Category: News

New Delhi — India reported Sunday that it had put a "suspected mpox case" into isolation, assuring that the world's most populous nation had "robust measures" in place, the health ministry said in a statement. There have been no confirmed cases of mpox in India, a country of 1.4 billion people. "A young male patient, who recently traveled from a country currently experiencing mpox transmission, has been identified as a suspect case of mpox," the health ministry said in a statement. "The patient has been isolated in a designated hospital and is currently stable," it said, adding the samples "are being tested to confirm the presence of mpox." It gave no further details of where he may have contracted the disease. "There is no cause of any undue concern," the statement…

Beijing — China said Sunday it would allow the establishment of wholly foreign-owned hospitals in nine areas of the country including the capital, as Beijing tries to attract more foreign investment to boost its flagging economy. In a document on the official website of China's commerce ministry, it said the new policy was a pilot project designed to implement a pledge the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee led by President Xi Jinping made at its July plenum meeting held roughly every five years. "In order to ... introduce foreign investment to promote the high-quality development of China's medical-related fields, and better meet the medical and health needs of the people, it is planned to carry out pilot work of expanding opening-up in the medical field," according to the document. The project…

KAJIADO, Kenya — The blood, milk and meat of cattle have long been staple foods for Maasai pastoralists in Kenya, perhaps the country's most recognizable community. But climate change is forcing the Maasai to contemplate a very different dish: fish. A recent yearslong drought in Kenya killed millions of livestock. While Maasai elders hope the troubles are temporary and they will be able to resume traditional lives as herders, some are adjusting to a kind of food they had never learned to enjoy. Fish were long viewed as part of the snake family due to their shape, and thus inedible. Their smell had been unpleasant and odd to the Maasai, who call semi-arid areas home. “We never used to live near lakes and oceans, so fish was very foreign for us,"…

ISLAMABAD — Millions of people in Pakistan continue to live along the path of floodwaters, showing neither people nor the government have learned lessons from the 2022 devastating floods that killed 1,737 people, experts said Thursday, as an aid group said half of the 300 victims killed by rains since July are children. Heavy rainfall is drenching those areas that were badly hit by the deluges two years ago. The charity Save the Children said in a statement that floods and heavy rains have killed more than 150 children in Pakistan since the start of the monsoon season, making up more than half of all deaths in rain-affected areas. The group said that 200 children have also been injured in Pakistan because of rains, which have also displaced thousands of people.…

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigeria’s difficult victory over polio faces a challenge as the poliovirus type 2 variant reemerges and the nation considers new measures to tackle the outbreak. Nigeria eradicated wild polio in 2020, but more than 50 cases of the poliovirus type 2 variant were reported between January and May. Authorities and global partners met Wednesday in Abuja with northern traditional leaders to strengthen efforts against the disease, particularly in under-immunized areas. Bill Gates, a key global funder of Nigeria's polio fight, said eradicating this strain is a top priority for the Gates Foundation. "We do have this circulating variant, poliovirus type 2. The acronym is cVDPV2. ... Unfortunately, it's equally bad as the wild poliovirus,” Gates said. “It can paralyze or even kill children, and we still have work…

Zimbabwe’s heavy reliance on coal-based energy is hurting the health of people in mining regions who continue to be exposed to dirty air from coal burning. Columbus Mavhunga visited the Hwange thermal power station — about 700 kilometers from Harare — and the surrounding area, where residents have complained about the air pollution. ...

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For more than a century, dams have blocked fish migration on California’s second-largest river. VOA’s Matt Dibble takes us to the removal of the last of four dams, a victory for Native Americans who depend on the river. ...

A trip that should have lasted just over a week spirals into a roughly eight-month adventure. Plus, a pioneering teacher memorialized in bronze. And a robot proves its purpose by picking up pebbles. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. ...

Despite global efforts to stop the practice of female genital mutilation, the harmful tradition continues to affect the lives and health of millions of women and girls in Somalia. Reporter Najib Ahmed has this story from the capital, Mogadishu, narrated by Anthony LaBruto. (Camera and Produced by: Abdulkadir Zuber) ...

Kinshasa, Congo — The first delivery of almost 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines will arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, the African Union's health watchdog said. The vast central Africa country of around 100 million people is at the epicenter of the mpox outbreak, with cases and deaths rising. "We are very pleased with the arrival of this first batch of vaccines in the DRC," Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told AFP, adding that more than 99,000 doses were expected. More than 17,500 cases and 629 deaths have been reported in the country since the start of the year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The vaccine doses will be transported onboard an airplane leaving the Danish capital Copenhagen on…

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Boeing will attempt to return its problem-plagued capsule from the International Space Station later this week — with empty seats. NASA said Wednesday that everything is on track for the Starliner capsule to undock from the space station Friday evening. The fully automated capsule will aim for a touchdown in New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range six hours later. NASA's two stuck astronauts, who flew up on Starliner, will remain behind at the orbiting lab. They'll ride home with SpaceX in February, eight months after launching on what should have been a weeklong test flight. Thruster trouble and helium leaks kept delaying their return until NASA decided that it was too risky for them to accompany Starliner back as originally planned. "It's been a journey to get…

SYDNEY — Global concerns over plastic pollution and cuts to fossil fuel use are behind a new Australian-led initiative to develop a new generation of 100 percent compostable plastic. Experts estimate that more than 170 trillion pieces of plastic are floating in the world's oceans. There are growing concerns about the impact of micro-plastics on health and the environment.     The Bioplastics Innovation Hub aims to “revolutionize” plastic packaging by making biologically-made plastic that can break down in compost, land or water.   The aim is to produce water bottles, for example, using bioplastics derived from waste products from the food industry.  The green plastic scheme brings together the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the CSIRO - Australia’s national science agency - and Murdoch University in Perth in a multi-million dollar collaboration…

LONDON — The growing mpox outbreaks in Africa that triggered the World Health Organization's emergency declaration are largely the result of decades of neglect and the global community's inability to stop sporadic epidemics among a population with little immunity against the smallpox-related disease, leading African scientists said Tuesday. According to Dr. Dimie Ogoina, who chaired WHO's mpox emergency committee, negligence has led to a new, more transmissible version of the virus emerging in countries with few resources to stop outbreaks. Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 outbreak in more than 70 countries, Ogoina said at a virtual news conference. "What we are witnessing in Africa now is different from the global outbreak in 2022," he said. While…

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health authorities and United Nations agencies on Sunday began a large-scale campaign of vaccinations against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory that has been ravaged by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Authorities plan to vaccinate children in central Gaza until Wednesday before moving on to the more devastated northern and southern parts of the strip. The campaign began with a small number of vaccinations on Saturday and aims to reach about 640,000 children. The World Health Organization said Thursday that Israel has agreed to limited pauses in the fighting to facilitate the campaign. There were initial reports of Israeli strikes in central Gaza early Sunday, but it was not immediately known if anyone was killed or wounded. Hospitals in…

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A "mega den" of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born. Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They're observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks. The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chat room and to scientists by names including "Woodstock," "Thea" and "Agent 008." The live feed, which draws as many as 500 people at…

PATERZELL, Germany — How do you teach a bird how, and where, to fly? The distinctive northern bald ibis, hunted essentially to extinction by the 17th century, was revived by breeding and rewilding efforts over the last two decades. But the birds — known for their distinctive black-and-iridescent green plumage, bald red head and long curved beak — don't instinctively know which direction to fly to migrate without the guidance of wild-born elders. So a team of scientists and conservationists stepped in as foster parents and flight instructors. "We have to teach them the migration route," said biologist Johannes Fritz. The northern bald ibis once soared over North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and much of Europe, including southern Germany's Bavaria. The migratory birds were also considered a delicacy, and the bird,…