Month: March 2021

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson received his first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine Friday and urged the public to do the same, saying “he did not feel a thing.” Johnson, 56, received his vaccine at the same hospital where almost a year ago he was put in an intensive care unit and given oxygen via a tube in his nose after he contracted the virus and fell seriously ill. He later said he was so sick that plans were drawn up on how to announce his death. “I literally did not feel a thing. It was very good, very quick,” Johnson said after receiving the injection at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. “I cannot recommend it too highly, everybody when you do get your notification to go for a jab, please go and get it, it is the best thing for you, best thing for your family and for everyone else.” Pictures showed the prime minister wearing a black mask, and a shirt and tie with his sleeve rolled up, while a nurse gives him the vaccine.Record day for Britain Britain broke its record for the most coronavirus shots given out in one day Friday and almost half of all adults have received one dose, making it one of the fastest countries in the world to roll out a vaccine program. This success has helped the ruling Conservatives regain the lead over the main opposition Labour Party in opinion polls after the prime minister last year was accused of …

France, Germany and Italy resumed use Friday of a coronavirus vaccine made by AstraZeneca after health officials sought to allay concerns it might cause blood clots.The European nations resumed inoculations after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine was “safe and effective” and the World Health Organization said “available data do not suggest any overall increase in clotting conditions” among those who had been vaccinated.From left, German public health expert Karl Lauterbach, RKI health institute deputy director Lars Schaade and German Health Minister Jens Spahn speak at a news conference, March 19, 2021, in Berlin, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Germany and Italy are trying to avoid a third wave of coronavirus infections while France is experiencing its highest caseload in four months.Beginning Friday, several French regions, including Paris, will be under new lockdown orders to contain increasing coronavirus cases.France had 40,000 new cases Wednesday.The EMA approved the continued use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine Thursday in the battle to contain the pandemic. Spain had also stopped using the vaccine.The agency said in a statement that “the benefits of the vaccine in combating the still widespread threat of COVID-19 (which itself results in clotting problems and may be fatal) continue to outweigh the risk of side effects.”“A causal link with the vaccine is not proven but is possible and deserves further analysis,” the agency added.FILE – A member of the medical staff holds a vial of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine at the South Ile-de-France Hospital Group in Melun, …

U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris arrived Friday in the southeastern U.S. state of Georgia, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the massage parlor killings of six Asian American women and two others Tuesday near Atlanta.The U.S. leaders will meet with Asian American leaders to discuss the shootings and the targeting of people of Asian descent in the U.S. in apparent hate crimes.Watch the president’s remarks at 4:40 EDT, March 19, 2021:Georgia officials, however, have not yet labeled the massage parlor shootings as hate crimes because the suspect said the shootings were a result of his sexual issues.Before leaving the White House for Georgia, Biden issued a statement urging Congress to approve legislation related to the coronavirus and hate crimes.“I urge Congress to swiftly pass the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would expedite the federal government’s response to the rise of hate crimes exacerbated during the pandemic, support state and local governments to improve hate crimes reporting, and ensure that hate crimes information is more accessible to Asian American communities,” Biden said in the statement.As he climbed the stairs to board Air Force One for the flight to Georgia, Biden stumbled several times before regaining balance and continuing to make his way onto the plane. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 11 MB540p | 14 MB720p | 29 MB1080p | 58 MBOriginal | 70 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioWatch: Biden …

A 14-year-old South Sudanese girl who could not control her urine or bowel movements for two years is lying on a bed at the Lutheran Medical Center in Juba, recovering from an operation to repair a fistula – a medical condition in which a hole develops in the birth canal that is caused by prolonged obstructed labor.The girl, who VOA is not identifying for privacy reasons, said a doctor friend called her last month from Juba when she was in Rumbek to inform her about a two-week camp being run by the Barbara May Foundation, an Australian organization that helps women suffering from fistula in the South Sudanese capital.The girl told South Sudan in Focus that in 2019 an old man found her by the roadside, kidnapped her, and forced her into marriage. She said she later became pregnant and developed fistula while delivering her first-born child as a child herself.”I delivered a baby at home in the village. It’s not a town where I could be taken to the hospital. I delivered alone. There was a woman who was helping me so that the baby could come in her hands, but she put her hands in and it cut the urinary tube and urine started flowing by itself. The relatives of my husband said they don’t want me, that I am smelling, so I went to my father’s home,” said the girl.Australian surgeon Dr. Andrew Browning, who started the foundation and conducted the operations, said he and his team …

U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are traveling to the southern U.S. state of Georgia on Friday, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the massage parlor shootings near Atlanta on Tuesday.The U.S. leaders will meet with Asian American leaders to discuss the shootings and the targeting of people of Asian descent in the U.S. in apparent hate crimes.Georgia officials, however, have not yet labeled the massage parlor shootings as hate crimes because the suspect said the shooting spree was a result of his sexual issues.The president and the vice president will also meet with officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention while in Georgia to get an update on the U.S.  handling the COVID-19 pandemic.They were originally also planning to participate in a “Help Is Here” rally to promote the trillion-dollar COVID relief package.The rally has been postponed in the wake of the shootings that killed eight people, six of Asian descent. Biden is, however, slated to meet with former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams whose organizing is widely viewed as being responsible for the Democratic presidential win in Georgia in November, the first Democratic presidential victory in the southern state since 1992.Meanwhile, U.S. and Mexican officials deny Washington is attaching any strings to a likely shipment of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses to America’s southern neighbor at a time of heightened migration passing through Mexico en route to the United States.“[P]reventing the spread of a global pandemic is part of one of our diplomatic objectives. …

German health officials Friday said coronavirus cases in the country are rising at “an exponential rate,” forcing the government to reconsider lifting COVID-19 restrictions. At a news conference in Berlin, Robert Koch Institute ((RKI)) for infectious Diseases Vice President Lars Schaade told reporters highly contagious virus variants were getting the upper hand in the nation, wiping out progress seen last month in containing the pandemic.Shaade, appearing with German Health Minister Jens Spahn, reported 17,482 new infections in the previous 24 hours and 226 deaths in Germany, with the seven-day incidence rate soaring to about 96 per 100,000 people, despite a months-long lockdown in much of the country.Shaade said increased infections were notably among younger people. “The incidence increases are clearly in the groups under 60 years old, especially in the group 15 to 49 years old.”Spahn told reporters the numbers mean plans to re-open the country will need to be put on hold. “On the contrary, we may even have to take steps backwards.”Earlier this month, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans to gradually lift COVID-19 restrictions, she said she and regional leaders agreed to impose new restrictions in areas where the seven-day incidence rate surpassed 100. At least two regions have already reached that threshold.Meanwhile, Spahn said he has been negotiating with Russia regarding its Sputnik V vaccine, and indicated he is very close to completing a deal. He said the government had been in close contact with the Russians, “and I can also well imagine that we [will] …

As the Northern Hemisphere enters a second spring of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts are saying the higher temperatures and sunnier days are unlikely to do much on their own to curtail the spread of the virus.Travel restrictions and mask mandates, along with people’s behavior, have a much bigger impact than the weather, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The report highlights that the steps people can take “far outweigh any external factors, and that’s a really positive thing to know,” said Dev Niyogi, geosciences professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who was not involved in the report but wrote a study published in November with similar findings. “We saw waves of infection rise in warm seasons and warm regions in the first year of the pandemic, and there is no evidence that this couldn’t happen again in the coming year,” Ben Zaitchik, a climate scientist at Johns Hopkins University, said in a statement. Panel to review informationZaitchik chaired an interdisciplinary panel set up by the WMO to make sense of the deluge of research on the issue.When the pandemic began in early 2020, the virus now called SARS-CoV-2 was known simply as the “novel coronavirus.” Scientists could only look to other coronaviruses to guess how this one would behave.Some coronaviruses cause common colds, which rise and fall with the seasons.Scientists do not know exactly why that is, however, the report noted.Some respiratory viruses do not survive as long in a warmer, more humid atmosphere compared with …

U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are traveling to the southern U.S. state of Georgia on Friday, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and the massage parlor shootings near Atlanta on Tuesday.The U.S. leaders will meet with Asian American leaders to discuss the shootings and the targeting of people of Asian descent in the U.S. in apparent hate crimes.Georgia officials, however, have not yet labeled the massage parlor shootings as hate crimes because the suspect said the shooting spree was a result of his sexual issues.The president and the vice president will also meet with officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention while in Georgia to get an update on the U.S.  handling the COVID-19 pandemic.They were originally also planning to participate in a “Help Is Here” rally to promote the trillion-dollar COVID relief package.The rally has been postponed in the wake of the shootings that killed eight people, six of Asian descent. Biden is, however, slated to meet with former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams whose organizing is widely viewed as being responsible for the Democratic presidential win in Georgia in November, the first Democratic presidential victory in the southern state since 1992.Meanwhile, U.S. and Mexican officials deny Washington is attaching any strings to a likely shipment of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses to America’s southern neighbor at a time of heightened migration passing through Mexico en route to the United States.“[P]reventing the spread of a global pandemic is part of one of our diplomatic objectives. …

The European Medicines Agency has approved the continued use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the battle to contain the pandemic. The European regulator’s seal of approval comes after several European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, stopped using the vaccine following reports that the shots caused blood clots in some vaccine recipients.The agency said in a statement Thursday “the benefits of the vaccine in combating the still widespread threat of COVID-19 (which itself results in clotting problems and may be fatal) continue to outweigh the risk of side effects.”The agency added, “A causal link with the vaccine is not proven but is possible and deserves further analysis.”Meanwhile, the White House announced Thursday that it is sending millions of stockpiled doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada.The vaccine has not yet been approved for use by U.S. regulators, but it has been approved for use by Mexico and Canada.The announcement comes as the Biden administration wants Mexico’s help in stemming the tide of migrants who are attempting to come into the U.S.Mexico is slated to receive 2.5 million vaccines from the U.S., with Canada receiving 1.5 million.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the vaccines would be loans to the two U.S. neighbors, with the U.S. eventually being reimbursed with vaccines from the bordering countries.Beginning Friday, several French regions, including Paris, will be under new lockdown orders to contain increasing coronavirus cases.France had 40,000 new cases Wednesday.Prime Minister Jean Castex said Thursday the outbreak in France is …

U.S. and Mexican officials deny Washington is attaching any strings to a likely shipment of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses to America’s southern neighbor at a time of heightened migration passing through Mexico en route to the United States.“[P]reventing the spread of a global pandemic is part of one of our diplomatic objectives. Another one of our diplomatic objectives is working to address the challenges at the border. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that those conversations are both ongoing and happening,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki replied when asked about a link between lending vaccine supplies and commitments from Mexico to tighten the flow of migrants heading north.White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House, March 18, 2021, in Washington.“These are two separate issues, as we look for a more humane migratory system and enhanced cooperation against COVID-19, for the benefit of our two countries and the region,” said a statement from Roberto Velasco, director general for the North America region at Mexico’s foreign ministry.Psaki confirmed Thursday that there are discussions to send 2.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and 1.5 million to Canada.“We are assessing how we can lend doses,” the press secretary said. “That is our aim. It’s not fully finalized yet.”President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaks about COVID-19 vaccinations in the East Room of the White House, March 18, 2021, in Washington.In remarks Thursday afternoon, U.S. President Joe Biden announced …

NASA calls its latest mission on the surface of Mars a “Wright Brothers moment” of aeronautical pioneering. The ISS gets hardware upgrades, and Russia’s lone, female Cosmonaut now has a Barbie doll in her own image. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.Camera: NASA/AP/ESA/REUTERS/SPACE X/MATTELProduced by: Arash Arabasadi   …

Europe’s drug regulator, the Europe Medicines Agency (EMA), said Thursday the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective in protecting people from the disease and its benefits outweigh its possible risks. Speaking to a remote news conference from the agency’s Amsterdam headquarters, Executive Director Emer Cooke said the review by the agency’s safety committee also concluded that the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of blood clots, also known as thromboembolic events.  Several European nations in the past week had suspended administering the AstraZeneca vaccine after reports patients who had received it had developed blood clots, that, in a few cases, led to death. The EMA review sprang from those reports. People arrive at a vaccination center to receive a dose of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in Antwerp, Belgium, March 18, 2021.Cooke added, however, the committee found during its investigation that a small number of rare and unusual but very serious cases of clotting disorders, which triggered a more focused review. She said it found very rare cases of unusual blood clots accompanied by low levels of blood platelets, which help blood to clot, after vaccination. The reported cases were almost all in women under 55. Based on the evidence available, Cooke said the EMA “still cannot rule out definitively a link between these cases and the vaccine.” The EMA chief said the committee recommended raising awareness of the possible risks and ensuring they are included in the product information. She said they would also provide information to health care …

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) director for Europe said Thursday that the COVID-19 situation in the continent has taken a step backward, with more people dying from the disease than at this time last year.   During a virtual briefing from his office in Copenhagen, Hans Kluge told reporters he is particularly concerned about central Europe, the Balkans and the Baltic states, where new cases, hospitalizations and deaths are now among the highest in the world.   Kluge said Europe is averaging more than 20,000 deaths from COVID-19 per week, with the overall death toll passing 900,000. He said there were more than 1.2 million new cases reported across Europe last week, the third consecutive week that infection numbers have increased.   Kluge said 46 countries in the region have administered more than 107 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine, with 3% of the population in 45 countries having received a completed vaccination series. He said while that represents progress, it is not enough to significantly slow the spread of the virus.   “Let there be no doubt about it, vaccination by itself — particularly given the varied uptake in countries — does not replace public health and social measures,” Kluge said.   He said 21 European nations are gradually easing COVID-19-related restrictions based on the assumption that increasing vaccinations would immediately lead to an improved epidemiological situation. Kluge added, “Such assumptions are too early to make.”   Kluge also weighed in on the AstraZeneca vaccine controversy, in which several …

Leading United Nations agencies are calling for urgent action to combat ageism, which they say harms the well-being of older people and national economies. The World Health Organization, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs and U.N. Population Fund have released the first global report on ageism.A survey of more than 83,000 people in 57 countries finds 1 in every 2 people holds moderately or highly ageist attitudes. Those beliefs are based on stereotypical  ideas about older people drummed into them at an early age.Alana Officer is the World Health Organization’s unit head for demographic change and healthy aging. She says biases start early in life and are reinforced over time. She says ageism is pervasive — in health care systems, in workplaces and in the media.Why Aging of America Poses Huge Risk to US Economy Americans are getting older and family size is shrinking, which means the nation will have fewer working-age adults going forward.”I think it is a cause for concern if we are calibrating our expectations of having a strongly growing population,” says David Kelly, chief global strategist for JP Morgan Asset Management. “If you’re investing in things like the housing industry or the auto industry and you need an ever-growing population, then you have to adjust to a world in which the U.S. population is… She says ageism leads to poorer physical and mental health and to a reduced quality of life for older people. Ageism, she says, …

The European Union’s medications watchdog is due to release initial results Thursday of its investigation into whether there is a connection between the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and cases of recipients developing blood clots.The European Medicines Agency has been examining 30 reported blood coagulation disorders among the 5 million people in the EU who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Among the considerations is whether that rate is more common than the incidence found in the general population.The World Health Organization said Wednesday it is conducting its own assessment of the latest available safety data for the vaccine, but that at this time the agency considers the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its risks.“In extensive vaccination campaigns, it is routine for countries to signal potential adverse events following immunization,” the WHO said in a statement.  “This does not necessarily mean that the events are linked to vaccination itself, but it is good practice to investigate them.”India said Wednesday it would continue using the AstraZeneca vaccine.Concerns about the vaccine prompted a number of EU countries to suspend its use, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed confidence in AstraZeneca on Wednesday, but continued criticism of the company’s pace of vaccine deliveries.“AstraZeneca has unfortunately under-produced and under-delivered, and this painfully, of course, reduced the speed of the vaccination campaign,” she told reporters.Von der Leyen said the EU is targeting vaccinating 70% of all adults by September. …

Australia is beginning an urgent rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations in the Torres Strait in northern Queensland because of a sharp increase in infections in neighboring Papua New Guinea, a situation Health Minister Greg Hunt called a “clear and present danger” to both nations.Papua New Guinea, a South Pacific nation of more than 7 million people, is Australia’s nearest neighbor.It’s facing a public health crisis, and in Canberra, Australia Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is increasingly worried. Some of Australia’s most northerly islands are just a few kilometers from Papua New Guinea, raising concern the virus could spread easily and quickly across the border.“We do not want the virus sneaking across what is obviously a very small area, and we do not want people in north Queensland, particularly Indigenous communities, facing the incursion of that disease,” he said.Officially, Papua New Guinea has recorded more than 2,300 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. More than 25 people have died, according to research from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.Australia’s Chief medical officer, professor Paul Kelly, believes the real situation is far worse.“We are seeing a large number of health care workers on the front lines in Papua New Guinea now coming down with COVID-19,” he said. “These are all the signs that there is a major epidemic in the community. They do not have the resources for mass testing as we do here in Australia, and so any number you see coming out of Papua New Guinea in terms of cases and even …

Scientists are rethinking the cause of water loss on Mars in the face of new evidence that challenges the long-held theory that the water may have evaporated into space. That’s according to new NASA-funded research published this week in the journal Science.Researchers hypothesize that about 30% and 99% of the water on Mars may have been lost to the crust, likely trapped within the minerals there.The lead author of the study, Eva Scheller, said “the water was lost by 3 billion years ago, meaning Mars has been the dry planet it is today for the past 3 billion years.”Once upon 3 billion years ago, Mars was covered with plentiful water that collected into pools, lakes, and deep oceans about half the volume of Earth’s Atlantic Ocean, researchers concluded based on geological evidence.In search of the missing water, scientists believed water on the Martian crust escaped through the atmosphere because of low gravity on the red planet.Now that theory is being challenged by a new study that theorizes a new model to explain the loss of water.“Atmospheric escape doesn’t fully explain the data that we have for how much water actually once existed on Mars,” she said.Scheller further disclosed that there are three key processes within their model.“Water input from volcanism, water loss to space and water loss to the crust.”She said the model allowed them to match their hydrogen isotope data set in order to calculate the amount of water lost to space and that which was lost to crust.Presenting …

Testing is under way for modified versions of COVID-19 vaccines that aim to deal with coronavirus variants. Experts say current vaccines still seem to work against the variants and prevent the most severe forms of disease, though the evidence is limited. Making changes may not be necessary for all the vaccines.  “We don’t know yet,” said Emory University Vaccine Center Associate Director Walter Orenstein. “But people want to get prepared just in case we need to.” Testing and manufacturing will likely take months, he said, so now is the time to get started. All major Western manufacturers with shots in use have announced studies involving either new shots targeted against a specific variant or additional booster shots of their existing vaccines. A woman reacts to seeing a syringe of the Sinovac vaccine for COVID-19 as health workers vaccinate residents in the Kalunga Vao de Almas quilombo on the outskirts of Cavalcante, Goias state, Brazil, March 16, 2021.The A pharmacist prepares to fill a syringe with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at the Vaccine Village in Antwerp, Belgium, March 16, 2021.B.1.351 shares mutations with a strain first found in Brazil, where cases are surging. These mutations are thought to help both viruses spread more easily and also make them less susceptible to the effects of the vaccines. A vaccine against one variant may protect against both, said Baylor College of Medicine vaccine expert Peter Hotez. “The hope is that they’ll be close enough that [one variant vaccine] should cross-protect,” he said. “But these studies take time, so we …

Mass migration and the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to the worldwide spread of female genital mutilation, or FGM, executed on girls from infancy to puberty, say aid organizations.Perpetrators cross borders to perform FGM in countries such as Chad, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan, where there is no legislation against the practice, according to research by This map from the University of Virginia Medical School is from 2017 and shows where FGM occurs most in the world.The practice dates back more than 2,000 years and is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital tissues, including suturing the genitalia. Among the four levels of FGM, some are banned in some countries, while other types remain legal.“In many cases, families are aware that FGM carries a physical and mental health risk, but they have girls undergo FGM to increase their marriageability or as a way of safeguarding their chastity,” said Nankali Maksud, senior adviser of Prevention of Harmful Practices at UNICEF.“While communities cite reasons such as religion, culture or hygiene for practicing FGM, the practice is a human rights violation and an expression of power and control over girls’ and women’s bodies and sexuality,” she said.Despite bans, practice continuesFGM “If a country bans FGM, they’ll usually ban a particular practice of it, so people will just do something else,” said Dena Igusti, a 24-year-old artist and activist from New York who underwent FGM in …