Month: September 2021

Several hundred people line up every morning, starting before dawn, on a grassy area outside Nairobi’s largest hospital hoping to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Sometimes the line moves smoothly, while on other days, the staff tells them there’s nothing available and they should come back tomorrow.Halfway around the world, at a church in Atlanta in…

At a taxi stand by a bustling market in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, traders simply cross a road or two, get a shot in the arm and rush back to their work.Until this week, vaccination centers were based mostly in hospitals in this East African country that faced a brutal COVID-19 surge earlier this year.Now, more…

The World Health Organization says low-income countries still do not have enough COVID-19 vaccines and is urging wealthier nations to deliver more doses. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has this report. Producer: Kim Weeks …

Every year close to 200,000 people die from burns, according to World Health Organization data. The WHO says most of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Since the United States entered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, US military burn specialists have changed the way serious burns are treated. VOA’s Carol Pearson has…

Just over two months ago, on Independence Day, President Joe Biden declared that the United States was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus.” Vaccines had driven down the average daily death toll from COVID-19 from more than 3,400 at the start of the year to around 400 in early July.  It…

Denmark Friday dropped proof-of-vaccination — or vaccine passports — requirements at nightclubs, the last of the European nation’s COVID-19 restrictions, after a successful vaccination program led to almost 87% of all adults being fully vaccinated. The European Center for Disease Control says as of Friday, nearly 90% of adults in Denmark have at least one…

The U.S. space agency on Friday will brief the media on the initial analysis of the first sample of a Martian rock collected by its Perseverance rover earlier this week. NASA confirmed the rover had collected the rock, releasing a picture of the sample inside a collection tube. The rover made a first attempt to collect…

With no masks in sight, buzzing offices and concerts drawing tens of thousands, Denmark on Friday ditches vaccine passports in nightclubs, ending its last COVID-19 curb.The vaccine passports were introduced in March 2021 when Copenhagen slowly started easing restrictions.They were abolished at all venues on Sept. 1, except in nightclubs, where they will be no…

As the United States continues to deal with the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, President Joe Biden announced new sweeping vaccine mandates as part of a multipronged push to end the pandemic. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report. Producer: Mary Cieslak  …

Africa is slated to receive 25% fewer COVID-19 vaccines by the end of the year than it was expecting, the director of the World Health Organization’s regional office for Africa said Thursday.The African continent, already struggling with a thin supply of vaccines while many wealthy nations initiate booster shot programs, has fully vaccinated just more…

A series of spacewalks is underway outside the International Space Station. Plus, a fire scare occurs in the Russian section of the ISS, and amateur stargazers have set up camp at an ancient Mesopotamian site in modern-day Iraq. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space. …

The U.S. government sued the southwestern state of Texas on Thursday to try to block its new law that bans abortions in the state after about six weeks of pregnancy, the most restrictive anti-abortion statute in the country. Attorney General Merrick Garland, at a Washington news conference, said the Texas law “is clearly unconstitutional under long-term…

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday is planning to order 2.5 million federal workers and contractors to get vaccinated against the coronavirus as part of a new effort to control the infectious disease.    The new order, which eliminates an option he previously gave the workers to get regularly tested for the virus in lieu…

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to call for a summit on boosting the global supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, according to U.S. news outlets. The summit will be held during the United Nations General Assembly later this month.  The Washington Post reports the topics will include coordination among world leaders to collectively tackle the health crisis…

U.S. President Joe Biden will unveil a new strategy to combat the dramatic surge of COVID-19 cases across the nation during a major White House speech Thursday afternoon.White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that Biden will spell out six methods designed to encourage more Americans to get inoculated against the virus, including…

It’s been 20 years since terrorists rammed passenger planes into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. The wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq were wars in which medical advances saved more lives than in any other war. VOA’s Carol Pearson tells us about one of those advances. Camera: Mike Burke…