As the world’s AIDS experts meet at a conference this week in Paris, health workers in Cameroon still struggle to identify and treat HIV-positive mothers and babies.

Myriam Anang lost her husband and three-month-old baby two years ago to HIV. Now, Anang works as a peer educator in a government-initiated program to help others become better informed.

She was among the speakers in northern Cameroon at a gathering addressing AIDS and HIV.

Anang said that when she tries to persuade sick villagers to go with their babies for HIV screening, they argue that they are not ill, but bewitched by their relatives. She said she knows three men who died of HIV, yet their wives have refused to take their babies to the hospital, claiming the families are suffering from a spell.

Anang did not have prenatal care. She delivered her baby at a traditional birth attendant’s home. It was only afterward, when she became sick, that she went to a hospital and found out she had HIV.

In 2016, the government found that seven out of 10 women in the northern part of the country were not visiting hospitals when they were pregnant. About a third of those who did go to a hospital never returned for postnatal visits, even if they had tested positive for HIV.

The job of the peer educators is to identify pregnant women in their villages and encourage them to get medical care, even reminding them of their hospital appointments.

The government says that since the start of the program, seven out of 10 pregnant women identified by peer educators now visit a hospital.

Obstacles for care

The results of a mother’s HIV test take a day. However, newborns need a special screening, and the bloodwork can only be processed a thousand kilometers away in the capital Yaounde, says Georgette Wekang, head of HIV Control and People Living with AIDS in Cameroon’s Ministry of Health.

Wekang says it takes between six and seven months for the results to be brought back from Yaounde and that, at times, those results are delivered after the babies have died. In addition, she says, fear of stigma prevents some women from returning with their babies for follow-up appointments.

The U.N. Children’s Fund estimates that in northern Cameroon, 40 percent of HIV-positive children do not receive treatment.

Health officials say it is important to begin treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis.

The government of Cameroon has begun trials with new testing machines to reduce the time parents must wait for a baby’s test results. While antiretroviral drugs are provided for free, patients are requested to pay for laboratory tests.

In northern Cameroon, parents are told they can take their children to the town of Garoua for treatment. However, Mireille Yaki, the medical officer in charge of the hospital, says the facility regularly runs short of the antiretroviral drugs, and many parents stop bringing their children for treatment.
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Forty-eight years ago this month (July), U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon. That image transfixed a little Costa Rican girl as she watched on a neighbor’s TV.  VOA Vero Balderas explains how that moon walk launched Sandra Cauffman’s journey to a leadership role at the U.S. space agency.
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Tests on deceased former professional American football players showed nearly all of them had a chronic traumatic brain disease, according to scientific research published Tuesday in the JAMA medical journal.

The disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is believed to be caused by repeated head trauma and has been known to cause memory loss, disorientation, depression and impaired judgement, among other symptoms.

Of the 202 total deceased former players studied for the report, which included high school, college and professional players, 177 were diagnosed with CTE. National Football League players seemed particularly prone to CTE, with 110 of the 111 former NFL players examined in the study being diagnosed with the disease.

“There’s no question that there’s a problem in football. That people who play football are at risk for this disease,” study author and director of Boston University’s CTE Center Dr. Ann McKee said. “And we urgently need to find answers for not just football players, but veterans and other individuals exposed to head trauma.”

The study marks the most recent research published linking head trauma sustained while playing football to chronic brain injuries, though it is by no means conclusive.

As pointed out in the study, the brains examined for the research were donated by family members of football players who may have exhibited symptoms of chronic brain injury prior to death. This creates a selective sample that may not be representative of all football players.

The NFL released a statement praising the study for its role in advancing the science related to chronic head injuries and said it is working with “a wide range of experts to improve the health of current and former NFL athletes.”

“There are still many unanswered questions relating to the cause, incidence and prevalence of long-term effects of head trauma such as CTE,” the statement read.

Last year, the NFL acknowledged for the first time publicly a link between head blows sustained on the football field and brain disease and agreed to a $1 billion settlement to compensate former players who suffer from head trauma-related injuries.
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German automaker Daimler’s profits barely rose and were short of market expectations as its Mercedes-Benz luxury car division boomed while earnings lagged at its truck, van and bus businesses.

The second-quarter results were overshadowed by the growing controversy over diesel technology hanging over the automaker — and the auto industry in general — ahead of a meeting in Germany of carmakers and government officials next week.

The Stuttgart-based company reported Wednesday that net profit was up a scant 2 percent compared with a year ago, to 2.51 billion euros ($2.9 billion). Revenue increased 7 percent to 41.16 billion euros ($48 billion).

The profit was short of analyst estimates for 2.61 billion as compiled by financial information provider FactSet. On the bright side, the Mercedes division had its best quarter for unit sales ever and 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in operating profit. Mercedes division profits were boosted by strong sales of the E-Class sedan, which is equipped with extensive driver assistance technology, and of the company’s SUVs, which bring high profits per vehicle.

But operating earnings fell 13 percent in its truck business, and also lagged at the van and bus divisions.

The company reiterated that profits would “increase significantly” once again in 2017. Daimler shares traded 0.1 percent higher at 61.06 euros in Frankfurt.

The earnings announcement takes place amid extensive public discussion of the future of diesel and what to do about excessive pollution emissions. The government has summoned carmakers to a diesel summit on Aug. 2 to try to lower pollution levels and ensure the technology has a future. There have been calls for diesel bans in several German cities.

CEO Dieter Zetsche said during a conference call with journalists that the company’s new generation of diesel engines offered lower emissions and that diesel can make an important contribution to reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

He said he saw “no reason to forego the advantages” of diesel in reaching goals for lowering carbon dioxide emissions. Automakers must meet new, tighter carbon dioxide emissions limits imposed by the European Union by 2021.

Daimler has said it will update engine software on 3 million diesel cars to improve their emissions performance and reduce customer uncertainty about the technology. Zetsche said customers were responding positively to the service action.

Diesel vehicles need pollution controls to limit emissions of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that harms people’s health, but they emit less carbon dioxide than do gasoline motors.

Der Spiegel reported Friday that German automakers including Daimler had colluded for years on diesel technology and other issues and had agreed to limit the size of the tanks for the urea solution used to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides. The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, is assessing the matter. The company has said it cannot comment on “speculation.”  An antitrust ruling that the companies illegally restrained competition could lead to heavy fines.

German prosecutors have searched Daimler offices as part of a probe into possible emissions manipulation, and U.S. authorities have asked Daimler to conduct an internal investigation into its emissions certification procedures. The company said Wednesday it could not answer questions about either investigation.

Diesel was subjected to new scrutiny after Volkswagen was discovered in September 2015 to have equipped 11 million cars with illegal software that cheated on U.S. emissions tests by turning emissions controls on during lab examinations and off during every day driving to improve performance.

The company has pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the U.S. and agreed to more than $20 billion in civil and criminal settlements and penalties.

 
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Science seems to be finally starting to win in the war against the human immunodeficiency virus HIV that causes AIDS. But experts gathered at the Paris conference on the deadly disease say proposed cuts in global funding may delay the final blow. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Dozens of teen pregnancy prevention programs deemed ineffective by President Donald Trump’s administration will lose more than $200 million in funding following a surprise decision to end five-year grants after only three years.

The administration’s assessment is in sharp contrast with that of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which credited the program with contributing to an all-time low rate of teen pregnancies.

Rachel Fey of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy said Tuesday that grantees under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program were given no explanation when notified this month their awards will end next June. The program, begun under President Barack Obama’s administration, receives about $100 million a year.

“We know so little about the rationale behind cutting short these grants,” said Fey, who said the teen birth rate has fallen by about 40 percent nationally since the program went into effect in 2010. The focus of the program is on evidence-based interventions aimed at preventing teen pregnancy. It does not pay for or provide contraceptives.

Competing outcomes

A Health and Human Services spokesman said late Tuesday that an evaluation of the first round of grants released last fall found only four of 37 programs studied showed lasting positive impacts. Most of the other programs had no effect or were harmful, the department said, including three that it said increased the likelihood that teens would have unprotected sex and become pregnant.

“Given the very weak evidence of positive impact of these programs, the Trump administration, in its … 2018 budget proposal, did not recommend continued funding for the TPP program,” the department statement said.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urged the administration “not to turn back the clock” on progress.

“It’s as though the evidence and the facts don’t matter,” ACOG President Dr. Haywood Brown said.

The North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens, one of more than 80 current grantees around the country, will lose just under $1 million a year, about three-quarters of its budget, Executive Director Terry Goltz Greenberg said. The program worked with more than 1,700 kids last year in high-poverty neighborhoods where the teen birth rates are three to five times the national average, she said.

“Most of the evidence-based programs are not just talking about contraception but are putting it in the context of bigger goals in life, such as, `Where do you want to be in three years?’ `How does a kid fit into that,”‘ she said.

Elizabeth Gomez, 44, said the Texas program’s after-school classes taught her how to discuss difficult topics with her three daughters in a respectful way that made them listen and respond.

“For Hispanics, it’s difficult, because it’s a taboo to talk about sex,” she said.

A letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price signed by 37 Democratic senators called the decision short-sighted. Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grantees served a half-million youths from 2010 to 2014 and were on their way to serve an additional 1.2 million through 2019 when the grant was scheduled to end, the senators said. Their letter asked Price for an explanation and questioned the timing of the notifications in advance of congressional action on fiscal year 2018 appropriations.

‘Line of communication’

Two of Shawanda Brown-Cannon’s children take classes once a week through a southwest Georgia program called Quest for Change which, according to its director, will lose about 87 percent of its total budget.

The classes prompted both her 17-year-old daughter, Amaya, and her 13-year-old son, Chandler, to talk with their mother about what they’ve learned, for instance a Valentine’s Day class on how to show love without sexual activity.

“It opens up a line of communication,” Brown-Cannon said.

Angelina Jackson, a 17-year-old high school senior, is a member of Quest for Change. She helps run classroom lessons and organize events as a member of the youth leadership council focused on her school.

“Some people are not able to talk to their parents at home about the stuff that Quest does,” Jackson said. “They provided a comfortable environment where people could ask questions or talk about their concerns.”

Vermont-based Youth Catalytics was informed July 5 that its five-year, $2.8 million federal grant had been cut off June 30, the end of the first year. The grant provided about half of the organization’s annual budget. As recently as July 3, people from the organization had been working with HHS officials about the details of the program, said Meagan Downey, the group’s director of special projects. The grant covered about half of her salary.

Downey said her organization was one of five grant recipients nationwide that lost their funding immediately. Others were given until July 1, 2018, to prepare for the loss of the funds.

Leaders of the HOPE Buffalo program always had an eye toward establishing partnerships with city and community leaders that would enable its work to continue beyond the five-year lifespan of the grant, which provided $2 million a year, Project Director Stan Martin said. With less time and less funding, he said, “our efforts were just accelerated.”
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A pesticide banned by international treaty in 2011 could be responsible for the deaths of young children in South Asia, according to new findings.

In June 2012, 14 children were brought to the Dinajpur Medical College Hospital in northern Bangladesh with acute encephalitis, a dangerous swelling of the brain. Most were unconscious within three hours, and all but one died after about 20 hours. 

Scientists from the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, a major research institution in Bangladesh, investigated what caused the outbreak. The medical team noticed that almost all the children lived next to a lychee orchard, many lived with someone who worked in the industry, and most had visited the fruit orchards shortly before becoming ill, lead author Mohammed Islam told VOA.

A report published earlier this year in The Lancet reviewed a 2014 outbreak that killed 122 children in India’s Muzaffarpur region, the country’s largest lychee-producing region and an area where there are annual outbreaks of illness resembling acute encephalitis. That report blamed the outbreak on naturally occurring toxins in lychees that can lead to dangerously low blood-sugar levels in malnourished children.

But a new report this week by Islam and his team, who analyzed the 2012 outbreak and subsequent incidents, noted that affected areas more often are places where lychees are produced, rather than consumed. And outbreaks typically ended when monsoon rains began, washing away pesticide residues from the fruit trees.

The researchers interviewed lychee orchard workers, their families and neighbors, as well as the families of children who had not fallen ill. They learned that children frequently ate unwashed fruit that fell to the ground, and peeled away the lychees’ rough-textured red skin with their teeth.

Workers in the orchards said children were sometimes recruited to help with the harvest, since they could easily climb the small lychee trees. The workers were not always able to report what pesticides were used, since the labels had been removed before pesticide containers reached the fields. However, the researchers were able to collect empty containers for testing.

The new report by Islam and his team, published in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, found that a number of pesticides — including endosulfan — were being used. Endosulfan was added to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2011, which should have ended its use in most of the world. However, slow implementation, numerous exceptions and weak enforcement led to continued use.

Endosulfan is permitted for use on some crops in Bangladesh, but not on lychees, Islam told VOA.

Overall, though, “There is very poor monitoring of the use of pesticides,” he said.

The study was not able to definitively show that each case was caused by pesticides, or identify which pesticides were responsible for the young victims’ brain inflammation. If researchers can respond rapidly to the next outbreak and collect blood samples within hours, Islam said, scientists should be able to determine which pesticides are present.

Islam said he wants to coordinate with other scientists and conduct further studies across Bangladesh and in India, Vietnam and Thailand, where similar outbreaks have been reported and endosulfan may still be used on crops.
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Al Gore admits he was frustrated upon hearing the news last month that President Donald Trump was pulling out of the Paris climate accord, but since then he’s become more optimistic.

Gore worried that a U.S. withdrawal from the treaty would compel other nations to opt out of the historic pact for adopting clean energy solutions. But that’s not what happened.

“The whole rest of the world has redoubled their commitment. And in this country, the governors and the mayors and the business leaders have all said, ‘We’re still in the agreement, and we’re going to fill the gap. We’re going to meet the U.S. commitment, regardless of what Donald Trump does,’ ” Gore told The Associated Press last week at a special screening for An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.

It follows the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth and continues the conversation of finding solutions for the effects of climate change, including an emphasis on renewable energy. Much like the first film, Gore is front and center in leading the discussion.

It’s been a remarkable second act for Gore since winning the popular vote, but losing the Electoral College in the 2000 presidential election. There’s no question that Gore was devastated by the loss, but his stature as an important voice for environmental issues has proven equally successful, as he amassed a Nobel Prize, Academy Award, an Emmy and a Grammy for his relentless dedication to climate change activism.

Grateful for the chance

“I’m under no illusion that there’s any position with as much chance to do good as president of the United States, but I’m very grateful to have found another way to serve the public interests. I’m devoting my life to this and hoping to make a big difference,” Gore said.

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who also attended the premiere, agrees that Gore has done “pretty well for himself” since the disputed 2000 presidential election.

“Al Gore could have done many things after he was not inaugurated in 2001, but what he did was become the leading global spokesman for perhaps the most important scientific and environmental cause of our lifetime, and he won a Nobel Prize in the bargain. So I don’t think anyone could quarrel with how Al Gore has decided to live his life,” he said.

A big part of Gore’s mission depends on convincing people that climate change is not a hoax. Instead, it’s based on science that shows the global mean surface temperature continues to rise, due in part to an increase in greenhouse gases. So while global warming is immune to politics, the topic remains a partisan issue in the United States. That’s something the former vice president blames on corporate funding for political campaigns.

“The truth about the climate crisis is still inconvenient for the big carbon polluters, and the politicians that they support with their big campaign contributions and lobbying activities are scared to cross them. That’s the main reason. They’ve spent a lot of money trying to put out false information about it,” Gore said.

Still, he remains confident that the problem can be fixed.

“People are seeing through this now. Two-thirds of the American people want to solve this, big time. We are going to solve it. We just need to move faster on it,” Gore said.

Gore feels that change will come from the “grass roots up.” That’s why he spends a great deal of time training climate activists around the globe.

“We need to get more people involved. That’s one of the real purposes of this movie — to tell people what they need to know, to show them that there is hope and there are solutions now, and inspire them to get involved,” he said.

Davis Guggenheim directed the first film to box office and Oscar glory, bringing climate change into the mainstream. The sequel, directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, picks up the conversation with more of a battle cry for saving the planet.

Knowing he was stepping into big shoes for this film, Shenk noted the importance of his predecessor’s film.

“An Inconvenient Truth was one of the most successful documentaries in history. Not only did it do fabulously well at the box office, but by almost any measure it put the words ‘global warming’ and ‘climate crisis’ on the map for the entire world,” Shenk said.

Ending updated

In order to keep the information timely, producers changed the ending from what audiences saw at the Sundance Film Festival to reflect Trump’s announcement about withdrawing the United States from the global climate agreement in time for the film’s limited release on July 28 and its wide release on August 4.

Gore also said he’d recently spoken to Hillary Clinton, and that’s “she’s going to be fine.”

Clinton won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College to Trump, just as Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000.

As for Trump’s continued attacks on the news media, Gore feels disheartened by them.

“Well, I think that’s really unfortunate. We need someone who will unite us and not divide us. The press obviously plays an absolutely crucial role in making our democracy work. If the press isn’t free to get out there and tell people what’s going on, then we can’t make the changes we need to know about and then change,” Gore said.

Part of the news coverage called into question involves the constant flurry of revelations in the investigation of the Trump team’s possible collusion with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“Every day there seems like there’s something different, and they’re not getting anything good done. That’s a problem,” Gore said.
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Countries with few health-management resources are prone to periodic outbreaks of insect-borne diseases affecting both people and livestock. One of the best ways to reduce the impact is timely vaccination and eradication of insects. But how to tell when an outbreak might occur? VOA’s George Putic spoke with a scientist from Kenya who is using satellites to predict future outbreaks.
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