Month: October 2023

An endangered Sumatran rhinoceros, the smallest and hairiest of the five extant rhino species, was born in Indonesia last week in a conservation area, the government said Monday.  Weighing about 27 kilograms (59.52 lbs.), the yet-to-be named female calf, was born Saturday at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary (SRS) facility in Way Kambas National Park, Lampung province in the tropical Southeast Asian country.  Covered in black hair, the newborn stood about 45 minutes after her birth. On the next day, she began to walk around the jungle, the environment ministry said in a statement.  The mother, 22-year-old Ratu, was in a healthy condition, the ministry said.  Ratu is a native of Lampung, while her mate, Andalas, aged 23, was born at the Cincinnati Zoo, in the midwestern U.S. state of Ohio, but has since moved to the same park as Ratu.  The pair previously had Delilah in 2016 and Andatu in 2021.  “This is a happy news, not only for Indonesia but for the world,” Indonesia’s environment minister, Siti Nurbaya, said in the statement.  There were just 80 Sumatran rhinos left in the world, based on a 2019 assessment of threatened species by the Indonesian government.  The mammal, also known by the scientific name, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, is the only Asian rhino with two horns and can grow up to 1.5 meters-tall, weighing between 500 kg to 960 kg (1,102 lbs. to 2,116 lbs.).  …

More than 1,000 people have died from dengue fever in Bangladesh this year, making 2023 the deadliest year due to dengue, since the disease was first detected in the country, according to government figures. The Directorate General of Health Services said that more than 200,000 dengue cases were recorded this year. In a recent 24-hour period, nearly 3,000 were admitted to hospitals because of dengue, the Daily Star newspaper said. The Mayo Clinic says dengue fever is “a mosquito-borne illness that occurs in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Mild dengue fever causes a high fever and flu-like symptoms. The severe form of dengue fever, also called dengue hemorrhagic fever, can cause serious bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure [shock] and death.” “All our efforts to control the mosquito population have been ineffective,” Mushtaq Hussain, a consultant at Bangladesh’s Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, told The Daily Star. He said the extended monsoon season is another contributing factor to the high case load. Some information for this report came from AFP. …

Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that enabled the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. The award was given to Katalin Karikó, a professor at Sagan’s University in Hungary and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Drew Weissman, who performed his prizewinning research together with Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. “Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the panel that awarded the prize said. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the prize and said both scientists were “overwhelmed” by news of the prize when he contacted them shortly before the announcement. Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam, part of the panel that chose the winners, said of their work that “in terms of saving lives, especially in the early phase of the pandemic, it was very important.” The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was won last year by Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for discoveries in human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA which provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19. The award was the second in the family. Paabo’s father, Sune Bergstrom, won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1982. Nobel announcements continue with the physics prize on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize …

The World Health Organization warns that soaring rates of severe malnutrition, acute hunger, and deteriorating health conditions are threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people in South Sudan with the situation set to worsen as the climate crisis kicks in. “South Sudan is a country where you see the overlap and compounding impact of conflict, climate crisis, hunger crisis, and disease outbreaks that have been going on for several years,” said Liesbeth Aelbrecht, WHO incident manager for the Horn of Africa. “Three in four South Sudanese need humanitarian assistance this year; two in three are facing crisis levels of hunger,” she said. “And these numbers are only getting worse.” The United Nations reports 6.3 million South Sudanese are suffering from acute hunger and more than 9 million of the country’s population of 12 million people depend on humanitarian assistance. As conditions continue to deteriorate, the World Health Organization reports 500,000 more people this year will need international aid. Among the most vulnerable are the children. Aelbrecht said, “The numbers of children with severe malnutrition needing medical intervention have been higher this year than at any point in the last four years,” adding that almost 150,000 children had been treated for severe acute malnutrition so far this year. She warned the humanitarian crisis facing South Sudan will worsen with the onset of El Niño, a climate phenomenon that can cause temperatures to rise and excess rains. “Flooding and hunger and drought will increase hunger even further. But it is …

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has tested positive for COVID-19 and will work remotely while isolating, his office said Sunday, just two weeks before a general election in which his Labour party is struggling. The positive test will temporarily sideline Hipkins in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election. Labour has been sliding in the opinion polls, with the center-right National party leading by 31.9% to 26.5% in a recent survey. Hipkins has cold and flu symptoms that began Saturday and will isolate for five days or until he returned a negative test, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. “He will continue with engagements he can undertake via Zoom,” the statement said. Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni would stand in for Hipkins at a Samoan church service in Auckland on Sunday, a spokesperson said. “Thanks to all of Labour’s great volunteers and supporters who I know will keep our campaign going in my absence,” Hipkins said on his official Facebook page. “There’s a lot at stake this election, and I’ll be working doubly hard when I can get back out there to make sure Labour is reelected.” The prime minister’s office said further updates on his schedule “will be provided in due course.” The government removed its last COVID restrictions in August, but health authorities still recommend that people stay home for five days if feeling unwell or if they have tested positive. …

Nine years after a massive waste spill from a copper mine in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, locals are still suffering from “alarming” levels of soil, air and water pollution, Mexico’s Environment Department said Thursday. Summarizing a 239-page report, officials also confirmed, using satellite images, that the spill was not solely caused by dramatic rainfall, as was initially reported, but by the “inadequate design” of a dam at Buenavista del Cobre mine, owned by the country’s largest copper producer, Grupo México. Locals and environmental advocates say the report offers the clearest view yet of the catastrophic scale of the accident and, with it, new hope that Grupo México may finally be held financially accountable after almost a decade of legal battles and broken promises. “We expect that, with this new document, we’ll have an easy path for getting the money,” said Luis Franco, a community coordinator with regional advocacy group PODER. “At the moment, I’m happy but at the same time I know this is just the beginning for the people of Sonora,” he said. “We have to keep fighting.” On Aug. 6, 2014, after heavy rainfall, 40 million liters of acidified copper sulfate flooded from a waste reservoir at Buenavista mine into the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers, just under 100 kilometers from the border city of Nogales, Sonora. After the spill, Grupo México first agreed to give 1.2 billion pesos (about $68 million) to a recovery fund, but in 2017 that trust was closed and the remaining …

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday laid out a proposal to begin regulating laboratory medical tests, a multibillion-dollar industry that the agency says poses a growing risk to patients because of potentially inaccurate results. The proposed rule would end decades of regulatory ambiguity and formally bring thousands of tests performed in large laboratories under FDA oversight. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said the change will help ensure tests used to diagnose cancer, heart disease and many other conditions are safe, accurate and reliable. “A growing number of clinical diagnostic tests are being offered as laboratory-developed tests without assurance that they work,” Califf said in a statement. He added that the agency has long worried that many tests offered by laboratories are not as accurate or reliable as those that undergo FDA review. Here’s a look at the history and background of the testing issue: What are laboratory-developed tests? Most Americans are familiar with medical tests like those used to screen for COVID-19, strep throat and other health conditions. Those tests are developed by a handful of large manufacturers that undergo FDA review before selling their test kits to hospitals, doctors offices or pharmacies. The tests targeted by the FDA’s latest action are developed and used by high-tech laboratories, including those at academic medical centers and companies such as Quest Diagnostics. They include tests for complex diseases like cancer, as well as simpler conditions like high cholesterol and sexually transmitted infections. Over time, laboratory-developed tests have grown into a multibillion-dollar nationwide …