Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday his government is seeking to accelerate its COVID-19 booster shots campaign and has reached out to the head of U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer to secure additional vaccines. Kishida told reporters the government has been negotiating to receive 120 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine ahead of schedule. He…
read moreA new study out of South Africa shows that Pfizer’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine provides a high degree of protection against hospitalization from the fast-spreading omicron variant. The real-world study, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council and Discovery Health, the country’s largest private health insurance administrator, was based on more than 211,000 positive COVID-19 test results…
read moreBenin has adopted a new law legalizing abortion in most cases, one of the few African countries to do so. A conservative country, the law was passed by parliament to prevent a wave of clandestine abortions that have resulted in deaths. Kouam Joel Honoré has this report from Cotonou. …
read moreIn a major victory for sexual minority advocates, Canada last week banned conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The law makes it a crime to subject anyone in Canada to conversion therapy, profit from the practice or take a Canadian outside the country to…
read moreThe World Health Organization and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a leading cancer center in the United States, are planning to provide cancer medication free-of-charge to children in developing countries. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing about 10 million people a year. The World Health Organization estimates 400,000 children globally develop cancer…
read moreThe Western U.S. is bracing for the brunt of a major winter storm expected to hit Monday, bringing travel headaches, the threat of localized flooding and some relief in an abnormally warm fall. Light rain and snow fell in Northern California on Sunday, giving residents a taste of what’s to come. The multi-day storm could…
read moreThe top U.S. infectious disease expert on Sunday urged eligible Americans to get booster coronavirus vaccinations to give them the best protection against the new omicron variant. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” show that omicron can evade the protection provided by the three vaccines available in the…
read moreMore than 400 million South Asian children have been affected by school closures extending into a second year in some countries during the COVID-19 pandemic according to a new UNICEF report. The United Nations agency has urged the region’s countries to fully reopen schools, warning that the consequences of lost learning are huge and will…
read moreSix years ago today, nearly 200 nations signed the Paris Climate Accord, where they agreed to keep the rise in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Scientists say that threshold is an absolute minimum to avoid catastrophic climate change. “Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres…
read moreOn a moonless summer night in Hawaii, krill, fish and crabs swirl through a beam of light as two researchers peer into the water above a vibrant reef. Minutes later, like clockwork, they see eggs and sperm from spawning coral drifting past their boat. They scoop up the fishy-smelling blobs and put them into test…
read moreSix years ago today, nearly 200 nations signed the Paris Climate Accord, where they agreed to keep the rise in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Scientists say that threshold is an absolute minimum to avoid catastrophic climate change. “Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres…
read moreThe eldest daughter of pioneering U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard blasted off aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin commercial space tourism rocket on Saturday, 60 years after her late father’s famed suborbital NASA flight at the dawn of the Space Age. Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when her father first streaked into space,…
read moreThere’s no clear-cut definition for when a pandemic starts and ends, and how much of a threat a global outbreak is posing can vary by country. “It’s somewhat a subjective judgment because it’s not just about the number of cases. It’s about severity and it’s about impact,” says Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization’s…
read moreAs the omicron variant sweeps through South Africa, Dr. Unben Pillay is seeing dozens of sick patients a day. Yet he hasn’t had to send anyone to the hospital. That’s one of the reasons why he, along with other doctors and medical experts, suspect that the omicron version really is causing milder COVID-19 than delta,…
read moreThe eldest daughter of pioneering U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard is set for a ride to the edge of space aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin commercial rocket ship on Saturday, 60 years after her late father’s famed suborbital NASA flight at the dawn of the Space Age. Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, who was a schoolgirl when…
read moreMore U.S. states desperate to fight COVID-19 are calling on the National Guard and other military personnel to assist virus-weary medical staffs at hospitals and other care centers. Unvaccinated people are overwhelming hospitals in certain states, especially in the Northeast and the Upper Midwest. New York, meanwhile, announced a statewide indoor mask order, effective Monday…
read moreLung cancer is the deadliest form of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. But it doesn’t get nearly the same amount of research dollars as breast or prostate cancer. That may be changing, thanks to one man’s efforts and new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. VOA’s Saba…
read moreSouth Korea, widely seen as a global model of coronavirus containment, faces its biggest pandemic challenge yet, as COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to rise after the country began removing pandemic related restrictions. Daily caseloads surpassed 7,000 Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That is quadruple the daily numbers reported at the beginning of November, when South Korea…
read moreThe United States rushed millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses for children ages 5-11 across the nation, but demand for inoculations for younger kids has been low, more than a dozen state public health officials and physicians said. Of the 28 million eligible U.S. children in that age group, around 5 million have received at least…
read moreHealth officials in the United States, Israel and other nations have for months been pushing for COVID-19 booster shots among older populations, and those calls are now growing worldwide. The issue was discussed at an extraordinary meeting at World Health Organization in Geneva convened by SAGE, the 15-member Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on vaccination.…
read moreAs cases of COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant soar in South Africa, hospital officials monitoring the outbreak say patient reports offer compelling evidence the variant causes illness that is less severe than previous forms of the disease. “Most of the people we’re seeing are having mild or moderate form of COVID-19, and not the…
read moreSouth Africa recorded more than 20,000 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, nearly double the number from one week earlier. The government is making a renewed push for people to get vaccinated, but so far is avoiding new lockdown measures, in an effort to protect the economy. Coronavirus cases are rising dramatically in South Africa with over…
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