Year: 2021

Cameroon’s largest lake, Lake Ossa, has been invaded by Salvinia molesta, an aquatic fern native to Brazil that hinders navigation, makes fishing impossible and blocks water access. To combat the spreading plant, a local aid group is training fishermen to harvest the fern and transform it into organic coal. Florent Tsanga and other fishermen meet twice a week to remove what they can. Since Salvinia molesta invaded Cameroon’s largest lake in 2016, Tsanga’s life has changed for the worse. He said his children do not go to school because of the salvinia. When the lake was good, in the ’80s and ’90s, he said, the children went to school. But these days, he can’t afford it. Lake Ossa is a wildlife reserve that’s home to freshwater turtles, crocodiles, manatees and more than 18 species of fish. A local aid group has trained community fishermen to transform the salvinia into organic coal. After the fern is collected, it is dried and burned. The resulting powder is mixed with other substances and then passed through a mold to create charcoal pieces for domestic use. Because the aquatic plant grows back every seven days, the aid group is also experimenting with a biological solution — raising a weevil that will feed specifically on salvinia. The group has released the weevil in a pilot site in the lake. They hope the insect will multiply, feed on the salvinia leaves, and produce larva that will attach to new plant growth. “And birth is where the …

European countries expanded COVID-19 booster vaccinations, began plans to get shots to young children and tightened some curbs Thursday as the continent battled a surge in coronavirus cases and concerns about its economic fallout grew. Slovakia went into a two-week lockdown, and the Czech government declared a 30-day state of emergency involving early closure of bars and clubs and a ban on Christmas markets. Germany crossed the threshold of 100,000 COVID-19-related deaths. Europe is at the heart of the latest COVID-19 wave, reporting a million new infections about every two days and now accounting for nearly two-thirds of new infections worldwide. The European Commission proposed Thursday that EU residents would need to have booster shots if they wanted to travel to another country in the bloc next summer without the need for tests or quarantines. More boosters in France In France, authorities announced that booster shots would be made available to everyone over 18, rather than just the over-65s and those with underlying health issues. Many countries are rolling out or increasing the use of booster shots, although the World Health Organization wants the most vulnerable people worldwide to be fully vaccinated first. In Africa, where just 6.6% of the population of 1.2 billion is fully vaccinated, many countries are struggling with the logistics of accelerating their inoculation campaigns as deliveries of vaccines finally pick up, the head of Africa’s disease control body said Thursday. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on Wednesday recommended vaccine boosters for all …

NASA tests an asteroid-assaulting system to protect planet Earth. Plus, Japanese tourists ready for the trip of a lifetime, and a look at the historic, sky-darkening lunar eclipse. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space …

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) says the wheat seeds it recently provided to farmers in northeast Syria meet “high standards for safety and quality.” The announcement comes after claims by the Syrian government that the seeds donated by the U.S. agency “are not suitable for cultivation.” Last week, USAID donated 3,000 tons of wheat seeds to Syria’s northeast to help address wheat shortages in a region hit by a growing drought. The Syrian government claimed Tuesday, however, that a sample analysis of the U.S.-provided seeds found they are not suitable for cultivation. The “seeds contain a high rate of nematodes [plant-parasitic worms], which reached 40 percent, and this poses a great danger to agriculture in the region, especially as its effects cause great damage that is exacerbated by the passage of time,” Said Hajji, head of the government’s agriculture directorate in Hasaka province, was quoted by Syria’s state-run SANA news agency as saying. The Syrian government official warned local farmers in northeast Syria against using the seeds, urging people to destroy them. A USAID spokesperson, however, told VOA in a statement that the wheat seeds go through treatment and testing for safety and quality before they are donated. “USAID is supplying Adana and Cihan wheat seed varieties to Syrian farmers, which are sourced from the region and undergo a series of tests at a qualified lab in (the) Kurdish Region of Iraq to verify their quality before they are transported and distributed to farmers in northeast Syria,” the …

Their goal was to find a cure for cancer, but the whole world recognized them for developing the first vaccine against the coronavirus. The founders of the German company BioNTech, Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, now turn their attention back to cancer. VOA’s Dilge Timocin interviewed Ugur Sahin and files this report. Camera: Tezcan Taskiran …

“I could not understand how this highly educated, powerful trauma nurse is now the patient.” A registered nurse who asks that we call her “Gi” is talking about herself. While working in the emergency room of her community hospital at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gi started crying unconsolably, unable to speak or function. She was having a panic attack and was later hospitalized in an in-patient psychiatric facility, diagnosed with PTSD. Gi is back at a hospital bedside now – as a hospice nurse.  A pandemic of nurses suffering  Gi is not alone. The number of nurses with mental health issues has grown substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) shows that the number of nurses reporting mental health issues since the pandemic started has risen from 60% to 80% in many countries.   “Nurses are suffering,” says ICN CEO Howard Catton. He cites violent attacks, “along with the exhaustion, grief and fear faced by nurses who are caring for patients.”  The American Nurses Foundation says 1 of 3 nurses indicate they are “emotionally unhealthy.”    ‘Normal systems breaking down’  Nurses say the mental health strain arises from a variety of issues.The industry was already facing a staffing shortage prior to COVID-19, and many nurses juggled multiple jobs caring for increasing numbers of patients.Now the recommended ratio of 1 nurse for 2 patients is stretched to a ratio of 1 to 3, to the detriment of patients and nurses alike.  “Clara,” who …

The U.S. space agency NASA has launched a spacecraft on a mission to test the ability to knock an asteroid off a potentially harmful collision course with Earth.  The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, will take 10 months to reach the asteroid Dimorphos before slamming into it at 24,000 kilometers per hour.  Dimorphos does not pose any danger to Earth, but gives scientists a way to examine the concept of moving a potentially harmful object far enough and early enough off its course so that it flies past Earth.  The DART spacecraft is about the size of a small car and carries a briefcase-sized craft that will be deployed shortly before the impact to record video of the event.  NASA says the mission costs about $330 million.  Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. …

CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said Tuesday in a verdict that could set the tone for U.S. city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in the opioid crisis. Lake and Trumbull counties blamed the three chain pharmacies for not stopping the flood of pills that caused hundreds of overdose deaths and cost each of the two counties about $1 billion, their attorney said. How much the pharmacies must pay in damages will be decided in the spring by a federal judge. It was the first time pharmacy companies had completed a trial to defend themselves in a drug crisis that has killed a half-million Americans in the past two decades. The counties were able to convince the jury that the pharmacies played an outsized role in creating a public nuisance in the way they dispensed pain medication into their communities. “The law requires pharmacies to be diligent in dealing drugs. This case should be a wake-up call that failure will not be accepted,” said Mark Lanier, an attorney for the counties. “The jury sounded a bell that should be heard through all pharmacies in America,” Lanier said. Attorneys for the three pharmacy chains maintained they had policies to stem the flow of pills when their pharmacists had any concerns and would notify authorities about suspicious orders from doctors. They also said it was the doctors who controlled how many pills were being prescribed for …

The U.S. space agency, NASA, and its European counterpart, the European Space Agency (ESA), have delayed the long-awaited launch of the James Webb space telescope to no earlier than December 22. In statements, both agencies say the launch is being held up for additional testing of the orbiting observatory after what appeared to be a minor incident during preparations at the launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana.   NASA says technicians were preparing to attach the telescope to the launch vehicle adapter, which is used to integrate the observatory with the upper stage of the rocket that will take it into orbit. They say the sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band — which secures the Webb to the launch vehicle adapter — caused a vibration throughout the observatory. The agency says a NASA-led review board was immediately convened to investigate and perform additional testing to ensure the incident did not damage any of the instrument’s sensitive components. The space agency said it, along with mission partners the ESA and the Canadian space agency will provide an update when the tests are complete late this week. The Webb telescope, originally scheduled for launch December 18, is designed to replace the aging Hubble telescope. NASA says it is designed to explore every phase of cosmic history — from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies and everything in between.   When ready, the telescope will be launched from the South American site aboard a French-made Ariane 5 rocket. …

A mission is underway to retrieve scientific data from the rugged ocean floor in the Southern Ocean, formerly known as the Antarctic Ocean, that could explain what triggers underwater earthquakes and tsunamis.    Some of the world’s most violent underwater earthquakes are unleashed beneath the hostile waters of the Southern Ocean, but researchers don’t know why. Sophisticated noise and motion sensors could help unlock the secrets of how Tectonic plates – or pieces of the Earth’s crust – start to collide, a process known as subduction.    For the past year, an array of 27 seismometers positioned on the ocean floor has formed a giant telescope pointing to the planet’s core.  The instruments are now being retrieved.     Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, a chief scientist from the Australian National University’s Research School of Earth Sciences hopes the study will help to explain how and why earthquakes occur.     “We cannot predict when exactly they will happen, how large they will be. But we can understand better their physical mechanism and we can also understand better the Earth’s structure in that area, and this is critical to predict the propagation of the seismic waves from the hyper-center of these earthquakes to any other point on the Earth’s surface, including a possible generation of tsunami,” Tkalčić said.       Scientists hope the study will give them a better understanding of how earthquakes and tsunamis might affect Australia and New Zealand, which lies within the seismically active region known as the “Pacific Ring of Fire.”     The expedition is scouring some of the world’s steepest underwater mountain ranges to depths of more than 3.5 miles in …

A SpaceX rocket was set to blast off from California late Tuesday as NASA seeks to demonstrate a first-of-its-kind planetary defense system, designed to deflect an asteroid from a potential doomsday collision with Earth. The DART mission will test NASA’s ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with kinetic force – crashing a robot spacecraft into it at high speed and nudging the space boulder just enough to keep our planet out of harm’s way. DART’s target is a tiny fraction of the size of the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid that slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, killing most of the planet’s animal species. It is not on a path that will cause it to hit Earth in the foreseeable future. But scientists say smaller asteroids are far more common and pose a far greater theoretical threat to Earth in the near term. NASA has hired Elon Musk’s company SpaceX to launch DART aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:20 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday (1:20 a.m. Eastern/0620 GMT Wednesday) from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles. If liftoff is postponed NASA has an 84-day launch window in which to try again. Once released into space, DART will journey 10 months to its destination, some 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth. Its target is an asteroid “moonlet” the size of a football stadium that orbits a much larger chunk of rock – about five times bigger – in a …

Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communication between the brain and the body. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry talks to a woman diagnosed with the disease about her journey to find a healthier life and learn about the positive changes she made to help relieve the symptoms of MS.     Camera: June Soh  Produced by: June Soh, Zdenko Novacki …

The top U.S. infectious disease expert on Sunday urged millions of Americans who already are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to get booster shots “to optimize their status.” To date, 34.5 million of the 196 million fully vaccinated people in the United States have received booster shots, according to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even as about 60 million people remain unvaccinated against the illness caused by the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” show, “There is no lack of clarity” about the need for the booster shots because of the waning effectiveness of their first vaccination shots over time. He said the boosters give people “greater durability,” although it is not clear whether those who have been vaccinated might continue to need booster shots every six months or a year in the future. “We’re going to look at what it means to be boosted, follow the science, follow the data,” Fauci told CNN’s “State of the Union” show in a separate interview. A CDC advisory panel Friday voted unanimously to make COVID-19 vaccine booster shots available to those 18 and older. The number of new cases is on the upswing again in the U.S., with more than 90,000 new cases recorded daily in recent days. Fauci said the increase was not unexpected as temperatures turn colder heading into the winter months and more people are confined inside their …

As coronavirus infections hit Ukraine, a single shift for Dr. Oleksandr Molchanov now stretches to 42 hours — 24 of them in Kakhovka’s hospital, followed by another 18 hours spent visiting tents set up to care for 120 COVID-19 patients. While vaccination rates in Eastern Europe have generally lagged, Ukraine has one of the lowest in the region. But because of its underfunded and struggling health care system, the situation has turned dire nearly two years since the virus swept into Europe. The country is setting records almost every day for infections and deaths, most recently on Tuesday, when 838 deaths were reported. “We are extinguishing the fire again. We are working as at the front, but our strength and capabilities are limited,” said Molchanov, who works at the hospital in the city in southern Ukraine on the Dnieper River. “We are working to the limit.” After his grueling shift, the 32-year-old doctor goes home to sleep and recover for two days. The next one may be even more challenging. “The situation is only getting worse,” Molchanov said. “Hospital beds are running out, there are more and more serious patients, and there is a sore lack of doctors and medical personnel.” The tents beside Kakhovka’s hospital have 120 beds, and 87 of them are occupied, with more patients arriving every day. But Molchanov is one of only three doctors to care for them. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration inherited a health care system that was undermined by reforms launched by his …

Police arrested seven rioters in The Hague on Saturday night after youths set fires in the streets and threw fireworks at officers. The unrest came a day after police opened fire on protesters in Rotterdam amid what the port city’s mayor called “an orgy of violence” that broke out at a protest against coronavirus restrictions. Elsewhere in the Netherlands, two soccer matches in the top professional league had to be briefly halted after fans — banned from matches under a partial lockdown in force in the Netherlands for a week — broke into stadiums in the towns of Alkmaar and Almelo. Police said via Twitter that seven people were arrested in The Hague and five officers were injured. One needed treatment in a hospital. Local media outlet Regio 15 reported that rioters threw bicycles, wooden pallets and motorized scooters on one of the fires. The rioting in The Hague was on a smaller scale than the pitched battles on the streets of Rotterdam on Friday night, when police said three rioters were hit by bullets and investigations were underway to establish if they were shot by police. Earlier police said two people were hit. The condition of the injured rioters was not disclosed. Officers in Rotterdam arrested 51 people, about half of them minors, police said Saturday afternoon. One police officer was hospitalized with a leg injury suffered in the rioting, another was treated by ambulance staff and countless others suffered minor injuries. Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told reporters in the …

This was supposed to be the Christmas in Europe where family and friends could once again embrace holiday festivities and one another. Instead, the continent is the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic as cases soar to record levels in many countries. With infections spiking again despite nearly two years of restrictions, the health crisis increasingly is pitting citizen against citizen — the vaccinated against the unvaccinated. Governments desperate to shield overburdened health care systems are imposing rules that limit choices for the unvaccinated in the hope that doing so will drive up rates of vaccinations. Austria on Friday went a step further, making vaccinations mandatory as of Feb. 1. “For a long time, maybe too long, I and others thought that it must be possible to convince people in Austria, to convince them to get vaccinated voluntarily,” Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said. He called the move “our only way to break out of this vicious cycle of viral waves and lockdown discussions for good.” While Austria so far stands alone in the European Union in making vaccinations mandatory, more and more governments are clamping down. Starting Monday, Slovakia is banning people who haven’t been vaccinated from all nonessential stores and shopping malls. They also will not be allowed to attend any public event or gathering and will be required to test twice a week just to go to work. “A merry Christmas does not mean a Christmas without COVID-19,” warned Prime Minister Eduard Heger. “For that to happen, Slovakia …

A chemical that babies give off from their heads calms men but makes women more aggressive, according to new research in the journal Science Advances. It could be a chemical defense system we inherited from our animal ancestors, the authors speculate, making women more likely to defend their babies and men less likely to kill them. Odors affect behavior in the animal world in plenty of ways. A rabbit mom will attack her pups if they smell like another female rabbit. Mice whose sense of smell is damaged don’t attack other mice intruding on their territory. We humans like to think we are above all that. But scientists are increasingly finding that odors affect us more than we think. In the latest study, scientists tested how people responded to a chemical called hexadecanal, or HEX. HEX is found in body odor and breath. It’s also found in feces, and raising babies is “the one social setting where humans have extensive exposure” to poo, the authors note. They also discovered that HEX is the most abundant of the many chemicals babies’ heads give off. The study tested people’s responses to HEX using rigged games designed to aggravate the player. In one game, when the aggravated player is allowed to win, he or she gets to blast the opponent with a loud noise. The louder the noise, the higher the scientists rated the player’s aggression level. When players sniffed HEX before playing, women’s blasts were louder and men’s were quieter. The effect …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday expanded emergency use authorization for the booster shot of the PFizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to all U.S. adults. The decision was announced by the drug companies Friday and comes after at least 10 states already had expanded their booster programs to fight COVID-19 surges. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has to authorize the expanded distribution of the booster doses before people can start receiving their third shot, and the CDC’s independent panel of vaccine experts is scheduled to meet Friday to review the new data. During the White House COVID-19 response team meeting Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the agency will quickly review the safety and effectiveness data and make recommendations as soon as the FDA makes its decision. Walensky said the CDC has compiled evidence demonstrating boosters are working. Through its National Healthcare Safety Network, the agency has been studying new data from COVID-19 cases in long-term care facilities. She said when comparing cases of COVID-19 between those who are vaccinated with two doses and those who have received a third, booster dose, the rate of disease is markedly lower for those who received their booster shot. With CDC approval, boosters could be available for all as early as Saturday.   Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. …