Month: February 2021

As African nations wait for hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to arrive, health officials are concerned about a general rise in coronavirus cases and deaths, especially in Southern Africa.   The stories, reported in local media and highlighted by aid groups, are chilling. In the tiny kingdom of eSwatini, medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says health facilities are seeing 200 new cases per day and a death rate four times higher than they saw in the first wave.     In the coastal nation of Mozambique, case numbers are nearly seven times higher than they were at the peak of the first wave in 2020.     And in the landlocked nation of Malawi, the poorest country in Southern Africa, new cases are doubling every four to five days, and the nation’s main COVID-19 facility is nearly full.   Dr. John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tried to break down the continent’s trajectory as many nations enter a second wave without enough vaccine supplies.     He said one indicator worth noting is that for about a third of the continent’s countries, the death rate has risen above the global average.     “It used to be the reverse,” he told reporters via teleconference on Thursday. “During the first wave, the case fatality rate was about 2.2%, and now we are seeing 2.6%. In terms of the number of countries experiencing the second wave, 41 of them are currently experiencing the …

In a report marking World Cancer Day, the World Health Organization says COVID-19 is having a negative impact on cancer control efforts at a time when cases and deaths from this deadly disease are rising significantly. New statistics show the number of people diagnosed with cancer globally last year reached 19.3 million, with the number of people dying increasing to 10 million.  The World Health Organization reports cancer now is the second leading cause of death, with 70 percent of deaths occurring in low-and-middle income countries. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 10 MB540p | 13 MB720p | 23 MB1080p | 46 MBOriginal | 66 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioBreast cancer WHO reports breast cancer has replaced lung cancer as the world’s most commonly occurring cancer.  It warns the number of new cancer cases are expected to grow significantly reaching 30 million new cases by 2040.Andre Ilbawi of WHO’s Department of Noncommunicable Diseases says the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer control efforts have been profound.“WHO surveys have found that 50 percent of governments have had cancer services partially or completely disrupted because of the pandemic,” said Ilbawi. “We have also gathered data from the scientific community to understand the severity and the impact on cancer patients.  Delays in diagnosis are common.  Interruptions in therapy and/or abandonment have increased significantly.”  Ilbawi notes people suffering from noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, are at higher risk …

Strict COVID-19 measures are being reintroduced in the state of Victoria after a 26-year-old Australian Open hotel worker tested positive.Up to 600 tennis players, officials and support staff have been told to isolate and be screened, while warm-up matches for next week’s Grand Slam in Melbourne have been canceled. They must return a negative coronavirus test before they can resume their preparations for next week’s tournament.“About five [to] 600 people that are either players or officials and others who are casual contacts, they will be isolating until they get a negative test,” said Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews. “So, it may have an impact on the lead-up event, but at this stage there is no impact to the tournament proper.”Andrews added that there was “no need for people to panic” because Victoria was adept at containing coronavirus outbreaks following a marathon four-month lockdown last year.Warm-up matches at Melbourne Park were suspended Thursday as a precaution.Australian player Nick Kyrgios says while he supports the decision, he believes some of his colleagues won’t.“I am not going to complain,” he said. “You know, it is not about me. My mum is incredibly sick. You know, [if] she gets COVID, then do you know what I mean, there is too much risk in all this. I do not understand why it is so hard for tennis players to understand, like, you are just a tennis player. It is not life and death like this is.”Restrictions also apply to the broader community in the state of …

Testing began in Britain on Thursday to determine if different COVID-19 vaccines can be used together in a two-shot regimen.Researchers are aiming to inoculate more than 800 volunteers with one shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, followed either four or 12 weeks later with a booster shot of the vaccine developed jointly by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, or vice versa.The vaccines were developed with different technology — the Pfizer vaccine through messenger RNA (mRNA), while the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is adenovirus viral vector, or common cold virus.Health officials say if two vaccines developed with different technology are able to be used interchangeably, it could allow greater flexibility in immunization campaigns around the world.In a related development, The Guardian newspaper says an analysis of Israel’s mass vaccination program has found that a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine provides 90% protection against the novel coronavirus by 21 days. Researchers at Britain’s University of East Anglia contradict an earlier study from Israel that suggested one dose may not give adequate protection.Meanwhile, Oxford University says its COVID-19 vaccine is 76% effective at preventing infection for three months after a single dose. The findings were part of the same study released Wednesday that found the vaccine cut transmission of the virus by two-thirds.The study has not been peer-reviewed, but Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC the findings are “good news.””It does show the world that the Oxford jab works, it works well,” Hancock said.The vaccine has come under criticism from other nations in Europe …

UNICEF has announced a deal with the Serum Institute of India to produce 1.1 billion doses of AstraZeneca/Oxford and Novavax vaccines at a cost of $3 per dose.   “This is, of course, just an initial tranche of COVAX vaccines. More will follow. We will continue to work on the supply agreements to meet the needs of the COVAX vaccine requirements for the first half of 2021,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement Wednesday.   COVAX is a coordinated partnership of the World Health Organization (WHO); GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance; the Center for Epidemics Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and others to ensure vaccines are distributed to the world’s poorest countries.   “For countries which have already initiated vaccination drives, and those yet to begin, this information is a hopeful marker on the winding path out of a pandemic that will not be truly over until it is over for us all,” Fore said.   COVAX already has plans to distribute 100 million doses by the end of March and 200 million more by July. …

Israel has announced it is opening its coronavirus vaccination campaign to anyone over the age of 16, as one-third of the population has already received the first dose. But in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority has received just 2,000 doses from Israel that went to front-line health care workers. Palestinians hope to start receiving larger quantities of the vaccine later this month.Israel continues to move forward with its vaccination drive, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he hopes that 90% of Israelis over the age of 50 will be inoculated in the next two weeks. The campaign includes Arab citizens of Israel, and Palestinians in east Jerusalem who are covered by the Israeli health care system. But close to 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have yet to receive the vaccine.The first 2,000 Palestinians, most of them front-line health care workers, received a vaccine after Israel delivered the doses, and promised 3,000 more in the next few days. Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said that medical teams will be first in line. She did not say the vaccines made by Moderna came from Israel, although both Israeli and Palestinian officials later confirmed it.The Palestinian Authority has contracted to buy millions of doses of the Russian Sputnik vaccine which was supposed to have been delivered last month. Now officials say they hope it will come later this month.Palestinian officials say they are especially concerned about the densely populated Gaza Strip, where the virus …

The top U.S. infectious disease expert has another warning for Americans: Don’t attend Super Bowl parties amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci says such parties could spread coronavirus. “You don’t want parties with people that you haven’t had much contact with,” he told NBC’s “Today” show. “You just don’t know if they’re infected, so, as difficult as that is, at least this time around, just lay low and cool it.” Despite the warning, some 22,000 fans will be allowed to attend Sunday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa. They will all be required to wear face coverings. Fans were not permitted to attend most games in the National Football League this season. Recently, Fauci warned against Thanksgiving get-togethers, especially in the case of people traveling to see relatives.    …

The test launch and landing of a SpaceX Starship prototype Tuesday ended in a crash for the second time since December.   The bullet-shaped 50-meter-tall SN-9 Starship rocket, a product of entrepreneur Elon Musk’s private space company, lifted off as planned from the southern Texas launch site and traveled 10 kilometers into the sky before making its descent for a planned soft landing back on the launch pad.  Spacex’s 2nd Starship Test Flight Ends with Another Kaboom Elon Musk is developing Starship to carry people to Mars, perhaps in as little as several yearsThe spacecraft failed to return to a vertical position before reaching the ground and exploded on impact. The December test flight ended the same way. The next SpaceX prototype, the SN-10, stood on a launch pad near the crash site but was apparently undamaged. The company did not say when that test launch will be scheduled.The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it would investigate Tuesday’s explosion, fueling tension between the agency and Musk.The FAA had investigated last year’s launch, saying it did not meet public safety standards, but approved Tuesday’s test after what it called “corrective actions.”The Starship is intended to carry people to the moon and Mars, perhaps in the coming years. …

Malawi faces a resurgence of COVID-19 that is overwhelming the southern African country where a presidential residence and a national stadium have been turned into field hospitals in efforts to save lives. President Lazarus Chakwera, just six months in office, lost two Cabinet ministers to COVID-19 in January amid a surge that led him to declare a state of national disaster in all of Malawi’s 28 districts. Chakwera declared three days of national mourning over the deaths of the ministers of transport and local government, which shocked the nation and inspired a raft of new measures aimed at stemming the spread of the virus in a country with a poor health system. A more contagious strain of the coronavirus first reported in South Africa has since been confirmed in Malawi. “Our medical facilities are terribly understaffed, and our medical personnel are outnumbered,” Chakwera said in a recent address. Malawi has seen its number of confirmed cases of the disease go above 23,000, including a total of 702 deaths as of Monday, according to Dr. John Phuka, co-chair of the presidential task force on COVID-19. The numbers appear relatively small in a country of 18 million, but the 14,000 active cases are many times more than the number of established hospital beds. Officials are setting up makeshift facilities to increase the number of treatment units from 400 to at least 1,500, sometimes erecting tents on the lawns of hospitals. The presidential residence State House in the southern city of Zomba soon …

Nigerian authorities are pledging to provide more protection for health care workers following an increase in COVID-19 cases among the group.   Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, said Monday the positive coronavirus test of 75 health care workers in the past week is worrisome.   Ihkekweazu is urging health care personnel to exercise caution and suspect COVID-19 in every case until it is ruled out.  He warned that even then the risk of infection still exists.      Ihekweazu also said the NCDC will soon make available rapid diagnostic test kits in more health facilities as an additional form of protection.   Anadolu Agency said more than 800 health care workers in Nigeria have been infected with the virus since June, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said.   The Nigerian Medical Association has confirmed at least 20 doctors have died from the virus within a one-week period last month.     Nigeria has confirmed more than 131,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,607 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center. …

Britain launched an emergency program of door-to-door testing in several areas Tuesday following the discovery of hundreds of cases of the coronavirus variant, first identified in South Africa, which scientists say could be more resistant to vaccines.  Mobile testing units were deployed to several regions, including parts of central and suburban London, while firefighter units and volunteers helped to deliver home testing kits and administer door-to-door testing. Local authorities aimed to conduct 80,000 coronavirus tests. By Tuesday morning, 105 cases of the mutation first seen in South Africa were identified in eight districts across Britain. Eleven of those cases did not have any direct link to international travel, suggesting the variant is being transmitted within the community. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kit to a resident, in Goldsworth and St. Johns, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.Meanwhile, health authorities announced they are also investigating separate cases of the virus with what they described as worrying new genetic changes. The variants, identified in the cities of Bristol and Liverpool, have the same mutation as the South African variant, called E484K. British Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged people living in the affected areas to adhere to lockdown rules and stay home. “Our mission must be to stop its spread altogether and break those chains of transmission. … It is imperative that people must stay at home and only leave home where it is absolutely essential,” Hancock told members of parliament Tuesday. People queue at a testing center amid the …

South Africa’s president delivered a rare shot of good news to people in the continent’s coronavirus hotspot: the nation’s second wave appears to be abating, and the government will soon launch a vaccination campaign for health workers. The Monday address, delivered live on national television, was a departure from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s usual tone. For nearly a year, Ramaphosa has the been the bearer of grim news, talking of deaths, rising caseloads and burdened hospitals, of lockdowns and restrictions and of endless reminders, like a chiding father, reminding people to wear your mask, wash your hands.South Africa is the continent’s viral hotspot, with 1.4 million confirmed cases and more than 44,000  COVID-19 deaths since the virus arrived in March. The nation experienced the start of a second wave of the virus, featuring a new variant that is significantly more contagious, in late December. FILE – Family members and volunteers from the Saaberie Chishty Society lower the body of a COVID-19 victim into a grave at the Avalon cemetery in Lenasia, South Africa, Jan. 4, 2021.But this week, a ray of hope: earlier Monday, the president and top ministers stood on the sodden airport tarmac in Johannesburg to greet the arrival of 1 million vaccine doses.  Ramaphosa said they will , in the next two weeks, make their way into the arms of frontline healthcare workers. After that, Ramaphosa said, the country will vaccinate 40 million people — about 67 percent of the population — by year’s end. He emphasized that no one will be …

Nigerian authorities are pledging to provide more protection for healthcare workers following an increase in COVID-19 cases among the group.   Chikwe Ihekweazu, director-general of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control  Ihekweazu, said Monday the positive coronavirus test of 75 healthcare workers in the past week is worrisome.   Ihkekweazu is urging healthcare personnel to exercise caution and suspect COVID-19 in every case until it is ruled out.  He warned even then, the risk of infection still exits.      Ihekweazu also said the NCDC will soon make available rapid diagnostic test kits in more health facilities as an additional form of protection.   Anadolu Agency said more than 800 healthcare workers in Nigeria have been infected with the virus since June, according to Health Minister Osagie Ehanire.   The Nigerian Medical Association has confirmed at least 20 doctors died from the virus within one week period last month.     Nigeria has confirmed more than 131,000 COVID-19 infections and 1,607 deaths, according Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center. …

The head of the Tokyo Olympics expressed confidence Tuesday the event will go forward this year despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said discussions should be about how and not whether the Olympics will happen. “We will hold the Olympics, regardless of how the coronavirus [situation] looks,” Mori said. The Summer Games were originally scheduled to begin in July 2020, but organizers postponed the event for one year.  The new start date is July 23. FILE – A man wearing a protective mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walks near a banner of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics at an underpass in Tokyo, Jan. 19, 2021.Adding to doubts about whether it would be possible to stage the games are recent lockdowns initiated in a number of countries.  Large parts of Japan are currently under a state of emergency because of the virus. Malaysia is among those extending lockdowns to try to stop the spread of COVID-19.  Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said Tuesday the restrictions would be extended until February 18. “The Health Ministry has confirmed that daily cases in all states are still showing a rising trend… the sporadic spread in the community is also high,” Ismail Sabri said in a televised address. In Britain, fears of the spread of coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have prompted a mass door-to-door testing campaign. Volunteers hand out the COVID-19 home test kits to residents, in Goldsworth and St Johns, amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in Woking, Britain, Feb. 2, 2021.The effort involves …

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said medical regulators will begin testing the integrity of the country’s first batch of AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19 before vaccinating front line healthcare workers. He made the comment during a national address late Monday, hours after he and other dignitaries accepted 1.2 million doses of vaccine that arrived at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport Monday afternoon. President Ramaphosa said after healthcare workers get their shots the country aims to vaccinate essential workers, people over 60 years of age, people with co-morbidities and those living in places such as nursing homes. The remainder of the adult population will get their shots in the third phase of the vaccination program. South Africa is the African nation hardest hit by the novel coronavirus, with more than 1.4 million confirmed cases since the virus turned up in the country in March. The nation’s second wave of the virus fueled by a new variant that surfaced in late December appears to be subsiding.  The head of South Africa’s coronavirus task force, Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, said the current vaccines are expected to work on the new variant, called 501.V2, Ramaphosa said in addition to Monday’s shipment the country is due to receive another 500,000 doses from the Serum Institute of India next month.  South Africa has also secured millions of doses of vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and the global COVAX facility, which is a worldwide collaboration to speed up the development, production and access to COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. The president said South Africa will also receive an allocation of vaccine doses through the African Union, which has been negotiating with manufacturers to secure vaccines for the entire continent on a pooled basis. South Africa will now become the fifth African nation to roll out vaccinations, after Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles and Guinea.    …

British Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday said 105 cases of a coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa have been found in the nation, with 11 of those cases having no links to international travel.Speaking at a Downing Street news briefing, Hancock said health authorities plan to test 80,000 people from areas around the country to isolate and stop the spread of the new variant.”There’s currently no evidence to suggest this variant is any more severe, but we need to come down on it hard, and we will,” he said.A man takes a swab at a test center in Goldsworth Park, as the South African variant of the novel coronavirus is reported in parts of Surrey, in Woking, Britain, Feb. 1, 2021.Hancock said the surge of new testing is targeted on those areas where the variant had been discovered and that every single positive case is being sequenced. He said health officials, in coordination with local authorities, are going door to door to test people in those areas.Hancock also announced on Monday that Britain had now vaccinated 9.2 million people against COVID-19, including 931,204 vaccinations over the weekend. He also announced that Britain has ordered another 40 million doses of a vaccine developed by the French company, Valneva, as the government prepares for the likelihood that repeated vaccinations will be needed to keep the virus in check.The vaccine, which will be made in Scotland, is still undergoing clinical trials and has not been approved by regulators.Britain has seen the …

The World Health Organization (WHO) noted Monday that globally, the number of new coronavirus cases fell for the third consecutive week. At the agency’s regular news briefing conducted virtually from its headquarters in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while many nations are still seeing infections increasing, it is nonetheless encouraging news. Tedros said it shows the virus can be controlled, even with the new variants in circulation, and that with proven public health measures such as social distancing, the wearing of masks and good hygiene, infections can be prevented.   FILE – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, Jan. 21, 2021.He warned, however, that the world has been at this point before, and it is no time to relax.“Over the past year, there have been moments in almost all countries when cases declined, and governments opened up too quickly, and individuals let down their guard, only for the virus to come roaring back,” he noted. Tedros said that as vaccines are rolled out around the world, it is important to continue to take the precautions that keep people safe. He said controlling the spread of the virus saves lives now and reduces the chances of more variants emerging.  “And it helps to ensure vaccines remain effective,” he said. Also at the briefing, WHO Emergencies Program Director Michael Ryan responded to a question regarding the WHO-led team currently studying the origins of the virus and early skepticism about what it may find.  FILE – WHO Health Emergencies Program head …

German pharmaceutical giant Bayer announced Monday it will help a smaller German biomedical company, CureVac, produce its experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the latest drug maker to offer up manufacturing capacity as supplies fall behind demand worldwide. At a virtual news conference hosted in Berlin Monday by Health Minister Jens Spahn, Bayer’s pharmaceutical chief, Stefan Oelrich, said the company expects to produce 160 million doses of CureVac’s experimental vaccine, which is currently in late-stage testing, in 2022. Bayer and CureVac reached an agreement last month to work together on a vaccine. Oelrich said Bayer has experience and capacity to expand CureVac’s production capacity.   CureVac’s vaccine is still in the testing phase, and the company’s CEO, Franz-Werner Haas, said the vaccine his likely to be considered for approval “to produce up to 300 million doses by the end of 2021.” Given the issues encountered getting vaccine orders filled, Health Minister Spahn said it was in Germany’s – and Europe’s – best interest to have production and development capacities in the region and to support them as best they can – even if the vaccine production is a year out.   …

Cameroon is seeing a resurgence of leprosy, the bacterial infectious disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage.  Cameroon health authorities, on Sunday’s World Leprosy Day, said infections have jumped by about 50% since 2018.  Leprosy patients say,  just as in ancient times, they are shunned and neglected. Cameroon two decades ago announced that it had eliminated leprosy, but around 200 cases continued to be reported each year. In 2019, cases of the bacterial disease, which damages skin and nerves, increased to 270 and last year jumped to over 300.   Ernest Nji Tabah, the permanent secretary of Cameroon’s National Committee for Leprosy, says a number of Cameroon’s health districts have been reporting outbreaks of the chronic but curable condition. “About 70 new cases have been reported in the southwest.  We have hot spots in regions like the North, the Adamawa, the Southwest, the Northwest,” he said. “People think that leprosy is a spell, it is divine punishment, it is caused by witchcraft, it is hereditary and so on.  Leprosy is none of these.” Tabah was attending an event organized by the aid group Circle of Friends Cameroon for Sunday’s World Leprosy Day. Aid groups handed out small gifts of food, soap, and toiletries to 30 leprosy patients at the Jamot’s Hospital in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.  Jamot’s Hospital where leprosy is treated in Yaounde, Jan. 31, 2021. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA)Patrice Essolla, 51, says they never received such attention as most families abandoned relatives with leprosy. He says they need more assistance because they have been rendered helpless …

Lucenia Dunn spent the early days of the coronavirus pandemic encouraging people to wear masks and keep a safe distance from each other in Tuskegee, a mostly Black city where the government once used unsuspecting African American men as guinea pigs in a study of a sexually transmitted disease.   Now, the onetime mayor of the town immortalized as the home of the infamous “Tuskegee syphilis study” is wary of getting inoculated against COVID-19. Among other things, she’s suspicious of the government promoting a vaccine that was developed in record time when it can’t seem to conduct adequate virus testing or consistently provide quality rural health care.   “I’m not doing this vaccine right now. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to do it. But I know enough to withhold getting it until we see all that is involved,” said Dunn, who is Black.   The coronavirus immunization campaign is off to a shaky start in Tuskegee and other parts of Macon County. Area leaders point to a resistance among residents spurred by a distrust of government promises and decades of failed health programs. Many people in this city of 8,500 have relatives who were subjected to unethical government experimentation during the syphilis study.   “It does have an impact on decisions. Being in this community, growing up in this community, I would be very untruthful if I didn’t say that,” said Frank Lee, emergency management director in Macon County. Lee is Black.   Health experts have stressed both the …

A team of World Health Organization scientists investigating the source of the coronavirus, that first emerged in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, visited a provincial disease control center Monday that was key in the early management of the COVID outbreak.   China did not release any details about the team’s visit to the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control.  Team member Peter Daszak, however, told reporters it had been a “really good meeting, really important.” Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team, investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, visit the closed Huanan Seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China’s central Hubei province, Jan. 31, 2021.Since the WHO team’s arrival last month, the scientists have also visited the Huanan Seafood Market that was linked to a cluster of COVID cases and at least one of the hospitals in Wuhan that treated some of the first patients. The scientists want to know where the virus originated, in what animal, and how it made its way into humans, something that could take years to figure out. The outbreak in China led to the worldwide COVID pandemic.  Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Monday that there are nearly 103 million global COVID infections.  More than 2 million people have died, Hopkins said.  FILE – Emergency medical technician Thomas Hoang, 29, of Emergency Ambulance Service, pushes a gurney into an emergency room to drop off a COVID-19 patient in Placentia, Calif., Jan. 8, 2021.The U.S. continues to have more cases than anyplace else at nearly 103 …

U.S. President Joe Biden is planning to bring what he calls a Clean Energy Revolution to tackle climate change. The diesel industry, which had gone through its own revolution a decade ago to meet stricter environmental standards, has seen payoffs in adopting “green” fuel initiatives. Genia Dulot has the story.  …

Since taking office in January, President Joe Biden has reaffirmed a national commitment to integrity in scholarship and research, appointing scientists to numerous leadership roles.  Educators and experts applaud these appointments and say elevating intellectual integrity in research and science will take the combined effort of universities, industry and the public, too.    Biden appointed Eric Lander — who in 2001 was the first author on a paper published in the science journal Nature that heralded human genome sequencing — to be the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Biden elevated the post to Cabinet-level status for the first time.     “How can we address stresses on academic research labs and promote creative models for federal research support?” the president asked in his January 15 letter announcing Lander’s appointment. Some experts say that with the change in the presidential administration in the U.S., this is a moment for academia and research to review its standards, particularly given that the validity of science is sometimes questioned.  “Many Americans view scientific fact as fake news, aimed at furthering a liberal progressive agenda,” Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, told VOA. “Higher education, now more than ever, needs to be a visible force in the communities we seek to serve, demonstrating our relevance to the everyday concerns of people within those communities.”    Earl Lewis, professor of history, Afromerican and African studies at the University of Michigan, and founding director of the university’s Center for Social Solutions, said he addresses suspicions about higher education by asking skeptics if they prefer the doctor who finished first in their graduating class or …