Month: June 2021

The World Bank announced a partnership with the African Union Tuesday to finance the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine for 400 million people in Africa.In a remote news conference via Zoom, World Bank Managing Operations Director Axel van Trotsenburg said the World Bank is providing $12 billion to not only acquire but deploy 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — a single dose shot — in support of the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) initiative.The announcement comes a day after African finance ministers and the World Bank Group met to fast-track vaccine acquisition on the continent and avoid a third wave of COVID-19.Van Trotsenburg said the bank is making the financing available in an effort to address the imbalance in vaccine access between the world’s wealthy and not-so-wealthy nations.  He said, “Less than one percent of the African population has been vaccinated. Africa has been marginalized in this global effort to get a vaccine. We have to correct this unfairness; and given that this is a global pandemic, we need global solutions and global solidarity.”  The project will be a big step toward helping the African Union meet its goal to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population by 2022.   Van Trotsenburg said the regional effort complements the work of the World Health Organization-managed COVAX vaccine cooperative and comes at a time of rising COVID-19 cases in the region.The World Bank has already approved operations to support vaccine roll outs in 36 countries. By the end …

The United States will miss President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% of U.S. adults partially or fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by the July 4 Independence Day holiday, but the White House says it expects to hit that mark “in a few extra weeks.”In a new assessment Tuesday of the country’s vaccination effort, COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said the federal government expects that 70% of those 27 and older will have gotten at least one vaccination shot by the July 4 holiday, which he described as “a remarkable achievement.”“The virus is in retreat,” Zients said, with the country regaining a sense of normalcy. “We are entering a summer of joy, a summer of freedom.”Now, he said, a renewed effort is being made to inoculate more younger adults in the 18-to-26 age group. Many of the younger adults, for various reasons, have shown little interest in getting vaccinated, especially since the number of new coronavirus cases and deaths has fallen sharply in the country in recent weeks and many businesses have reopened without facemask and social distancing restrictions that had been in place for more than a year.“Our effort does not end on July 4,” Zients said. “It’s more important than ever that they get the shot,” along with others who have yet to be inoculated. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease.Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, “We are seeing a dramatic decline in deaths and hospitalizations.”She said that with the proven …

When COVID-19 hit, the world was not ready. The pandemic showed us major gaps in our preparation and ability to respond to the virus. Health experts say we will have another one. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports that it doesn’t have to be as bad as COVID-19. Camera: Laurel Bowman  Produced by: Bakhtiyar Zamanov    …

The Philippine president has threatened to order the arrest of Filipinos who refuse COVID-19 vaccination and told them to leave the country if they would not cooperate with efforts to end a public health emergency.President Rodrigo Duterte, who is known for his public outbursts and brash rhetoric, said in televised remarks Monday night that he has become exasperated with people who refuse to get immunized amid a health crisis then help spread the coronavirus.”Don’t get me wrong. There is a crisis being faced in this country. There is a national emergency. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, I’ll have you arrested and I’ll inject the vaccine in your butt,” Duterte said.”If you will not agree to be vaccinated, leave the Philippines. Go to India if you want or somewhere, to America,” he said, adding he would order village leaders to compile a list of defiant residents.Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra acknowledged on Tuesday that there was no Philippine law criminalizing refusal to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.  “I believe that the president merely used strong words to drive home the need for us to get vaccinated and reach herd immunity as soon as possible,” Guevarra said.A human rights lawyer, Edre Olalia, raised concerns over Duterte’s threat, saying the president could not order the arrest of anybody who has not clearly committed any crime.Duterte and his administration have faced criticism over a vaccination campaign that has been saddled with supply problems and public hesitancy. After repeated delays, vaccinations started in March, …

 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that younger Americans are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 than older Americans. The federal health agency issued a report Monday revealing that just 38% of adults between 18 and 29 years of age had received at least one dose of a vaccine by May 22, compared to 80% of adults older than 65.   The report also found that the percentage of 18- to 29-year-old Americans who were vaccinated between April 19, when all adults in the United States became eligible to receive the vaccine, and May 22 declined from 3.6% per week to 1.7% per week.   In another CDC study, nearly half of the 2,726 people between 18 and 39 years of age said they were either unsure about getting the vaccine or did not plan on getting the vaccine.    About 40% of younger adults said they believed others needed to be inoculated more than they did, while those considering getting the shot cited a desire to resume their regular social activities or keeping others from being infected. Cuba vaccinesCuba announced Monday that its three-shot COVID-19 vaccine dubbed Abdala has proved to be 92% effective in late-stage human clinical trials.  FILE – A man is vaccinated at a vaccination center amid concerns about the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Havana, Cuba, June 17, 2021.The Caribbean island had just announced that another of its domestically produced vaccines, Soberana 2, was 62% effective with just two of its three doses. …

A special committee with the United Nations’s cultural agency says Australia’s Great Barrier Reef should be placed on a list of World Heritage sites that should be designated as “in danger.” The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee, or UNESCO, recommended the 2,300-kilometer-long coral reef system should be placed on the list because it has deteriorated due to climate change.  Australian officials denounced the recommendation. Environment Minister Sussan Ley said Tuesday that Canberra opposes the designation and accused the World Heritage Committee of “a backflip on previous assurances” and that it would not take such an action before its formal meeting next month.  Ley said she and Foreign Minister Marise Payne had spoken by phone to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay about the decision, which she called “flawed” and a decision influenced by politics.   “This sends a poor signal to those nations who are not making the investments in reef protection that we are making,” she said. But Richard Leck, the head of oceans for World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, said in a statement the recommendation “is clear and unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change.” The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s biggest coral reef system that brings an estimated $4.8 billion annually in tourism revenue.  Climate change has driven temperatures in the Coral Sea higher in recent decades, leading to three mass “bleaching” events since 2015, destroying at least half of the Reef’s vibrant corals and prompting the Australian government to downgrade its long term outlook to “very poor.”    …

Thousands of Japanese companies began the rollout of their workplace vaccine programs Monday, inoculating company workers and their families.  Some of the companies had been critical of what they said was the government’s slow pace of Japan’s COVID-19 inoculation campaign.   Toyota and Suntory are among the companies participating in the workplace program with vaccines provided by the government.   Thousands of people are expected to receive shots through the initiative, which is beginning just weeks before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics.   Organizers of the Olympics announced Monday that they will allow a limited number of spectators into venues holding Olympic events, capping the number at 10,000 people, or 50% of a venue’s capacity. The decision comes just days after health experts told the government that banning all spectators was the “least risky” option for holding the games in light of a surge of new COVID-19 infections in the Japanese capital and across the country.    Record in IndiaIn India, the government announced it had given 7.5 million coronavirus vaccine doses Monday — a new single day record for inoculations. The country also saw its lowest daily number of new COVID-19 cases in about three months — 53,256 new infections.  FILE – A worker handles boxes of COVID-19 vaccines, delivered as part of the COVAX equitable vaccince distribution program, at Ivato International Airport, in Antananarivo, Madagascar, May 8, 2021.U.S. officials say the deliveries have been delayed due to legal, logistical and regulatory requirements in both the United States and the recipient …

The White House has laid out its plans for sharing 55 million COVID-19 vaccine doses abroad, with most of the allocations going to countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.The Biden administration said Monday that most of the doses would be shared through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program, fulfilling a commitment by President Joe Biden to share 80 million U.S.-made vaccines with countries around the world.The Associated Press reported Monday that the administration is likely to fall short of its pledge to share the vaccines by the end of June, because of regulatory and other hurdles. Officials cited by the news agency say the vaccine doses are ready but are being delayed due to legal, logistical and regulatory requirements in both the United States and the recipient countries.Biden laid out his plans for the first 25 million doses earlier this month. On Monday, the White House revealed plans for the 55 million remaining shots, including 14 million for Latin America and the Caribbean, 16 million for Asia, and about 10 million for Africa.Another 14 million doses are being shared with “regional priorities,” including Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, South Africa, the West Bank and Gaza.The United States has already begun delivering vaccine doses to Taiwan, Mexico, Canada and South Korea.“We have plenty of supply to deliver on the 80 million doses,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday’s press briefing. “Our biggest challenge is logistics, is the fact that there is not a playbook for this …

While virtual reality-based simulation is commonly used in medical education, its use in dental education is still limited. Two university professors in the U.S. want to change that. They developed a VR dental clinic that offers the potential to revolutionize dental education. Vina Mubtadi reports. …

Tanzania Authorities Warn of Third Wave of COVID-19 A few days after Tanzania expressed its interest in joining the COVAX global vaccine-sharing facility, the government warned citizens of a third wave of COVID-19 and directed that all precautions to be taken, including the wearing of face masks. Authorities say cases are on the rise in all bordering countries, including Uganda, and that there are indicators the disease may again hit the country.Speaking with journalists Saturday, the director of prevention from Tanzania’s Heath Ministry, Leonard Subi, insisted citizens take all necessary precautions to protect themselves from infection. He reminded all citizens not to ignore COVID-19. The ministry has begun to see an indication of the occurrence of the third wave of COVID-19 Subi says. He added this is due to the monitoring reports of the disease being carried out by the ministry and the interaction between Tanzanians and other nations. In April of last year Tanzania stopped publishing COVID-19 data as the then president, the late John Magufuli, declared God had eliminated the infection. FILE – Tanzania’s new President Samia Suluhu Hassan attends the farewell mass for the late Tanzanian President John Magufuli before the burial at Magufuli Stadium in Chato, Tanzania, March 26, 2021.Soon after Magufuli’s death in March of this year, new president Samia Hassan started a change in handling COVID infections, including admitting its presence. Now the country is waiting for vaccines. Opposition politicians such as Yerico Nyerere from the Party of Democracy and Development, or CHADEMA, say the government should emphasize controlling …

The United States says it is sending 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan, substantially increasing its initial promise of 750,000 shots.Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the increased doses from the U.S. are a “moving gesture of friendship.”  U.S. President Joe Biden has said his administration will distribute 80 million vaccine doses to countries around the world. The doses are a fraction of the 500 million shots the United States has committed to distributing free of charge over nearly 100 destinations over the next two years.  The Biden administration plans to distribute 200 million shots this year and another 300 million in 2022 to 92 countries as well as the African Union. The announcement comes as roughly 45% of Americans have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. By contrast, India, with a population of over 1.3 billion, has vaccinated just over 3% of its population.India’s Health Ministry said Sunday that it had recorded more than 58,000 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hour period. India has recorded close to 30 million COVID-19 cases.  Only the U.S. has more, with 33.5 million.A Ugandan athlete has tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Japan ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, according to an Associated Press report. The athlete was not named and has been placed in quarantine in a government facility.  The other eight members of the team tested negative in Japan.  The Ugandan team was fully vaccinated and tested before their flight to …

The United States says it is sending 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, substantially increasing its initial promise of 750,000 doses.Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the increased doses from the U.S. are a “moving gesture of friendship.”  U.S. President Joe Biden has said his administration will distribute 80 million vaccines to countries around the world.  The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday more than 178 million global COVID-19 infections and almost 4 million global deaths. More than 2 billion vaccines have been administered around the world. India’s Health Ministry said Sunday that it had recorded more than 58,000 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hour period. India has recorded close to 30 million COVID-19 cases.  Only the U.S. has more, with 33.5 million.A Ugandan athlete has tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Japan ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, according to an Associated Press report. The athlete was not named and has been placed in quarantine in a government facility.  The other eight members of the team tested negative in Japan.  The Ugandan team was fully vaccinated and tested before their flight to Japan, AP said.Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record more than half a million COVID-19 deaths, a Health Ministry official said Saturday.Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted “500,000 lives lost due to the pandemic that affects our Brazil and the world,” according to an Agence France-Presse report.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist from Espirito Santo University, told AFP, “The third wave is arriving, there’s …

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday more than 178 million global COVID-19 infections and almost 4 million global deaths. More than 2 billion vaccines have been administered around the world.The U.S. says it is sending 23.5 million COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan, substantially increasing its initial promise of 750,000 doses. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the increased doses from the U.S. are a “moving gesture of friendship.”  U.S. President Joe Biden has said his administration will distribute 80 million vaccines to countries around the world.India’s health ministry said Sunday that it had recorded more than 58,000 new COVID-19 cases in the previous 24-hour period. India has recorded close to 30 million COVID-19 cases.  Only the U.S. has more, with 33.5 million.A Ugandan athlete has tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in Japan ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, according to an Associated Press report. The athlete was not named and has been placed in quarantine in a government facility.  The other eight members of the team tested negative in Japan.  The Ugandan team was fully vaccinated and tested before their flight to Japan, AP said.Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record more than half a million COVID-19 deaths, a Health Ministry official said Saturday.Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tweeted “500,000 lives lost due to the pandemic that affects our Brazil and the world,” according to an Agence France-Presse report.Ethel Maciel, an epidemiologist from Espirito Santo University, told AFP, “The third wave is arriving, there’s already …

The World Health Organization officially announced Saturday the end of Guinea’s second Ebola outbreak, which was declared in February and claimed 12 lives.At 16 confirmed cases and seven probable infections, according to WHO figures, the limited size of the flare-up has been credited to experience from the 2013-16 epidemic, which killed more than 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.”I have the honor of declaring the end of Ebola” in Guinea, WHO official Alfred Ki-Zerbo said at a ceremony in the southeastern Nzerekore region, where the disease surfaced at the end of January.International rules meant that Guinea had to wait 42 days — twice the virus’s incubation period — without a new case before declaring the epidemic over.That wait was over Friday, weeks after the last person was declared cured on May 8, a senior health ministry official told AFP.Health Minister Remy Lamah also declared the outbreak finished “in the name of the head of state,” President Alpha Conde.Saturday’s event in a health ministry building was attended by around 200 people, including local religious and community leaders.”We must also thank the communities who pitched in to overcome the disease,” the WHO’s Ki-Zerbo said.Previous resistanceDuring last decade’s outbreak, reluctance and outright hostility toward anti-Ebola infection control measures led some people in Guinea’s forested southeast to attack and even kill government employees.”Community engagement, effective public health measures and the equitable use of vaccines” had this time been key to overcoming Ebola, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.The …

Hundreds of sickle cell disease patients in Cameroon are using World Sickle Cell Day, June 19, to teach their neighbors that people with the disease can live longer, contrary to popular beliefs and stigma that label them as witches who must die before the age of 24. Cameroon says 20% of its 25 million people are carriers of the gene primarily seen in people of African descent. The government is also telling hesitant sickle cell patients to accept vaccinations against COVID-19.At least 300 sickle cell patients and their family members turned out at the Cameroon Baptist Convention hospital at Etoug-Ebe, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. Hospital officials said hundreds of other sickle cell patients came out in the coastal city Douala and the English-speaking western towns of Buea, Bamenda, Kumba and Kumbo to observe the 2021 World Sickle Cell Day.Fifty-five-year-old Ashu Egbe was diagnosed with sickle cell when he was seven months old. He says he is living proof that people can live long with the disorder, in which red blood cells contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin.  ‘I am a sickle cell sufferer, I usually tell people that I am a sickle cell warrior because we go through the challenges of life, the pains and we think that we are warriors, we are overcomers,” Egbe said. “The younger ones should be courageous, avoid extreme colds or extreme heat and drink plenty of nonalcoholic fluids. You have a normal diet of good vegetables and then you have continuous follow …

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has reported 177.8 million global COVID-19 cases and 3.8 million deaths. The U.S. remains the country with the most infections at 33.5 million, followed closely by India with 29.8 million.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron urged European Union countries Friday to be vigilant against the spread of new coronavirus variants and called for the bloc to coordinate its COVID-19 border reopening policies.”Caution is still necessary so that we have a summer of many freedoms, if not all freedoms,” Merkel told a joint news conference in Berlin before the two leaders held a working dinner.”Some countries have reopened their borders earlier for tourist industry reasons, but we must be careful not to reimport new variants,” Macron said.Macron noted the situation in Britain, while Merkel pointed to Portugal to show how things can quickly change.Britain this week delayed a relaxation of pandemic restrictions because of the prevalence of the delta variant, which was first identified in India, while Portuguese authorities on Thursday banned travel in and out of the capital, Lisbon, because of the variant.In other developments Friday, Israel’s new government, which was sworn in Sunday, said it would transfer up to 1.4 million doses of soon-to-expire Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for about the same number of doses the authority anticipates receiving later this year.The authority canceled the deal later Friday, however. Its health minister, Mai Alkaila, told reporters that the expiration date for the vaccine was in June, …

Thailand has begun human trials with two of four homegrown vaccine candidates local scientists are developing against COVID-19, as the country scrambles to secure shots from abroad amid its worst wave of infections since the pandemic began.The homegrown vaccines will not be ready for mass production in time to help Thailand fight off the latest wave. Officials and developers are hoping, though, that they will arrive in time to give Thailand — and maybe its neighbors — booster shots tailored to the main variants of the novel coronavirus by next year.“The vaccine will be against the variants like the South African variant and the Indian variant and others, so that will be our strategy,” said Kiat Ruxrungtham, who is spearheading development of one of the most anticipated candidates at Chulalongkorn University’s Vaccine Research Center in Bangkok.A shot in the armFor now, Thailand is relying on a mix of vaccines from foreign drugmakers to reach herd immunity by the end of the year.Having kept infection rates low through 2020 with tight border controls and strict social distancing, Thailand secured relatively few doses early in the pandemic. It bought a few million shots from China’s Sinovac for the most vulnerable and struck a deal with AstraZeneca that lets local drugmaker SiamBioscience manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine in the country.Then came the third wave in April, sending death and infection rates to record highs, and authorities on a vaccine shopping spree, striking deals with Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Sinopharm. The government says …

A prominent Namibian traditional leader, Vekuii Rukoro, the paramount chief of the OvaHererero people who led international legal battles to bring Germany to pay reparations for its genocide in the southern African country, has died of COVID-19.Rukoro died early Friday, secretary-general of the Ovaherero/OvaMbanderu and Nama Council, Mutjinde Katjiua, told The Associated Press.Rukoro, who was elected Paramount Chief of the OvaHerero in 2014, represented both ethnic groups in the international legal cases.Rukoro and other traditional chiefs have accepted Germany’s offer of compensation but said it should be improved through further negotiations, while some other traditional leaders have rejected it.Last month the German government apologized for the colonial-era massacres and agreed to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to Namibia over a 30-year period.In what is now acknowledged to be the first genocide of the 20th century, the mass killings of the OvaHerero and Nama people were perpetrated by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908.Namibia is currently experiencing a surge of COVID-19. The country’s seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has more than doubled over the past two weeks from 17.31 new cases per 100,000 people on June 3 to 49.13 new cases per 100,000 people on June 17, according to Johns Hopkins University.Namibia, a country of 2.5 million people, has a cumulative total of just over 70,000 confirmed cases, including 112 deaths, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The current surge has brought the government to restrict movement into and out of the capital, …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron urged European Union countries Friday to be vigilant against the spread of new coronavirus variants and called for the bloc to coordinate its COVID-19 border reopening policies.”Caution is still necessary so that we have a summer of many freedoms, if not all freedoms,” Merkel told a joint news conference in Berlin before the two leaders held a working dinner.”Some countries have reopened their borders earlier for tourist industry reasons, but we must be careful not to reimport new variants,” Macron said.Macron noted the situation in Britain while Merkel pointed to Portugal to show how things can quickly change.Britain this week delayed a relaxation of pandemic restrictions because of the prevalence of the delta variant, which was first identified in India, while Portuguese authorities on Thursday banned travel in and out of the capital, Lisbon, because of the variant.FILE – A Sri Lankan man rests in a vegetable market closed to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 16, 2021.In other developments Friday:— The delta variant was detected in Sri Lanka, a neighbor to India.”It is the worst we could have imagined at such a time,” Dr. Chandima Jeewandara, director of the Allergy, Immunity and Cell Biology Unit at Sri Jayewardenepura University, told The Hindu newspaper. “We are already dealing with a spike in cases with the alpha variant. Delta poses a greater risk because our vaccine coverage is low, and among those who are vaccinated a majority …

President Joe Biden announced Friday that 300 million COVID-19 vaccine doses had been administered in the United States since he took office January 20.But Biden’s plan to have 70% of Americans at least partially vaccinated by July 4 may fall short because of a sharp decline in the number of vaccinations that began about two months ago.As of early Friday, according to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 377.9 million vaccine doses had been distributed in the U.S. and 316.0 million had been administered.The site said 176.3 million people, or 53.1 percent of the total U.S. population, had received at least one dose of the vaccine and 148.5 million, or 44.7 percent, had been fully vaccinated. COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths have fallen to their lowest levels in more than a year, but the vaccination drive has flagged because of a lack of urgency on the part of some people to get the shots, especially in the South and Midwest.On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris encouraged people to get vaccinated as she took a tour of a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination site at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor until his 1968 assassination. …