Month: March 2019

Twelve years after the inaugural Earth Hour observance in Australia, countries around the world continue joining the grassroots gesture against manmade CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions. This year in the Philippines, armed with lightsabers, fans of the movie Star Wars joined the world with a nod to a galaxy far, far away. Arash Arabasadi has more. …

The spread of invasive water hyacinths in and around Cameroon’s port city of Douala is causing problems for residents. The hyacinths’ stubborn growth hampers shipping, reduces fish catches, blocks streams and invades houses. But local NGOs are working to clean them up and artists are finding new uses for the hyacinths. Moki Edwin Kindzeka narrates this report by Anne Mireille Nzouankeu from Cameroon’s port city of Douala. …

Several Republican-led state legislatures are advocating for women to gain over-the-counter access to birth control in what they say is an effort to reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions. State legislatures in Arkansas and Iowa, for example, are working on legislation that would allow women older than 18 the ability to receive birth control from a pharmacist rather than going first to a doctor for a prescription. The measures are seeing bipartisanship support in those states and come after similar laws have passed in nearly a dozen other states. ​Arkansas legislation Arkansas state Representative Aaron Pilkington, a Republican, said he started working on the bill after seeing “about a 15 percent decrease of teen births” after other states passed similar legislation. Arkansas consistently has one of the highest birth rates among teenagers in the country. Pilkington said support for the bill “in many ways, it’s very generational. … I find that a lot of younger people and women are really in favor of this, especially mothers.” According to the Oral Contraceptive (OCs) Over the Counter (OTC) Working Group, a reproductive rights group, more than 100 countries, including Russia, much of South America and countries in Africa, allow access to birth control without a prescription.  Women are required to get a doctor’s prescription to obtain and renew birth control in most of the U.S., much of Europe, Canada and Australia, according to the reproductive rights group. Pilkington, who identifies as a “pro-life legislator,” said he brought the bill forward partly as an …

The environment in a neonatal intensive care unit can be overwhelming, as staff care for infants who are ill or were born premature. Many exhausted parents and loved ones can’t be with their newborns around the clock, but at one Long Beach, Calif., hospital, trained volunteers are stepping in to help. Known as NICU cuddlers, they give infants the human touch that is so vital to every baby. For VOA, Angelina Bagdasaryan visited the hospital and has this story, narrated by Anna Rice. …

An Ebola treatment center located at the epicenter of the current outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has resumed operations after it was attacked last month, the country’s health ministry said Saturday. The center run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in the district of Katwa was set on fire Feb. 24 by unknown attackers, forcing staff to evacuate patients. It reopened Saturday, the ministry said in a statement. “For now it is managed by the ministry in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF,” it said, referring to the U.N. children’s fund. Aid workers have faced mistrust in some areas as they seek to contain the Ebola outbreak, which has become the most severe in Congo’s history. The WHO has said the distrust is fueled by false rumors about treatments and preference for traditional medicine.  Another MSF center in Butembo was also attacked in late February but reopened a week later.  MSF has pulled out from the area since the two attacks and has not said when it might resume medical activities.  The current Ebola epidemic, first declared last August, is believed to have killed at least 561 people so far and infected over 300 more. …

Officials in cyclone-stricken Mozambique say the number of cases of cholera has skyrocketed from five Wednesday to 139 by late Thursday. Cholera is a bacterial disease spread by contaminated food or drinking water. It causes severe diarrhea and subsequent dehydration, and can kill within hours if not treated. Squalid living conditions — contaminated water and lack of sanitation — in the country following Cyclone Idai are the perfect breeding grounds for the spread of the disease. The World Health Organization said earlier this week that it is sending 900,000 cholera vaccines to the region. AFP, the French news agency, reports that a cholera prevention publicity campaign has been mounted via radio and loudspeakers throughout affected towns and villages. UNICEF has warned there is “very little time to prevent the spread of opportunistic diseases.” Cyclone Idai clobbered most of Mozambique nearly two weeks ago with hurricane-force winds and heavy rains. It also walloped eastern Zimbabwe and Malawi. …

Once stigmatized and banned across the United States, marijuana is now legalized in many parts of the country, primarily for medicinal use, but increasingly also for recreation. As cannabis becomes mainstream, Americans in their 70s and 80s who used to get high on marijuana in their youth, are now using cannabis-infused products to relieve old age aches and pains. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has this report. …

For the first time, a person living with HIV has donated a kidney to a transplant recipient also living with HIV. A team from Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore performed the surgery March 25. “A disease that was a death sentence in the 1980s has become one so well-controlled that those living with HIV can now save lives with kidney donation,” Dr. Dorry Segev, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said Thursday at a news conference. Organs have been transplanted from an HIV-positive cadaver to an HIV-positive patient; however, HIV is known to cause kidney disease, so people living with HIV have not previously been able to donate kidneys.  Segev said he and his colleagues researched more than 40,000 people living with HIV, looking specifically at kidney health. They found that people whose HIV was under control have the same health risks as those without HIV, and are healthy enough to donate kidneys. In addition, antiretroviral therapy allows people with HIV to have a normal lifespan. Stigma of HIV Dr. Christine Durand, an infectious disease and cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins, said the transplant procedure advances medicine while helping defeat the stigma associated with HIV. “It challenges providers and the public to see HIV differently,” she said. “Every successful transplant shortens the waitlist for all patients, no matter their HIV status.” Durand and Segev are leading HOPE in Action, an effort that encompasses multiple national studies exploring the feasibility, safety and effectiveness of HIV-to-HIV transplantation. …

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Thursday that climate change was moving faster than international efforts to mitigate it. “It is important that we tackle climate change with much greater ambition,” Guterres told reporters at the launch of a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) annual report on the subject. The report warns that key climate change indicators are becoming more pronounced. Levels of carbon dioxide — a main driver of global warming — are the highest they have been in 3 million years, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As a result, oceans are heating up and their waters are becoming more acidic, affecting all kinds of marine life. Higher temperatures Temperatures on land are also rising — 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record, and the years 2015 to 2018 were the four warmest in global temperature record-keeping, the WMO report said.     The secretary-general said it was necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent over the next decade in order to be carbon neutral globally by 2050.      “If not, it will be irreversible, not to be able to achieve the goals that were established in Paris,” Guterres said of the 2015 climate agreement. “We are very close to the moment in which it will no longer be possible to come to the end of the century with only 1.5 degrees. We have very few years to reverse these trends, because the concentrations of CO2 [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere will not disappear.”   The aim under the Paris Agreement is …

So far this year, more than 300 people have contracted measles in 15 states in the U.S. Almost half of those cases occurred in Rockland County, just north of New York City.  Because of the outbreak, which has lasted nearly six months, county officials have declared a state of emergency and are banning anyone who is unvaccinated from frequenting public places. “Anyone who is under 18 years of age and is not vaccinated against the measles will be prohibited from public places until the declaration expires in 30 days or until they receive their first shot of MMR,” said Ed Day, county executive. WATCH: New York County Declares Emergency Over Measles Public places include shopping malls, restaurants, buses and trains. Police will not be asking for vaccination records, but parents can face a fine of $500 and as much as six months in jail if they refuse to vaccinate their children. The outbreak is concentrated in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. ‘Roll of the dice’ The county executive says it is a matter of getting parents to understand how dangerous measles is. “Every new case is a roll of the dice,” Day said. “It could bring on pneumonia, encephalitis, the swelling of the brain, or cause premature birth, which can lead to complications and even death.” And, he said, it’s a matter of keeping those who can’t get vaccinated safe. “What about the infants who are out there with mom and dad? My newborn grandson is an infant. What about those …

So far this year, more than 300 people have had measles in 15 states in the U.S. Almost half have occurred in Rockland County just north of New York City. County officials are now banning anyone who is unvaccinated from frequenting public places. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more. …

Health care has re-emerged as a major focus of U.S. political parties with the Trump administration advocating striking down the entire Affordable Care Act and Democrats introducing legislation to strengthen the law that has been in place since 2010. The Justice Department on Monday backed a federal court ruling declaring the entire ACA unconstitutional on the basis that without the fines for not having health insurance, which a Republican-led Congress passed last year, the mandate for having coverage should not be allowed. That went against the administration’s earlier position that while some parts of the ACA should be struck down, not all of it should be thrown out. Trump told reporters Tuesday he wanted alternatives to the law, which was one of the chief policies enacted under his predecessor Barack Obama. “The Republican Party will become ‘The Party of Healthcare!’” he wrote on Twitter. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled his party is happy to take on the issue, especially following the end of the special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign. Schumer said issues such as healthcare and climate change are much more important to voters. The issue was a key part of the party’s 2018 congressional election strategy, which put Democrats back in control of the House of Representatives. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled Democratic proposals she says would improve upon the existing law, while accusing Republicans of working only to “destroy the affordable health care of America’s families.” …

The Republican-led Senate Tuesday night voted against consideration of the Democratically-supported New Green Deal — the outline of an ambitious plan to get the U.S. off climate-changing fossil fuels. The vote was 57 to zero against the green proposal. Forty-three Democrats only said “present” when their names were called, refusing to participate in what they say was a Republican sham vote and stunt. The Green New Deal is a non-binding proposal to shift the United States away from oil, natural gas, and coal to renewable energy sources, including wind and solar power. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a “radical, top-down, socialist makeover of the entire U.S. economy,” noting it would cost millions of jobs and sharply drive up energy prices.  Other Republicans called it “ridiculous.” Senator Mike Lee used drawings of dinosaurs and the cartoon character Aquaman riding a seahorse to treat the Green New Deal with what he mockingly called “the seriousness it deserves.” Fuming Democrats accused the Republicans of turning the issue of the very survival of the planet into a joke. They say Republicans who turn debate over global warming into a game will pay a political price.  New York Senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand compared ridding the United States of its dependence on fossil fuels in the 21st century to America’s ambitious plan nearly 60 years ago to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s – a goal that was reached. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that burning fossil fuels …