Month: May 2017

Florida’s Indian River lagoon is considered the most biologically diverse estuary in the Northern Hemisphere. But it is facing a serious threat to the plants and animals in its waters. The water’s surface is increasingly dotted with thousands of dead fish, manatees, birds and other creatures. Faiza Elmasry has more about the problem, the cause and the solution. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates. …

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Sunday a second case of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo after an outbreak this week of 17 other suspected cases. Health officials are trying to trace 125 people thought to be linked to the cases identified in the remote northeastern province of Bas-Uele province in northeastern Congo near the border with Central African Republic, WHO’s Congo spokesman Eugene Kabambi said. Three people have so far died among the 19 suspected and confirmed cases, he added. It was not immediately clear how the first victim, a deceased male, caught the virus, although past outbreaks have been linked to contact with infected bush meat such as apes. The outbreak comes just a year after the end of an epidemic in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. However, Congo, whose dense forests contain the River Ebola near where the disease was first detected in 1976, has experienced many outbreaks and has mostly succeeded in containing them without large-scale loss of life. The GAVI global vaccine alliance said on Friday some 300,000 emergency doses of an Ebola vaccine developed by Merck could be available in case of a large-scale outbreak and that it stood ready to support the Congo government on the matter. …

Dr. David Nabarro says he wants to rid the world of two diseases that are close to being eradicated: polio and guinea worm. Polio exists mainly on the Pakistani-Afghan border and in northern Nigeria. Both are conflict zones, where vaccine workers risk their lives to immunize children. “The last part of eradicating any disease is always the hardest part,” Nabarro said during a visit to VOA. “If you don’t do it, you lose everything. To do it, you’ve got to really bring all the energy and commitment you can to bear.” The World Health Organization has worked to eliminate polio for more than 30 years. Nigeria was to be declared polio-free this year, meaning the country had no cases for three continuous years, but then the disease returned. “We must remain vigilant and focused until we are certain that the last case has been found and that we have got everybody protected,” Nabarro said. Watch: WHO to Vote on New Director-General; David Nabarro Wants the Job Guinea worm Nabarro also wants to rid the world of Guinea worm, a disease that starts when people drink water containing fleas infected with guinea worm larvae. The larvae grow in human intestines. And while it is not life-threatening, it is painful when the worm emerges. In 1986, about 3.5 million people had Guinea worm disease. Last year, 25 people had it. This was the result of efforts by United Nations agencies, the Carter Center, which was founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and …

Dr. David Nabarro says he wants to rid the world of two diseases that are close to being eradicated: polio and guinea worm. During a visit to VOA, he also said he wants to work to end malaria if he becomes the next head of the World Health Organization. This is the first time candidates will be elected to become director-general of WHO. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more. …

Democratic Republic of Congo Ebola Outbreak On May 13, the World Health Organization declared an Ebola outbreak in Bas-Uele province, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after a person tested positive for the Ebola virus. The last Ebola outbreak in Congo happened in 2014 and killed more than 40 people. In 2013, an Ebola crisis began in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Congo’s outbreaks have all been in areas not linked to the West African cases. 2013-16 Western Africa Ebola Outbreak Where: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone Began: December 2013 Ended*: March 2016 * WHO declared the outbreak in West Africa a public health emergency in August 2014. It declared the end of the transmission of Ebola in Guinea in December 2015, Liberia in January 2016 and in Sierra Leone in March 2016. Even after the last transmission, WHO warned the countries were still at risk of sporadic transmission of Ebola because of the presence of the virus in some survivors. WHO noted flare-ups of Ebola cases in Guinea in March 2016 and Liberia in June 2016. 2013-16 West Africa Ebola Outbreak, Death Tolls* Guinea                 3,814 cases         2,544 deaths Liberia                10,678 cases        4,810 deaths Sierra Leone      14,124 cases        3,956 deaths Total                      28,616 cases       11,310 deaths Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention * The 2013-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak was the largest in history. Ebola Symptoms Symptoms of the virus may include: Fever Severe headache Muscle pain Weakness Fatigue Diarrhea Vomiting Abdominal (stomach) pain Unexplained hemorrhage (bleeding or bruising) …

The World Health Organization says the Democratic Republic of the Congo is again facing an outbreak of the contagious and deadly Ebola virus. Congolese Health Minister Oly Ilunga announced Saturday that three people had died of the virus in the northeast of the country. Ilunga urged people not to panic and said officials had taken all necessary measures to respond to the outbreak. The World Health Organization said it was working with Congolese authorities to deploy health workers in the remote area where the three deaths occurred, all on April 22. Eleven other cases are suspected in the area. WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, went to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, on Friday to discuss disease response. The remoteness of the affected area, 1,300 kilometers from Kinshasa, means word of the outbreak was slow to emerge. WHO said specialist teams were expected to arrive in the area, known as the Likati health zone, within the next day or two. This was the first outbreak of the virus in DRC since 2014, when 49 people died of Ebola. Larger outbreak Experts say the 2014 DRC outbreak was not linked to a much larger outbreak that killed 11,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, beginning in 2013. They say active virus transmission for that outbreak was halted last year. In December 2016, The Lancet, a medical journal, published results of a WHO-led trial  showing that the world’s first Ebola vaccine provides substantial protection against the virus. Among more than 11,000 …

Violence in the southeastern part of the Central African Republic, where five U.N. peacekeepers were killed this month, has made it tougher for HIV-positive residents in the remote, lawless region to get treatment. The prevalence rate of HIV in southeastern C.A.R. is 13 percent, nearly three times the national average. The migration of people between the bordering areas of South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo contributes to the spread of the disease in all three countries. “Here, it’s a crossing where everything converges. It’s why the level of HIV is high,” said Bienvenu Sapioko, a government nurse who works at the only hospital in Zemio. He said the rebels and refugees in the area also increase the high prevalence.    An internal U.N. report obtained by VOA found HIV rates increased following the arrival of the Ugandan security forces in the C.A.R. in 2009. The Ugandan and American forces tasked with tracking down Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army ended their mission in April and are heading home. With prostitution, polygamy and effectively no state authority in the area, weak education contributes to the problem.   Stigma, superstition “People believe in the power of nature and traditional doctors. So bush doctors, shamans are also very common in the community,” said Olivier Pennec, the Doctors Without Borders project coordinator in Zemio. Stigma compounds the problem. “Before, the people didn’t treat themselves. The people would hide the microbes, this disease,” said Marcel Elonga, a community leader. They would …

Postpartum hemorrhaging is the leading cause of maternal deaths. An estimated 127,000 women bleed to death after giving birth. But there are hopeful signs that a widely available drug could save a third of those who hemorrhage after birth. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Among the first executive actions at the White House this year, President Donald Trump reinstated a law that bans any U.S. aid to international organizations that support the practice of abortion. Trump’s memorandum on the “Mexico City policy” reversed one aspect of U.S. foreign aid policy that had been in effect under former President Barack Obama. It changed the way U.S. financial assistance is distributed internationally, and most likely will affect the lives of many women in developing countries. The “Mexico City policy” dates to 1984, when then-President Ronald Reagan declared it at a population conference in the Mexican capital. Opponents call the U.S. prohibition on aid to groups that perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning a “global gag rule.” U.S. foreign aid practices have switched back and forth several times since 1984; aid was barred to pro-abortion-rights groups whenever a Republican president was in power, then was reinstated when a Democrat controlled the White House. WATCH: Reaction to Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’ Abortion stance affects aid The political divide between the two major U.S. political parties is based on a fundamental issue: Republicans consider abortion an assault on human life, and most pledge to resist it in every way possible; Democrats say a woman should have the right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy, for financial or personal reasons, and that the decision should not be directed by government. The deep ideological divide over abortion affects many aspects of American politics, and certainly …

Former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama has criticized the new Trump administration’s directives on school lunches during her first high-profile public appearance since leaving the White House. Obama, who led a nationwide effort to reduce childhood obesity while first lady, told an annual health conference Friday in Washington that more nutritious school lunches are important because millions of children receive federally subsidized meals at school. The Trump administration recently said it would delay federal rules promoted by Obama aimed at trying to make school lunches healthier. Without mentioning the Trump administration by name, Obama urged parents to think about the new government directives and the motives behind them. “I don’t care what state you live in, take me out of the equation — like me, don’t like me — but think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap. Why would you celebrate that?” she said during the keynote speech. She said healthier school lunches should not be a political issue. “You have to stop and think, ‘Why don’t you want our kids to have good food at school?’ What is wrong with you? And why is that a partisan issue? Why would that be political? What is going on?’ ” she asked. In one of his first major actions, Sonny Perdue, Trump’s new agriculture secretary, said the department will delay some school lunch rules, including reducing sodium in the meals and increasing whole wheat. “If kids aren’t eating the food and it’s ending up in the trash, …

The killing of five U.N. peacekeepers in the Central African Republic this month points to the continued insecurity in the southeastern part of the country. That violence has had an impact on public health with the southeast reporting a rate of HIV infection that is three times the national average and HIV-positive residents struggle to get treatment. For VOA, Zack Baddorf has the story from the town of Zemio. …

An exoplanet located 437 light years away could shed light on the different ways planets form around their stars. HAT-P-26b, which astronomers call a “warm Neptune,” has a “primitive” atmosphere made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. Its atmosphere is not cloudy and has a “strong water signature,” astronomers say. They say the planet, which was first spotted in 2011, is like Neptune and Uranus on mass, but that HAT-P-26b probably formed closer to the star it orbits, or at some point later in the development of the system – or both. “Astronomers have just begun to investigate the atmospheres of these distant Neptune-mass planets, and almost right away, we found an example that goes against the trend in our solar system,” said Hannah Wakeford, a post-doctoral researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study published in the May 12, 2017, issue of Science. “This kind of unexpected result is why I really love exploring the atmospheres of alien planets.” The analysis of HAT-P-26b’s atmosphere was done using both the Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes as the planet transits its star. That allows astronomers to peek into the planet’s atmosphere and analyze the light wavelengths that pass through the planet’s atmosphere. “To have so much information about a warm Neptune is still rare, so analyzing these data sets simultaneously is an achievement in and of itself,” said co-author Tiffany Kataria of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Astronomers were also able …

A person has tested positive for the Ebola virus in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo. A spokesman for the World Health Organization says officials declared an Ebola outbreak in Bas-Uele province after laboratory tests confirmed the presence of the virus. The spokesman, Christian Lindmeier, tells VOA English to Africa that nine people in the area fell sick with what is currently listed as hemorrhagic fever. He said three people have died. The WHO said on its Twitter feed it is working with Congo’s Ministry of Health to contain the outbreak. The ministry says in a statement that teams of doctors, coordinators and specialists are headed to the remote area and should arrive by Saturday. The last Ebola outbreak in Congo happened in 2014 and killed more than 40 people. A much larger outbreak swept across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that year and killed more than 11,000.     …