars. The trials come amid concerns about the possible effects genetically modified organisms have on health and the environment. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe. ...

Washington — A polio survivor known as the "man in the iron lung" has died aged 78, according to his family and a fundraising website. Paul Alexander of Dallas, Texas contracted polio at the age of six, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and reliant on a mechanical respirator to breathe for much of the time. Though often confined to his submarine-like cylinder, he excelled in his studies, earned a law degree, worked in the legal field and wrote a book. "With a heavy heart I need to say my brother passed last night," Philip Alexander posted on Facebook early Wednesday. "It was an honor to be part of someone's life who was as admired as he was." Christopher Ulmer, a disability advocate running a fundraiser for Alexander, also confirmed…

UNITED NATIONS — The number of children worldwide who died before age 5 reached a record low in 2022, the United Nations said in a report published Tuesday, as for the first time fewer than 5 million died. According to the estimate, 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2022, a 51% decrease since 2000 and a 62% drop since 1990, according to the report, which still warned such progress is "precarious" and unequal. "There is a lot of good news, and the major one is that we have come to a historic level of under-five mortality, which ... reached under 5 million for the first time, so it is 4.9 million per year," Helga Fogstad, director of health at the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, told AFP. According to…

Cape Canaveral, Florida — Four astronauts from four countries caught a lift back to Earth with SpaceX on Tuesday to end a half-year mission at the International Space Station. Their capsule streaked across the U.S. in the predawn darkness and splashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Florida Panhandle. NASA's Jasmin Moghbeli, a Marine helicopter pilot, led the returning crew of Denmark's Andreas Mogensen, Japan's Satoshi Furukawa and Russia's Konstantin Borisov. They moved into the space station last August. Their replacements arrived last week in their own SpaceX capsule. "We left you some peanut butter and tortillas," Moghbeli radioed after departing the orbiting complex on Monday. Replied NASA's Loral O'Hara: "I miss you guys already and thanks for that very generous gift." O'Hara has another few weeks at the space…

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The United Nations says at least 20 children in Gaza have died of starvation and doctors say many more are increasingly suffering from grave physical and mental illnesses. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Istanbul with Nedal Hamdouna and Amjed Tantesh in Rafah, Gaza. Camera: Ihab Abu Riyash, Yan Beochat. ...

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea will start deploying military physicians and doctors from public health centers to strike-hit hospitals on Monday to help care for patients affected by the walkout of nearly 12,000 trainee doctors from 100 hospitals over government reform plans. Twenty military surgeons along with 138 public health doctors will be assigned to 20 hospitals for four weeks, Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong said at a meeting on Sunday. The number of military physicians called on to help so far was only a small fraction of the roughly 2,400 military doctors, according to a defense ministry briefing. The government has denied the walkout which started on Feb. 20 has caused a full-blown health crisis, but some hospitals have had to turn away patients and delay medical procedures. As of…

In Malawi, 35,000 backstreet abortions were carried out in 2022 and 2023, according to its Ministry of Health. These unsafe procedures are just one reason support for abortion rights has increased in recent years. Chimwemwe Padatha has more from Lilongwe. ...

Zambia has received the first shipment of a new medicine to prevent HIV infection. The delivery makes Zambia only the second country in the world after the United States to offer the injectable preventative outside of a research setting. Kathy Short reports from Lusaka, Zambia. Camera and video editing by Richard Kille. ...

Paris — French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday for the first time that he backed new end-of-life legislation that would allow what he called "help to die" and wanted his government to put forward a draft bill to parliament in May. France's neighbors Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands have adopted laws that allow medically assisted dying in some cases. But France has resisted that step, in part under pressure from the Catholic Church. The Claeys-Leonetti law on the end of life, adopted in 2016, authorizes deep sedation but only for people whose prognosis is threatened in the short-term. In an interview with Liberation newspaper, Macron said he did not want to call the new legislation euthanasia or assisted suicide, but rather "help to die." "It does not, strictly speaking, create a…

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washington — A Pentagon study released Friday that examined reported sightings of UFOs over nearly the last century found no evidence of aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence, a conclusion consistent with past U.S. government efforts to assess the accuracy of claims that have captivated public attention for decades.  The study from the Defense Department's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office analyzed U.S. government investigations since 1945 of reported sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena, more popularly known as UFOs. It found no evidence that any of them were signs of alien life, or that the U.S. government and private companies had reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology and were hiding it.  "All investigative efforts, at all levels of classification, concluded that most sightings were ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification," said the report, which was…

Washington — A U.N. report released Friday about the prevalence of female genital mutilation around the globe is drawing attention to the practice among the Dawoodi Bohra community, a Muslim minority sect based in India. India is not on the UNICEF list of 31 countries released Friday. But the extent of FGM in India, although small relative to its population and long shrouded in secrecy, is coming into the open. The ritual is mostly practiced by the Dawoodi Bohras, a subsect of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam with an estimated 1 to 2 million followers around the globe. Recent surveys show that as many as 80% of Bohra girls undergo genital mutilation as a religious right of passage. “We are still significant, even if our numbers are few,” said Aarefa…

A new climate satellite takes off. Plus, a fresh crew arrives at the International Space Station, and NASA may want to hire you. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

State Department — The United States and China have agreed to extend a science and technology agreement for another six months, the U.S. State Department said Thursday. “The Department of State on behalf of the U.S. government is negotiating to amend, extend and strengthen protections within the U.S.-PRC Science and Technology Agreement (STA). In February 2024, the United States and PRC agreed to an additional short-term six-month extension of the U.S.-PRC STA,” a spokesperson told VOA. “The short-term six-month extension keeps the agreement in force while we continue negotiations,” the spokesperson added. U.S. officials have said the STA provides consistent standards for government-to-government scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China. While the agreement supports scientific collaboration in areas that benefit the United States, U.S. officials acknowledge the challenges posed by China's…

Many ranchers in Panama are making the transition from breeding livestock to much smaller creatures – butterflies. Not only is it good for the planet, but for some, it’s proven to be an economic winner. Oscar Sulbaran reports in this story, narrated by Veronica Villafane. ...

A Seattle startup’s drones are helping first responders by providing them with “eyes and ears” in hazardous environments. Natasha Mozgovaya in Seattle has the story. ...

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s government began steps Monday to suspend the medical licenses of thousands of striking junior doctors, days after they missed a government-set deadline to end their joint walkouts, which have severely impacted hospital operations. Nearly 9,000 medical interns and residents have been on strike for two weeks to protest a government push to sharply increase the number of medical school admissions. Their action has led to hundreds of canceled surgeries and other treatments and threatened to burden the country’s medical service. Monday, officials were sent to dozens of hospitals to formally confirm the absence of the striking doctors as the government began steps to suspend their licenses for at least three months, Vice Health Minister Park Min-soo told a briefing. Park said authorities will later notify…

March 4 is World Obesity Day. Indonesia is facing a disparity in obesity rates among adults. Almost half of the country’s women are overweight or obese, nearly double the rate of Indonesian men according to data from the country's Ministry of Health. Dave Grunebaum looks at the issue. (Camera: Dave Grunebaum) ...

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BOSTON — Four years after the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools and upended child care, the CDC says parents can start treating the virus like other respiratory illnesses. Gone are mandated isolation periods and masking. But will schools and child care centers agree? In case you've lost track: Before Friday, all Americans, including school children, were supposed to stay home for at least five days if they had COVID-19 and then mask for a set period of time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, with COVID deaths and hospitalizations dropping, the CDC says children can go back to school when their overall symptoms improve and they're fever-free for 24 hours without taking medication. Students are "encouraged" to wear a mask when they return. Still, the change may not…

MOANDA, DR Congo — The oil drills that loom down the road from Adore Ngaka's home remind him daily of everything he's lost. The extraction in his village in western Congo has polluted the soil, withered his crops and forced the family to burn through savings to survive, he said. Pointing to a stunted ear of corn in his garden, the 27-year-old farmer says it's about half the size he got before oil operations expanded nearly a decade ago in his village of Tshiende. "It's bringing us to poverty," he said. Congo, a mineral-rich nation in central Africa, is thought to have significant oil reserves, too. Drilling has so far been confined to a small territory on the Atlantic Ocean and offshore, but that's expected to change if the government successfully…

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo astronauts fell silent Thursday, a week after breaking a leg at touchdown and tipping over near the lunar south pole. Intuitive Machines' lander, Odysseus, lasted longer than the company anticipated after it ended up on its side with hobbled solar power and communication. The end came as flight controllers received one last photo from Odysseus and commanded its computer and power systems to standby. That way, the lander can wake up in another two to three weeks — if it survives the bitterly cold lunar night. Intuitive Machines spokesman Josh Marshall said these final steps drained the lander's batteries and put Odysseus "down for a long nap." "Good night, Odie. We hope to hear from…