Year: 2022

The future of abortion rights is in flux in the U.S. as the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the issue in June. Since September, Texas has banned abortions after six weeks. Amy, a spoken-word poet, recently had an abortion. And it was no easy task. The divorced mother of a 3-year-old said she barely had time to think once she realized she was pregnant — because she is in Texas. “If I would have had a little bit more time, lowered my blood pressure a little bit — maybe I would have made a different decision. We’ll never know,” she said. In September, the state enacted the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S. Amy, who declined to give her last name, knew she had just days to make her decision, find a place to get an abortion, and then go through with it. “I don’t even think I had gotten the results from the pregnancy test, and I was already googling where to get an abortion in Texas, just so that I could have the option,” she said. Amy’s experience in Texas may soon become reality for more women in the U.S. The Supreme Court is expected to decide on an abortion case in June that could spur a wave of abortion rights restrictions throughout the nation. Worried abortion rights advocates point to life in Texas under the new law, where abortion is illegal after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is around six weeks of …

The future of abortion rights is in flux in the U.S. as the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the issue in June. Since September, Texas has banned abortions after six weeks. For women seeking an abortion, many are in a race against time. Deana Mitchell has the story.  Camera: Deana Mitchell Produced by: Deana Mitchell …

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters a second month, social media and television continue to constantly broadcast disturbing images and news about the conflict. That’s raising some concerns about the effect it might be having on children’s mental health. Video: Artyom Kokhan …

Cameroon is struggling to contain a cholera outbreak that has sickened 6,000 people with the bacteria and killed nearly 100 since February. Authorities have dispatched the ministers of health and water to affected areas and have begun quarantining cholera patients to prevent it from spreading. Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry said the number of cholera patients received in hospitals was growing by the day.   In the seaside city of Limbe in the past week alone, 200 of 300 patients were treated and discharged from the government hospital.  Filbert Eko, the highest-ranking official in Cameroon’s Southwest region where Limbe is located, said the region was the worst hit by cholera, with more than 800 cases since February, forcing the the quarantining of patients to prevent the disease from spreading. “The treatment center will be separated from the hospital and from the public. No outsider will be allowed to have access to the patients,” Eko said. “We don’t want contact between families and the patients. We are taking [efforts] upon ourselves, searching for resources to feed these patients free of charge.” Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry says many of those sickened by cholera do not go to hospitals, seeking only traditional cures, and end up dying at home, though no official figures are given.   Health officials are urging traditional healers to direct their cholera patients to the closest hospital.  Linda Esso, director of epidemics and pandemics at Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry, said cholera has spread to more than 40% of major towns, including the …

Golden butterflies adorn the walls of the Netherland’s only euthanasia expertise center, put up in remembrance of thousands of patients who have chosen to die with dignity over the past two decades. Situated in a leafy upmarket suburb of The Hague, the Euthanasia Expertise Center is the only one of its kind, giving information, assisting medical doctors and providing euthanasia as end-of-life care, which was legalized in a world first in the Netherlands on April 1, 2002. Belgium soon followed later that year and Spain last year became the sixth country to adopt euthanasia — the act of intentionally ending a life to relieve a person’s suffering, for instance through a lethal injection given by a doctor. The number of people seeking euthanasia is growing in the Netherlands, with some 7,666 last year, up by more than 10 percent from the year before, according to official figures. The vast majority are aged 60 or over, suffering from cancer or other terminal illnesses. “Twenty years ago, when the law was passed, it was known, but certainly not used as often as today,” said Sonja Kersten, director of the Euthanasia Expertise Center. The reasons are many: an ageing Dutch population; the fact that euthanasia is no longer a taboo subject and society has opened up to the issue. “Dying with dignity is a debate that’s growing within Dutch society, which is quite open to the subject,” Kersten said. ‘Existential question’ Euthanasia is only authorized in a few countries around the world. In …

When the end of the COVID-19 pandemic comes, it could create major disruptions for a cumbersome U.S. health care system made more generous, flexible and up-to-date technologically through a raft of temporary emergency measures. Winding down those policies could begin as early as the summer. That could force an estimated 15 million Medicaid recipients to find new sources of coverage, require congressional action to preserve broad telehealth access for Medicare enrollees, and scramble special COVID-19 rules and payment policies for hospitals, doctors and insurers. There are also questions about how emergency use approvals for COVID-19 treatments will be handled. The array of issues is tied to the coronavirus public health emergency first declared more than two years ago and periodically renewed since then. It’s set to end April 16 and the expectation is that the Biden administration will extend it through mid-July. Some would like a longer off-ramp. Transitions don’t bode well for the complex U.S. health care system, with its mix of private and government insurance and its labyrinth of policies and procedures. Health care chaos, if it breaks out, could create midterm election headaches for Democrats and Republicans alike. “The flexibilities granted through the public health emergency have helped people stay covered and get access to care, so moving forward the key question is how to build on what has been a success and not lose ground,” said Juliette Cubanski, a Medicare expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, who has been researching potential consequences of winding down …

Laura Purdy is a U.S. doctor on Ukraine’s front lines. In her case, that’s a computer screen in Tennessee. “Patients that I have talked to from some of the larger cities in Ukraine are fearful of leaving their homes because of air raid sirens or offshore attacks,” said Purdy, a surgeon who, until 2016, served in the U.S. Army’s units that provide health care to civilians worldwide. “They need/want to speak to a physician but are fearful to venture out to do so.” Purdy now cares for patients in Kyiv and other cities under Russian attack through Starlink, an internet constellation of some 2,000 satellites operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s private firm SpaceX. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, and as of March 30, 1,189 Ukrainians had been killed and 1,901 injured, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. U.S. doctors are stepping up to provide much-needed advice via telehealth, a practice honed during the pandemic, to the Ukranian soldiers, civilians and refugees injured in the fighting or attempting to manage chronic diseases amid the chaos. Purdy is just one of the many physicians who have joined Aimee, a 10-year-old telehealth platform headquartered in Silicon Valley. Having built the telehealth systems for the International Space Station and SpaceX, Aimee is staffed by self-described “nerds who want to make a difference” and are now partnering with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to provide Ukrainians with free telemedicine visits. By using the Aimee app, Purdy said, patients can get advice and treatment recommendations …

The U.K. will ban conversion therapy for gay or bisexual people in England and Wales, but not for transgender people, ITV reported Thursday. Hours earlier, the government had confirmed an ITV report that it would drop a plan to introduce legislation to ban LGBT conversion therapy and would instead review how existing law could be utilized more effectively to prevent it. That prompted an angry response from LGBT groups and some lawmakers. “The Prime Minister has changed his mind off the back of the reaction to our report and he WILL now ban conversion therapy after all,” ITV political reporter Paul Brand tweeted. “Senior Govt source absolutely assures me it’ll be in Queen’s Speech (of planned legislation). But only gay conversion therapy, not trans,” he said. A Downing Street spokesperson declined to comment. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has come under increasing pressure on the issue after former leader Theresa May vowed in 2018 to eradicate a procedure that aims to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In May last year, when the government set out its post-pandemic parliamentary agenda, it said measures would be brought forward to prevent these “abhorrent practices which can cause mental and physical harm,” starting with a consultation on how best to protect people and how to eliminate coercive practices. …

Scientists say they have finally assembled the full genetic blueprint for human life, adding the missing pieces to a puzzle nearly completed two decades ago. An international team described the first-ever sequencing of a complete human genome – the set of instructions to build and sustain a human being – in research published Thursday in the journal Science. The previous effort, celebrated across the world, was incomplete because DNA sequencing technologies of the day weren’t able to read certain parts of it. Even after updates, it was missing about 8% of the genome. “Some of the genes that make us uniquely human were actually in this ‘dark matter of the genome’ and they were totally missed,” said Evan Eichler, a University of Washington researcher who participated in the current effort and the original Human Genome Project. “It took 20-plus years, but we finally got it done.” Many — including Eichler’s own students — thought it had been finished already. “I was teaching them, and they said, ‘Wait a minute. Isn’t this like the sixth time you guys have declared victory? I said, ‘No, this time we really, really did it!” Eichler said. Scientists said this full picture of the genome will give humanity a greater understanding of our evolution and biology while also opening the door to medical discoveries in areas like aging, neurodegenerative conditions, cancer and heart disease. “We’re just broadening our opportunities to understand human disease,” said Karen Miga, an author of one of the six studies published …

A microgravity ceremony ushers in a new commander of the International Space Station. An old space telescope finds something new in the cosmos. And a futuristic helmet to study astronauts’ brain waves. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space. …

After spending two years being socially distanced in his home country of South Korea, Kim Hoe-jun booked a last-minute flight to Hawaii, where he had enjoyed his honeymoon six years ago, giving in to his craving for overseas travel. “I bought the ticket just a week ago, but it was rather a no-brainer. It felt like I was making up for those two years not being able to go abroad often as I used to before COVID,” he said, before boarding the plane from Incheon International Airport on Friday. Vaccinated and boosted, Kim and his wife are among South Koreans joining in a rush for “revenge travel” — a term that has been trending on social media as people scramble to book overseas trips that were delayed by coronavirus restrictions. The boom started after March 21 when South Korea lifted a seven-day mandatory quarantine for fully vaccinated travelers arriving from most countries. The restriction had been eased last year but was reimposed in December as the highly infectious Omicron variant spread. The country has largely scrapped its once-aggressive tracing and containment efforts despite a record COVID-19 wave, joining a growing list of Asian countries that have eased quarantine rules, including Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Koreans now appear more ready to travel. Polls showed people are less worried about the implications of catching the virus, and increasingly see its prevention as out of their hands. Sales of overseas flight tickets on 11st, an e-commerce unit of SK Telecom, South …

Federal health officials are dropping the warning they have attached to cruising since the beginning of the pandemic, leaving it up to vacationers to decide whether they feel safe getting on a ship. Cruise-ship operators welcomed Wednesday’s announcement, which came as many people thought about summer vacation plans. An industry trade group said the move by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention validated measures that ship owners have taken, including requiring crew members and most passengers to be vaccinated against the virus. The CDC removed the COVID-19 “cruise ship travel health notice” that was first imposed in March 2020, after virus outbreaks on several ships around the world. However, the agency expressed reservations about cruising. “While cruising will always pose some risk of COVID-19 transmission, travelers will make their own risk assessment when choosing to travel on a cruise ship, much like they do in all other travel settings,” CDC spokesperson Dave Daigle said in an email. Daigle said the CDC’s decision was based on “the current state of the pandemic and decreases in COVID-19 cases onboard cruise ships over the past several weeks.” COVID-19 cases in the United States have been falling since mid-January, although the decline has slowed in recent weeks, and the current seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. is roughly unchanged from two weeks ago, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. States have rolled back mask mandates, putting pressure on federal officials to ease virus-related restrictions. Outbreaks continue to be …

A batch of dome-shaped ice volcanoes that look unlike anything else known in our solar system and may still be active have been identified on Pluto using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, showing that this remote frigid world is more dynamic than previously known. Scientists said that these cryovolcanoes — numbering perhaps 10 or more — stand anywhere from 1 kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) to 7 kilometers (4-1/2 miles) tall. Unlike Earth volcanoes that spew gases and molten rock, this dwarf planet’s cryovolcanoes extrude large amounts of ice — apparently frozen water rather than some other frozen material — that may have the consistency of toothpaste, they said. Features on the asteroid belt dwarf planet Ceres, Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan, Jupiter’s moon Europa and Neptune’s moon Triton also have been pegged as cryovolcanoes. But those all differ from Pluto’s, the researchers said, owing to different surface conditions such as temperature and atmospheric pressure, as well as different mixes of icy materials. “Finding these features does indicate that Pluto is more active, or geologically alive, than we previously thought it would be,” said planetary scientist Kelsi Singer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature Communications. “The combination of these features being geologically recent, covering a vast area and most likely being made of water ice is surprising because it requires more internal heat than we thought Pluto would have at this stage of its history,” …

The White House Wednesday announced it has launched a new website — COVID.gov — designed to provide the latest pandemic information as well as access to vaccines, tests, treatments, and masks on a single site. In a press release, the White House said the site provides access to all the tools available to address COVID-19, including a list of all 90,000 vaccination sites established in the United States, links to obtaining masks and tests, and where to obtain COVID-19 treatments. There is also a search function, which can be used to find the latest information on the status of the pandemic in a given area. The site also features a so-called “test-to-treat” locator, designed to allow access to U.S. pharmacies and community health centers, where anyone can get tested for COVID-19 and, if required, receive appropriate treatment. The statement notes U.S. President Joe Biden originally announced the Test-to-Treat initiative in his State of the Union address earlier this month, and since then his administration launched more than 2,000 of the sites across the country. More than 240 sites were established in Veteran’s Health Administration and Department of Defense facilities to serve veterans, military personnel, and their families. The White House also made a pitch for Congress to approve an additional $22 billion in emergency funding to help continue the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials say in the last two weeks, due to a lack of funding, the administration has already had to stop reimbursements to health care providers for …

Scientists in Kenya are testing a project using solar panels to shade crops while generating clean energy. It’s called agrivoltaics. Successful trials have shown that this technology reduces water loss and results in higher yields. Juma Majanga reports from Kajiado, Kenya. …

Malaysia’s health ministry is proposing a major initiative to prevent young people from smoking. It’s a bold plan but critics say it has flaws. Dave Grunebaum has the story. …

A U.S. astronaut has returned to Earth Wednesday aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft after nearly a full year aboard the International Space Station, during which relations between the two space giants plummeted over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The capsule carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts, Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, completed a parachute-assisted landing on the snow-covered steppe of central Kazakhstan, several hours after undocking from the ISS. For Vande Hei, it ended a U.S. record-breaking stay in space. He was in space for 355 days, breaking the previous record of 340 days set by Scott Kelly in 2016. NASA says the two countries are continuing to cooperate on the ISS, although Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, posted a series of angry tweets shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, suggesting Russia could abandon the ISS and let it plummet back to Earth. He also shared a video showing Russian cosmonauts abandoning Vande Hei on the ISS. But in a handover ceremony Tuesday before departing the orbital outpost, Shkaplerov, who commanded the latest ISS crew, expressed a more harmonious view. “People have problems on Earth. On orbit we are one crew,” he said. The invasion has led to fallout in other areas of cooperation between Moscow and other international partners in space travel. The European Space Agency has postponed an unmanned mission to Mars because it relied on a Russian rocket. And British-based satellite company One Web canceled a series of launches because they …

Botswana has become the first country in Africa to approve the use of the Texas-made COVID-19 vaccine Corbevax. Botswana’s president and California biotech company NantWorks made the announcement Monday as they began construction of a plant to produce COVID-vaccines and drugs to fight cancer. CEO of biotech firm NantWorks Patrick Soon-Shiong announced on Monday that Botswana’s Medicines Regulatory Authority (BOMRA) had approved the Corbevax jab. He made the announcement at a groundbreaking ceremony for a vaccine and cancer drug production facility, along with Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi. “I am pleased to announce, Mr. President, with the incredibly hard work of both the Ministry of Health and BOMRA, today we announce Africa’s first approved vaccine for Africa by Botswana,” Soon-Shiong said. Corbevax is a patent-free COVID vaccine developed by the Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in the United States. It has been used in Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia. Soon-Shiong said the first consignment would be delivered to Botswana for distribution across Africa. “This vaccine has been tested and shown to be active in every variant including omicron. I got a commitment this morning that Botswana, effective immediately, will have access to 100 million of these vaccines that you can distribute,” Soon-Shiong said. The plant, which is expected to be operational by 2026, plans to produce vaccines for COVID and other diseases, as well as cancer treatment drugs. Masisi said the plant heralds a new dawn for the production of pharmaceuticals on the continent. “This is particularly noteworthy in …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized a fourth dose of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for people 50 and over. Previously a fourth dose was only authorized for people 12 and up, who are badly immunocompromised. The U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control will not weigh in on how to implement the FDA’s authorization. People wanting the fourth shot should only do so at least four months after the previous booster, the FDA said Tuesday. The FDA’s authorization comes as COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are falling after a winter surge of the omicron variant.  However, a new subvariant, BA.2, is spreading in Europe and the U.S. Roughly two-thirds of Americans are fully vaccinated, meaning they’ve had two doses of Pfizer or Moderna or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Only half of those eligible have gotten a first booster. While the vaccines did not stop omicron from circulating widely, health officials say they did help those infected avoid serious illness or death. The government is also considering authorizing a fourth dose for everyone in the Fall when cases could surge again. Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press. …

Southern Malawi has started recording a rise in cholera cases, which health authorities blame on flooding from a recent tropical storm and cyclone. More than 30 people have been infected and two have died. UNICEF is intervening to reduce the spread of the disease. Malawi confirmed the first cholera case March 2 in the Machinga district. Health authorities say the disease has so far hit the Nsanje and Machinga districts in southern Malawi with a cumulative number of cases now reaching 33. There have been two deaths as of Friday. “Out of 33 cases, eight cases were still receiving treatment at the cholera treatment center, Ndamera treatment center specifically. We also have a cumulative number of two deaths. The rest were discharged,” said George Mbotwa, the spokesperson for the Nsanje District Health Office. He says they have put in place measures to prevent and control the further spread of the disease such as surveillance and contact tracing. “We are also doing health education; health talks in [evacuation] camps where there are a lot of people and of course in surrounding communities. We have also instituted health workers; HSAs (Health Surveillance Assistants) in all uncharted entry points where actually they are conducting health promotion in water treatment efforts, health talks and all that,” he said.  Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with bacteria. The disease affects both children and adults if untreated and it can kill within hours. Cholera is more common during the …

An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday. The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse. It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees (40 Celsius) warmer than normal in some spots of East Antarctica. Satellite photos show the area had been shrinking rapidly the last couple of years, and now scientists say they wonder if they have been overestimating East Antarctica’s stability and resistance to global warming that has been melting ice rapidly on the smaller western side and the vulnerable peninsula. The ice shelf, about 460 square miles wide (1200 square kilometers) holding in the Conger and Glenzer glaciers from the warmer water, collapsed between March 14 and 16, said ice scientist Catherine Walker of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She said scientists have never seen this happen in this part of the continent and that makes it worrisome. “The Glenzer Conger ice shelf presumably had been there for thousands of years and it’s not ever going to be there again,” said University of Minnesota ice scientist Peter Neff. The issue isn’t the amount of ice lost in this collapse, Neff and Walker said. It’s negligible. But it’s more about the where it happened. Neff said he worries that …