Year: 2023

HIV/AIDS can end as a public health threat by 2030 if nations can muster the political will and critical financial support to completely defeat it, a new report published Thursday says. The deadly disease has killed 40.4 million people since the start of the epidemic in 1981. “The data in this report show that the path that ends AIDS is not a mystery, but it is a choice. It is a political and a financial choice,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “The report shows that HIV responses can succeed when they are anchored in strong political leadership,” she said. The report released by UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS program, finds that in 2022, 39 million people worldwide were living with HIV, 1.3 million became newly infected and 630,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses.  While new infections have been declining globally over the past 10 to 12 years, rates remain high in several regions. Data show that two-thirds of all people living with HIV are found in sub-Saharan Africa, the hardest-hit region in the world. Other heavily infected regions include Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The report says women and girls are still disproportionately affected, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. “Every single week, 4,000 adolescent girls and young women were newly infected with HIV globally; 3,100 of those are from sub-Saharan Africa. It is a sub-Saharan crisis,”  Byanyima said. At the same time, she noted that eastern and southern …

U.S. officials have approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which will let American women and girls buy contraceptive medication from the same aisle as aspirin and eyedrops. The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it cleared Perrigo’s once-a-day Opill to be sold without a prescription, making it the first such medication to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter. The company won’t start shipping the pill until early next year, and there will be no age restrictions on sales. Hormone-based pills have long been the most common form of birth control in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women since the 1960s. Until now, all of them required a prescription. Medical societies and women’s health groups have pushed for wider access, noting that an estimated 45% of the 6 million annual pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Teens and girls, women of color and those with low incomes report greater hurdles in getting prescriptions and picking them up. Some of the challenges can include paying for a doctor’s visit, getting time off from work and finding child care. “This is really a transformation in access to contraceptive care,” said Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, a non-profit group that supported the approval. “Hopefully this will help people overcome those barriers that exist now.” Ireland-based Perrigo did not announce a price. Over-the-counter medicines are generally much cheaper than prescriptions, but they aren’t covered by insurance. Many common medications have made the switch to non-prescription status in …

It is possible to end AIDS by 2030 if countries demonstrate the political will to invest in prevention and treatment and adopt non-discriminatory laws, the United Nations said on Thursday. In 2022, an estimated 39 million people around the world were living with HIV, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS program. HIV can progress to AIDS if left untreated. “We have a solution if we follow the leadership of countries that have forged strong political commitment to put people first and invest in evidence-based HIV prevention and treatment programs,” UNAIDS said in a report published on Thursday. It said an effective response to HIV also meant adopting non-discriminatory laws and empowering community networks, among other initiatives. People living with HIV or AIDS in many countries face stigma, discrimination and violence. “Progress has been strongest in the countries and regions that have the most financial investments, such as in eastern and southern Africa, where new HIV infections have been reduced by 57% since 2010,” the report said. It added, however, that there has been a steep increase in new infections in eastern Europe and central Asia, as well as in the Middle East and North Africa. “These trends are due primarily to a lack of HIV prevention services for marginalized and key populations and the barriers posed by punitive laws and social discrimination,” it said. Last year, 1.3 million people became newly infected with HIV and 630,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses, according to UNAIDS. …

Warmer, drier weather because of an earlier-than-usual El Nino is expected to hamper rice production across Asia, hitting global food security in a world still reeling from the impacts of the war in Ukraine.  An El Nino is a natural, temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns, and climate change is making them stronger. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this one in June, a month or two earlier than it usually does. This gives it time to grow. Scientists say there’s a one in four chance it will expand to supersized levels.  That’s bad news for rice farmers, particularly in Asia where 90% of the world’s rice is grown and eaten, since a strong El Nino typically means less rainfall for the thirsty crop.  Past El Ninos have resulted in extreme weather, ranging from drought to floods.  There are already “alarm bells,” said Abdullah Mamun, a research analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute or IFPRI, pointing to rising rice prices due to shortfalls in production. The average price of 5% broken white rice in June in Thailand was about 16% higher than last year’s average.  Global stocks have run low since last year, in part due to devastating floods in Pakistan, a major rice exporter. This year’s El Nino may amplify other woes for rice-producing countries, such as reduced availability of fertilizer due to the war and some countries’ export restrictions on rice. Myanmar, Cambodia and Nepal are particularly …

BEIJING — Employers across much of China were ordered Monday to limit outdoor work due to scorching temperatures, while the east and southwest were warned to prepare for torrential rain as the country struggled with heat, flooding and drought. Temperatures as high as 40 C (104 F) were reported in cities including Shijiazhuang, southwest of Beijing, the capital. Highs of 35 C (95 F) to 38 C (100 F) were reported in Beijing, Guangzhou in the south, Chongqing in the southwest and Shenyang in the northeast. The weather agency issued an orange alert, its second-highest warning, for heat across southern China and much of the north and northeast. That requires employers to limit outdoor work, though delivery workers for restaurants and online retailers were still working. The agriculture ministry warned Sunday that persistent hot weather could damage rice harvests and told local authorities to ensure adequate water supplies to prevent the crop from ripening prematurely. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Water Resources warned the provinces of Shandong on the east coast and Sichuan in the southwest to prepare for heavy rain from Tuesday to Friday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It said multiple rivers were likely to rise above safe levels. In the central city of Yichang, in Hubei province, heavy rain triggered a landslide Saturday that buried a highway construction site and killed one person. Authorities were searching Monday for seven missing construction workers, Xinhua reported. Business and schools in Heilongjiang province in the northeast were ordered Monday …

The Webb Space Telescope is marking one year of cosmic photographs with one of its best yet: the dramatic close-up of dozens of stars at the moment of birth.  NASA unveiled the latest snapshot Wednesday, revealing 50 baby stars in a cloud complex 390 light-years away. The region is relatively small and quiet yet full of illuminated gases, jets of hydrogen and even dense cocoons of dust with the delicate beginnings of even more stars.  “Prepare to be awestruck!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson tweeted, noting that the image “presents star birth as an impressionistic masterpiece.”  All of the young stars appear to be no bigger than our sun. Scientists said the breathtaking shot provides the best clarity yet of this brief phase of a star’s life.  “It’s like a glimpse of what our own system would have looked like billions of years ago when it was forming,” NASA program scientist Eric Smith told The Associated Press.  “I like to remind people that when this light left, it was roughly 1633. … People were putting Galileo on trial for believing that the Earth goes around the sun, and here we are seeing separate suns and planets forming today,” Smith said.  This cloud complex, known as Rho Ophiuchi, is the closest star-forming region to Earth and is found in the sky near the border of the constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpius, the serpent-bearer and scorpion. With no stars in the foreground of the photo, NASA noted, the details stand out all the more. …

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Tuesday it has extended its probe into Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drugs Ozempic and weight-loss treatment Saxenda, following two reports of suicidal thoughts, to include other drugs in the same class. The agency began its review on July 3 after Iceland’s health regulator flagged the reports of patients thinking about suicide and one case of thoughts of self-harm after use of Novo Nordisk’s drugs. There have been issues of suicidal thoughts linked to another class of weight-loss drugs, which have hobbled previous attempts by the drug industry to develop lucrative weight-loss drugs. Sanofi’s weight-loss drug Acomplia, which never won U.S. approval, was withdrawn in Europe in 2008 after being linked to suicidal thoughts. The EMA said on Tuesday it will investigate the class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which trigger a feeling of fullness after eating. The review is expected to be completed in November, according to the agency. Drugmaker Eli Lilly’s shares closed down 3.1%. Its diabetes drug Trulicity also belongs to the same class. Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy, which contains the active ingredient semaglutide, is also part of the review. Other GLP-1 drugs include Sanofi’s Suliqua and AstraZeneca’s Bydureon. Both are approved in Europe for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Sanofi said it has not identified any safety concerns related to “suicidal ideation” from use of its GLP-1 receptor agonist. However, the company has started an investigation and will share all relevant information with the European health regulator. Eli …

Australian scientists say they have developed a special glue that can be used to repair parts of the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef. Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology believe the biodegradable putty has the potential to help the coral recover after it’s been damaged by cyclones, hit by boats or suffered bleaching. The Great Barrier Reef is arguably Australia’s most valuable natural treasure. It is the world’s largest coral system and faces an array of threats, including climate change, pollution, over-fishing and coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. When reefs are damaged by cyclones, or struck by boats, patches of rubble are often left behind. These can be shifted by waves and currents, preventing the formation of a stable seabed that coral needs to grow. Coral bleaching can also cause reefs to disintegrate. When ocean temperatures are too warm – a consequence of climate change – the coral responds to the heat by expelling the algae that give them their brilliant colors and most of their energy. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead, but it becomes far more fragile. In a bid to reverse some of that degradation, a team at the Queensland University of Technology has made a reef-binding glue that eventually dissolves away. Leonie Barner is a professor of chemistry at the Queensland University of Technology. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the glue should be a sustainable way to help reefs recover. “One component that we are using is actually a plant extract. It’s coming …

Humanity has etched its way into Earth’s geology, atmosphere and biology with such strength and permanence that a team of scientists figures we have shifted into a new geologic epoch — one of our own creation. It’s called the Anthropocene. A geologic task force recommends marking this new epoch’s start in the deep, pristine Crawford Lake outside Toronto, Canada, with a “golden spike.” The start of the human epoch is sometime around 1950 to 1954. The specific date will be determined soon, probably by levels of plutonium in new measurements from the bottom of the lake. “It’s quite clear that the scale of change has intensified unbelievably and that has to be human impact,” said University of Leicester geologist Colin Waters, who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group, which is making the recommendation. “It’s no longer just influencing Earth’s sphere, it’s actually controlling.” The burning of coal, oil and gas that’s changing Earth’s climate and atmosphere, nuclear bomb detonations spotted in soil around the globe, plastics and nitrogen from fertilizers added on land, and dramatic changes to species that make up the rest of the Earth characterize the new epoch, scientists said. The idea of the Anthropocene was proposed at a science conference more than 20 years ago by the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen. Teams of scientists have debated the issue for decades. A special committee was set up to examine whether the designation was needed, when it would start and where a golden spike would be placed to commemorate …

Double Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won an appeal against track and field’s testosterone rules on Tuesday when the European Court of Human Rights ruled she was discriminated against and there were “serious questions” about the rules’ validity. World Athletics, which enforces the regulations, said in reaction to the decision that its rules would remain in place, however, meaning there would not be an immediate return to top-level competition for the South African runner. Semenya’s case at the rights court was against the government of Switzerland, and not World Athletics itself, although the decision was still a major moment in throwing doubt on the future of the rules. Semenya was legally identified as female at birth and has identified as female her entire life, but regulations introduced by track and field’s governing body in 2019 forced her to artificially suppress her natural testosterone to be allowed to compete in women’s competitions. World Athletics says she has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development, which results in a natural testosterone level in the typical male range and which gives her an unfair advantage in women’s competitions. Semenya has been challenging the testosterone rules in the courts for years, but had previously lost an appeal at sport’s highest court in 2019 and a second challenge against the rules at Switzerland’s supreme court in 2020. That second rejection of her appeal was the reason why the Swiss government was the respondent in the European Court of Human Rights …

India will launch a mission to the moon later this week hoping to become the fourth country to land a craft on the lunar surface.     So far only three countries — the United States, Russia and China — have achieved what is called a “soft landing” on the moon in which vehicles touch down without damage.   The mission marks the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) second attempt to land a rover on the moon — a previous effort nearly four years ago failed.     The spacecraft called Chandrayaan-3, which means moon vehicle in Sanskrit, is scheduled to be launched Friday afternoon (2:35 p.m. Indian time) It is equipped with a lander and a robotic rover that are expected to land on the moon on August 23 or August 24 to map the lunar surface for about two weeks.  “The date is decided based on when the sunrise is on the moon; it will depend on the calculations, but if it gets delayed, then we will have to keep the landing for the next month in September,” ISRO director S. Somanath said.   He said the main objective is to demonstrate “a safe and soft landing.”      India aims to land its rover on the South Pole of the moon, a previously unexplored part that lies in near darkness. It will study the topography of this region.    “There is expectation that the southern parts of the moon have a lot of mineral deposits and helium-3. There is also the possibility of water deposits …

Astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole yet using NASA’s Webb Space Telescope, but that record isn’t expected to last. The black hole is at the center of a galaxy created a mere 570 million years after the Big Bang. That’s 100 million years closer to the beginning of the cosmos than a black hole identified in 2021 by a Chinese team using a telescope in Chile. Webb already has spotted other black holes that appear to be even closer to the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago, but those findings are still under review, said University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein, one of the lead researchers. The finding has been accepted for publication by The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Because the signals from this particular black hole are weak, more observations are needed, according to the Texas-led team. There are untold numbers of dormant black holes, some even more distant than this one. But without any glowing gas, they are invisible, Finkelstein said. Detected in February, this particular one is active and actually puny as black holes go — equivalent to about 9 million times the mass of our sun. That’s close in size to the one in our own Milky Way galaxy, according to the team. Using Webb, the team also spotted two other small black holes from the early universe, dating to around 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The observations suggest that these downsized versions may have been more common than previously …

Scientists say crushing temperatures that blanketed Europe last summer may have led to more than 61,000 heat-related deaths, highlighting the need for governments to address the health impacts of global warming. In their study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers examined official mortality figures from 35 European countries and found a marked increase in deaths between late May and early September last year compared with the average recorded over a 30-year period. The increase in heat-related deaths was higher among older people, women and in Mediterranean countries, they found. But the data also indicated that measures taken in France since a deadly heat wave two decades ago may have helped prevent deaths there last year.  “In the pattern of summer mean temperatures in Europe during the summer of 2022, we don’t see borders,” said co-author Joan Ballester of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. The highest temperatures were recorded across a swath of southwestern Europe, from Spain to France and Italy. “But when we look at the heat-related mortality, we start to see borders,” Ballester told The Associated Press. While France had 73 heat-related deaths per million inhabitants last summer, Spain’s rate was 237 and Italy’s was 295, the study found. “Possibly France drew lessons from the experience of 2003,” he said. France’s warning system includes public announcements with advice on how to stay cool and encouraging people to drink water and avoid alcohol. Not all of the heat-related deaths calculated across Europe last summer were linked to …

The European Union signed off Monday on a new agreement over the privacy of people’s personal information that gets pinged across the Atlantic, aiming to ease European concerns about electronic spying by American intelligence agencies. The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework has an adequate level of protection for personal data, the EU’s executive commission said. That means it’s comparable to the 27-nation’s own stringent data protection standards, so companies can use it to move information from Europe to the United States without adding extra security. U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order in October to implement the deal after reaching a preliminary agreement with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Washington and Brussels made an effort to resolve their yearslong battle over the safety of EU citizens’ data that tech companies store in the U.S. after two earlier data transfer agreements were thrown out. “Personal data can now flow freely and safely from the European Economic Area to the United States without any further conditions or authorizations,” EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said at a press briefing in Brussels. Washington and Brussels long have clashed over differences between the EU’s stringent data privacy rules and the comparatively lax regime in the U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law. That created uncertainty for tech giants including Google and Facebook parent Meta, raising the prospect that U.S. tech firms might need to keep European data that is used for targeted ads out of the United States. The European privacy campaigner who …

Health officials are reporting a deadly outbreak of cholera in the South African province of Gauteng Authorities say nearly 50 people have died, with most of the deaths concentrated in the Hammanskraal area. Cases have been reported in other areas as well.   Medical officials have urged residents to be vigilant about what they consume and to practice good hygiene, like hand washing.     Cholera mainly spreads through contaminated water or food.   Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and dehydration. …

Two years after Brazil began emerging from its pandemic horror show thanks to a massive immunization campaign, officials face a paradoxical predicament: vaccination rates have plunged, and not just for COVID-19.  The troubling trend has left millions exposed to once-eradicated diseases.     Doctors, public officials and UNICEF have sounded the alarm over collapsing immunization rates in Brazil, where overall vaccination coverage has fallen from an impressive 95% in 2015 to just 68% last year, according to official figures.   For polio, the figure fell from 85% to 68%, triggering warnings that the disease could make a comeback in Brazil, where it was eradicated in 1989.   The figures are similar for other vaccines, allowing diseases to spread. Measles, officially eliminated in Brazil in 2016, returned two years later. There are fears diphtheria is making a resurgence, too.   Health experts say vaccine hesitancy is a growing problem worldwide. But it is particularly worrying in Brazil, a sprawling country of 203 million people that until recently was hailed as a champion of mass vaccination drives.     Then an anti-vax movement started spreading around 2016, soon gaining outsize influence via a powerful ally: far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, president from 2019 to 2022, who refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19, joking the jab could “turn you into an alligator.”     “It’s very sad to see how a country whose vaccination programs set an example for the world can suddenly suffer from an anti-vaccine movement,” Natalia Pasternak, head of the Question of Science Institute (IQC), a public policy think tank, …

One person is dead and three missing in landslides in southwestern Japan, authorities said Monday, as the country’s weather agency warned of the “heaviest rain ever” in the region.  A 77-year-old woman was confirmed dead in a landslide that entered her home overnight in rural Fukuoka, the local fire department told AFP.  Her husband was recovered conscious and taken to hospital.  Three people were also missing after a landslide in Karatsu City, in Saga prefecture, which neighbors Fukuoka, local authorities there said.  The Japan Meteorological Agency urged people to take shelter as the heavy downpours risked flooding and landslides across the Fukuoka and Oita regions.  “A special heavy rain warning has been issued for municipalities in Fukuoka Prefecture. This is the heaviest rain ever experienced” by the region, Satoshi Sugimoto of the JMA’s forecast division told reporters.  “There is a very high possibility that some kind of disaster has already occurred. … The situation is such that lives are in danger and safety must be secured,” he added.  Noncompulsory evacuation orders were issued to parts of Fukuoka, Oita and neigboring prefectures, which were opening shelters to accommodate those leaving their homes. The prime minister’s office said a taskforce had been established to coordinate a response to the rains.  The downpour forced the stoppage of bullet train service between western Hiroshima and Fukuoka, operator JR West said. Japan is currently in its annual rainy season, which often brings heavy downpours, and sometimes results in flooding and landslides, as well as casualties.    …

Natural disasters can be dramatic — barreling hurricanes, building-toppling tornadoes — but heat is more deadly. Chicago learned that the hard way in 1995. That July, a weeklong heat wave that hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) killed more than 700 people. Most of the deaths occurred in poor and majority Black neighborhoods, where many elderly or isolated people suffered without proper ventilation or air conditioning. Power outages from an overwhelmed grid made it all worse. Initially slow to react, Chicago has since developed emergency heat response plans that include a massive push to alert the public and then connect the most vulnerable to the help they may need. Other cities like Los Angeles, Miami and Phoenix now have “chief heat officers” to coordinate planning and response for dangerous heat. Around the world, cities and countries have adopted similar measures. But experts warn those steps might not be enough in a world that is seeing heat records consistently shatter and with continuing inequality in who is most vulnerable. “I don’t know a single city that is truly prepared for the worst-case scenario that some climate scientists fear,” said Eric Klinenberg, a professor of social sciences at New York University who wrote a book about the Chicago heat wave. Heat preparedness has generally improved over the years as forecasting has become more accurate, and as meteorologists, journalists and government officials have focused on spreading the word of upcoming danger. Chicago, for example, has expanded its emergency text and email notification …

Partnership is opening eyes of students of color who never pictured themselves fighting forest fires …

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met Saturday with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, to build momentum for an upcoming regional summit on the Amazon rainforest and enhance efforts for its protection. The meeting took place in Colombia’s Leticia, a town in the Amazon’s triple border region between Colombia, Brazil and Peru, where organized crime has recently increased its hold. The meeting aimed to lay groundwork for the Amazon Summit that the Brazilian government is organizing in Belem next month. That summit will be attended by leaders of the countries that are party to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Lula is pushing for a joint declaration from the summit, which would be presented at the United Nation’s climate conference, known as COP28, in Dubai in November. “We will have to demand together that rich countries fulfil their commitments,” Lula said in Leticia, sitting next to Petro. Petro also stressed the need for a common front to exert pressure on developed countries. “We believed that progress was the destruction of trees. … Today that is nothing other than the destruction of life,” he said. The Colombian leader said tackling the climate crisis will require spending trillions of dollars. This could be achieved by transforming the global debt system and “trading debt for climate action,” he said. The final document will comprise measures for the sustainable development of the Amazon, protecting the biome, and promoting social inclusion, science, …