Month: April 2017

This year marks the half-way point in an international campaign to provide children and adults the world over with access to life-saving vaccines. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on the progress – and what’s at stake in this campaign. …

Six years ago, 194 countries signed on to the Global Vaccine Action Plan, an international campaign to provide children and adults around the world with access to life-saving vaccines. The goal of the program is to prevent millions of people from getting vaccine-preventable diseases by the time it ends in 2020. The idea is to provide universal access to vaccines to protect people of all ages, from the very young to the very old. Dr. Flavia Bustreo, is the assistant director-general for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization. “Immunization and vaccines are the most powerful public health tools that we have currently, “ she said. Millions of children saved Bustreo says 35 years ago, 13 million children lost their lives from diseases that could be prevented by vaccines. She says that number has been reduced to 6 million, but 6 million is still too high. Today, 85 percent of children are vaccinated against measles and other deadly diseases, but Bustreo says more children need these vaccines. “We need to have vaccination coverage that is about 90 percent, in order to have what we call the ‘herd effect’ … which means you cover the children who are vaccinated, but also, because of the reduction of transmission of infections, you also cover the children that are not vaccinated,” Bustreo said. Final push on polio Because of vaccines, polio is on the brink of eradication. Polio exists in two conflict zones: in northern Nigeria and along the border between …

Marches took place in hundreds of cities around the world Saturday in support of science. Organizers hoped to bring government attention to fact-based decisions on health, the environment, safety and the economy. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti brings us the sights and sounds from these rallies – she starts in Washington. …

Global plastic consumption reached more than 110 million tons in 2009. Plastic can take up to 1,000 years to degrade. When it does degrade, it can end up as tiny bits of poisonous microplastics in the bodies of animals we eat. But an English company has created a new product that might help solve the problem: an edible water bottle called Ooho. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Earth Day is observed around the world with tree plantings, exhibits, cleanups and protests. …

Drawn-out deaths. Communities torn apart. Survivor’s guilt. Patrick Fallah says his memories of the days when the Ebola virus swept through Liberia are so awful that he sometimes has trouble focusing on the present. “Sometimes when I have a flashback of the death of my son and others who died in the Ebola treatment unit, I don’t want to speak to people. I grieve so much that my mind is not really on what I am doing,” said Fallah, 30, who lost his 8-month-old son and stepmother and is president of the National Ebola Survivors Network of Liberia. The trauma of the world’s deadliest Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,300, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, has left many survivors fighting a battle some worry will never end. But Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries and with just one psychiatrist, has announced the ambitious goal of expanding access to mental health care to 70 percent of its population in the next few years. The World Health Organization declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in June, estimating that more than 10,000 people who had been infected have survived in the three West African countries, including more than 4,000 in Liberia. As the world’s attention has turned to other crises, many Ebola survivors still face the psychological consequences of the epidemic, feeling guilt over their pasts and worry for their futures without resources to deal with the pain. Mental health is often an expense far beyond the reach …

European scientists are taking part in the March for Science demonstration taking place in hundreds of cities around the world to commemorate Earth Day. Science and research skeptics are becoming more mainstream in an era of populist and Eurosceptic movements. And on both sides of the Atlantic, there is less funding to support independent research. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a professor at the University of Leuven, says shifting priorities in Europe has had an impact on the work of scientists.   “Now funds for fundamental research are much more difficult to get. Even if the budget remains the same or sometimes has increased, there was a shift in priorities towards research that is supposed to deliver more immediate results in terms of job creation or that kind of thing. Or research that helps the European industry to bring a product to the market. And climate scientists are not building any products that the European industries can sell.”   The European Union set a target for its member states that they should spend three percent of their budget on science, but many countries are only at around two percent.   Scientists hope that by joining forces globally, they will raise awareness about a global trend that seems to take science less serious. With U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House and populist and Eurosceptic movements gaining popularity in Europe, scientists say their budgets are being reduced and their work is being taken less serious.   Bas Eickhout, a scientist and member …

Scientists are taking the unprecedented step of staging marches in more than 600 cities worldwide in the face of what they see as a growing political assault on evidence-based knowledge. Thousands of scientists and their supporters are attending March for Science events Saturday across the globe, including those in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cape Town, London Madrid, Nigeria and Seoul. In Berlin, organizers said about 10,000 people marched toward the Brandenberg Gate holding up placards that read “Facts not feelings” and We love experts — those with evidence.” Marchers in Geneva carried signs that said “Science — A candle in the Dark” and “Science is the Answer.” In London, demonstrators marched from the Science Museum to Parliament Square in Westminister holding placards supporting science. The March for Science thrusts scientists, who generally avoid advocacy and whose work is based on impartial experimentation, into a more visible spotlight.    For nuclear physics graduate student Chelsea Bartram, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” were the last straw. President Donald Trump had disputed photographic evidence of the size of his inauguration crowd. Reporters challenged him, prompting Conway to respond that the administration gave “alternative facts.” “Many scientists I know, myself included, spend so many hours in the lab sacrificing enormous amounts of their life for this abstract idea” that understanding reality can benefit human civilization, said Bartram, who is pursuing a doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   “And then to have someone say, ‘Well, that’s not important anymore,’ …

The founder of Microsoft, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has given a passionate defense of foreign aid while voicing fears the political climate in the U.S. and in Britain could result in cuts to aid budgets. In a speech this week in London, he warned that withdrawing aid would “create a leadership vacuum that others will fill.” Gates, who gives $5 billion a year to development aid through the foundation he set up with his wife, Melinda, is one of the world’s most generous philanthropists. In a speech at London’s Royal United Services Institute this week, he voiced fears that the political tide is turning against foreign aid. “It concerns me that some world leaders are misinterpreting recent events as reasons to turn inward instead of seeing them for what they are: problems that although they are difficult and will take time, can be solved — if we invest in the long-term solutions that are necessary,” Gates said. Watch: Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates Warns Against Cuts to Aid Budgets The United States remains by far the world’s biggest donor, funding long-term programs and emergency relief across the globe. But President Donald Trump is proposing significant cuts to the $43-billion foreign aid budget as part of efforts to reduce government debt. Gates argues that many critics of foreign aid don’t realize the major progress that has been achieved. “If you could only pick one number to highlight the effectiveness of the development agenda since 1990, I would pick the number 122 million. …

Ear infections are one of those things almost everyone has to deal with. They’re painful, but generally easily treatable. But for many people, chronic ear infections can significantly affect their hearing and their quality of life. Polish doctors may have discovered a tiny solution for what can be a big problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

In 16 U.S. cities, citizen scientists, including schoolchildren, spent a few days this month documenting plant and animal species and helping scientists understand their regions’ diversity and the challenges many species face. The City Nature Challenge, held April 14-18, is a competition that was started last year by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences. This year, it involved institutions across the United States. The challenge is to see which city can document the most species; results are to be announced Saturday, which is Earth Day. “Last year, it was San Francisco against Los Angeles,” said Lila Higgins, manager of citizen science at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “This year, it’s L.A. versus San Francisco and New York and Chicago and Seattle and many, many other cities.” The young citizen scientists took photos and recorded observations on their cellphones, uploading the data through a phone app called iNaturalist. Frank Az, 9, of Esperanza Elementary School in Los Angeles said he loves observing nature, “finding different species of birds and insects.” He was outside the museum with binoculars and a cellphone camera, along with other students. His friend, Andrea Garcia, was excited as she described finding “two mourning doves in their nest” as well as “ants, bees and a house finch.” The children worked with some adult scientists who monitor species in this region, including Greg Pauly, a specialist on amphibians and reptiles at the Natural History Museum. Pauly said …

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft faces one last perilous adventure around Saturn.   Cassini swings past Saturn’s mega moon Titan early Saturday for a gravity-assisted, orbit-tweaking nudge.   “That last kiss goodbye,” as project manager Earl Maize calls it, will push Cassini onto a path no spacecraft has gone before — into the gap between Saturn and its rings. It’s treacherous territory. A particle from the rings — even as small as a speck of sand — could cripple Cassini, given its velocity.   Cassini will make its first pass through the relatively narrow gap Wednesday. Twenty-two crossings are planned, about one a week, until September, when Cassini goes in and never comes out, vaporizing in Saturn’s atmosphere.   Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004 and has been exploring it from orbit ever since. Its European traveling companion, Huygens, landed on Titan in 2005. Cassini’s fuel tank is practically empty, so with little left to lose, NASA has opted for a risky, but science-rich grand finale.   “What a spectacular end to a spectacular mission,” said Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science division director. “I feel a little sad in many ways that Cassini’s discoveries will end. But I’m also quite optimistic that we’re going to discover some new and really exciting science as we probe the region we’ve never probed before.”   There’s no turning back once Cassini flies past Titan, Maize said. The spacecraft on Wednesday will hurtle through the 1,200-mile-wide gap (1,900 kilometers) between Saturn’s atmosphere and its …

In some of the world’s remotest corners, health workers armed with smartphones, digital maps and medication are making steady progress in eliminating trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, a leading expert said. Better living conditions have wiped out trachoma in many countries but some 200 million people are still at risk of contracting the disease, according to the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI). Trachoma is categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), one of a group of 18 debilitating and sometimes fatal illnesses that affect 1.5 billion people, mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Efforts to treat trachoma include improving access to clean water and decreasing the number of infected people by treating them with antibiotics. ITI Director Paul Emerson said antibiotics donation programs, increased government spending, a global mapping project identifying hotspots and the use of smartphones to collect data had been gamechangers in fighting trachoma. “We know where the disease is, we know what to do about it and where do it,” Emerson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “That may sound simple but we can only reach our goal of eliminating trachoma through a combination of joined-up efforts.” Trachoma can be prevented in childhood by having facilities for children to wash their faces and if caught soon enough the disease is easily treatable with repeated doses of antibiotics. Those suffering with an advance stage of the disease, in which the eyelashes turn inward and scrape the cornea, can be treated …

Decades’ worth of man-made junk is cluttering up Earth’s orbit, posing a threat to spaceflight and the satellites we rely on for weather reports, air travel and global communications. More than 750,000 fragments larger than a centimeter are already thought to orbit Earth, and each one could badly damage or even destroy a satellite. Last year, a tiny piece of debris punched a gaping hole in the solar panel of Copernicus Sentinel-1A, an observation satellite operated by the European Space Agency, or ESA. A solar array brought back from the Hubble Telescope in 1993 showed hundreds of tiny holes caused by dust-sized debris. Experts meeting in Germany this week said the problem could get worse as private companies such as SpaceX, Google and Arlington, Virginia-based OneWeb send a flurry of new satellites into space over the coming years. They said steps should be taken to reduce space debris. Getting all national space agencies and private companies to comply with international guidelines designed to prevent further junk in orbit would be a first step. At the moment those rules — which can be costly to implement — aren’t legally binding. ESA’s director-general, Jan Woerner, told The Associated Press on Friday that so-called mega-constellations planned by private companies should have a maximum orbital lifetime of 25 years. After that, the satellite constellations would need to move out of the way, either by going into a so-called `graveyard orbit’ or returning to Earth. That’s because dead satellites pose a double danger: they can …

The United Nations’ World Health Organization says millions of lives could be saved if people infected with viral hepatitis were tested and treated for these potentially fatal diseases. New WHO data from the just released Hepatitis 2017 report show an estimated 325 million people globally are living with chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus infections. WHO said hundreds of thousands of people infected with these diseases are dying because they lack access to life-saving testing and treatment. The agency noted that most people are untested and do not even know that they are infected. Consequently, WHO said they remain untreated and are at risk of “a slow progression to chronic liver disease, cancer and death.” Hepatitis B virus is transmitted between people through contact with blood or other body fluids. Hepatitis C virus is spread through direct contact with infected blood. Latest estimates show that viral hepatitis caused 1.34 million deaths in 2015 and that some 1.75 million people were newly infected with hepatitis C, bringing the total number of people living with this disease globally to 71 million. Comparable to TB Gottfried Hirnschall, director of WHOs department of HIV/global hepatitis program, said that the number of deaths from viral hepatitis was comparable to that of tuberculosis. However, he noted that hepatitis kills more people than HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and significantly more than malaria. “What is, however, the difference between hepatitis and those three other diseases is that the trend for hepatitis is upwards. We are …