The Trump administration asked Congress on Monday to increase NASA spending next year by an extra $1.6 billion to accommodate the accelerated goal of returning Americans to the surface of the moon by 2024.

The increased funding request, announced by President Donald Trump on Twitter, comes nearly two months after Vice President Mike Pence declared the objective of shortening by four years NASA’s timeline for putting astronauts back on the moon for the first time since 1972.

The proposed increase would bring NASA’s total spending level for the 2020 fiscal year to $22.6 billion. The bulk of the increase is earmarked for research and development for a human lunar landing system, according to a summary provided by NASA.

“Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars,” Trump tweeted late on Monday. “I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!”

NASA had previously aimed to return crewed spacecraft to the lunar surface by the year 2028, after first putting a “Gateway” station into orbit around the moon by 2024.

The newly accelerated goal – an endeavor likely to cost tens of billions of dollars – comes as NASA has struggled with the help of private partners to resume human space missions from U.S. soil for the first time since the shuttle program ended in 2011.

The U.S. Apollo program, NASA’s forerunner to the effort at returning humans to Earth’s natural satellite, tallied six manned missions to the moon from 1969 to 1972.

So far, only two other nations have conducted controlled “soft” landings on the moon – the former Soviet Union and China. But those were with unmanned robot vehicles. 
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On the deepest dive ever made by a human inside a submarine, a Texas investor and explorer found something he could have found in the gutter of nearly any street in the world: trash.

Victor Vescovo, a retired naval officer, said he made the unsettling discovery as he descended nearly 6.8 miles (35,853 feet/10,928 meters) to a point in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench that is the deepest place on Earth. His dive went 52 feet (16 meters) lower than the previous deepest descent in the trench in 1960.

Vescovo found undiscovered species as he visited places no human had gone before. On one occasion he spent four hours on the floor of the trench, viewing sea life ranging from shrimp-like anthropods with long legs and antennae to translucent “sea pigs” similar to a sea cucumber.

He also saw angular metal or plastic objects, one with writing on it.

“It was very disappointing to see obvious human contamination of the deepest point in the ocean,” Vescovo said in an interview.

Plastic waste has reached epidemic proportions in the world’s oceans with an estimated 100 million tons dumped there to date, according to the United Nations. Scientists have found large amounts of micro plastic in the guts of deep-dwelling ocean mammals like whales.

Raise awareness

Vescovo hoped his discovery of trash in the Mariana Trench would raise awareness about dumping in the oceans and pressure governments to better enforce existing regulations, or put new ones in place.

“It’s not a big garbage collection pool, even though it’s treated as such,” Vescovo said of the worlds’ oceans. In the last three weeks, the expedition has made four dives in the Mariana Trench in his submarine, DSV Limiting Factor, collecting biological and rock samples.

It was the third time humans have dived to the deepest point in the ocean, known as Challenger Deep. Canadian movie maker James Cameron was the last to visit in 2012 in his submarine, reaching a depth of 35,787 feet (10,908 meters).

Prior to Cameron’s dive, the first-ever expedition to Challenger Deep was made by the U.S. Navy in 1960, reaching a depth of 10,912 meters.
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For people without heart disease, taking a daily aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes may increase the risk of severe brain bleeding to the point where it outweighs any potential benefit, a research review suggests.

U.S. doctors have long advised adults who haven’t had a heart attack or stroke but are at high risk for these events to take a daily aspirin pill, an approach known as primary prevention. Even though there’s clear evidence aspirin works for this purpose, many physicians and patients have been reluctant to follow the recommendations because of the risk of rare but potentially lethal internal bleeding.

For the current study, researchers examined data from 13  clinical trials testing the effects of aspirin against a placebo or no treatment in more than 134,000 adults.

The risk of intracranial hemorrhage, or brain bleeds, was rare: taking aspirin was associated with two additional cases of this type of internal bleeding for every 1,000 people, the study found.

But the bleeding risk was still 37 percent higher for people taking aspirin than for people who didn’t take this drug.

“Intracranial hemorrhage is a special concern because it is strongly associated with a high risk of death and poorer health over a lifetime,” said study co-author Dr. Meng Lee of Chang Gung University College of Medicine in Taiwan.

“These findings suggest caution regarding using low-dose aspirin in individuals without symptomatic cardiovascular disease,” Lee said by email.

Post-cardiac event use

For people who have already had a heart attack or stroke, the benefit of low-dose aspirin to prevent another major cardiac event is well established, researchers note in JAMA Neurology. But the value of aspirin is less clear for healthier people, for whom bleeding risks may outweigh any benefit, the study team writes.

Already, guidelines on aspirin for primary prevention of heart disease in the U.S., Europe and Australia have incorporated a need to balance the potential benefits against the risk of bleeding. For elderly people, who have a greater risk of bleeding than younger adults, the risks may be too great to recommend aspirin.

For adults ages 50 to 59 considering aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes, for example, the U.S Preventive   Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends the pill only for people who have at least a 10 percent risk of having a heart attack or stroke over the next decade and who don’t have a higher-than-average risk of bleeding. (The American College of Cardiology provides an online risk calculator.

One limitation

One limitation of the analysis is that the smaller clinical trials examined a variety of aspirin doses up to 100 milligrams daily. The analysis also only focused on brain bleeds, and not on other types of internal bleeding associated with aspirin.

“We have long known that aspirin can precipitate bleeding,  most commonly in the gastrointestinal tract, but most devastatingly in the brain,” said Dr. Samuel Wann, a cardiologist at Ascension Healthcare in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Despite the benefits for preventing heart attacks, the consensus on aspirin has changed over time, particularly for people without heart disease or hardening and narrowing of thearteries (atherosclerosis).

“We have previously recommended aspirin to prevent platelets from sticking to the inside of an individual’s arteries, but the benefit, while real, turns out to be small compared to the rare but devastating incidence of brain hemorrhage,” Wann said by email. “We no longer recommend routine use of aspirin in individuals who have no demonstrable cardiovascular disease or atherosclerosis.”

 
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South Africa, which has the largest population of rhinos in the world, has been the country hit hardest by poaching. Between 2007 and 2015, there was a 9,000% increase in poaching there, reaching a high of 1,215 animals in 2014. While numbers have been declining since then, poaching remains a problem. But as Faith Lapidus reports, technology is helping turn one game reserve into a high-tech fortress.
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Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey say the second largest Antarctic breeding site for the Emperor Penguin is now simply empty. What happened to all those penguins? VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Officials in Pakistan and the United Nations are investigating causes of a new outbreak of HIV infections in a southern district where nearly 400 people have been diagnosed in less than two weeks. Officials confirmed Saturday that nearly 80% of those infected are children, with nearly half of them under age 5.

Local media began reporting about the epidemic two weeks ago from Larkana, a district of Sindh province, which has already experienced three outbreaks in recent years. A local doctor who treated several patients with a single needle and syringe was blamed for spreading the virus, which causes AIDS. 

The provincial government rushed teams of public health workers to the district, with an estimated population of 1.5 million, to quickly assess the situation and mobilize resources to curtail further spread of HIV. More than 9,000 people have since been subjected to screening in the affected district, and the process is continuing, Sikandar Memon, the provincial head of the AIDS Control Program, told reporters.

A UNAIDS spokeswoman told VOA that international partners had joined local teams to help quickly carry out an outbreak investigation and address the acute needs of the people infected with HIV, including immediately linking them to treatment, care and support services. 

The spokeswoman, Fahmida Khan, said efforts were being made to ensure that unsafe injection and blood transfusion practices were being stopped. She also noted that there were unconfirmed reports of similar HIV outbreaks in surrounding districts. 

​Focus of problem

Sindh, with a population of nearly 48 million, accounts for 43% of an estimated 150,000 people living with HIV in Pakistan. 

U.N. officials say since 2010, there has been a 57% increase in new HIV/AIDS infections in Pakistan. They noted that among all identified HIV cases in Pakistan, 43,000 are females. 

Last year, an estimated 20,000 people were newly identified with HIV in Pakistan and 6,200 people died of AIDS, according to local and U.N. officials. 

Khan would not comment on the reasons for the high number of HIV infections among children and the potential causes of the latest outbreak in Larkana, saying “further investigations and epidemiological review is yet required and suggested.” 

Provincial authorities also have launched a high-level investigation to ascertain the veracity of the allegations against the local doctor, who already has been taken into police custody. 

Some also blame unsafe injection practices by quack doctors for contributing to the spread of HIV. Government officials estimate about 600,000 unqualified doctors are unlawfully operating in Pakistan and 270,000 of them are practicing in Sindh. 

Critics also blame lapses in Pakistan’s national health system, the low priority given to the problem, corruption, the recent abolition of the federal health ministry and the delegation of its functions to the provinces for the worsening health sector situation and the increase in HIV infections. 

Pakistani and U.N. officials say the HIV epidemic in Pakistan remains largely concentrated among key populations, including people who inject drugs, the transgender community, sex workers and their clients, and men who have sex with men.
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Nearly every country in the world has agreed upon a legally binding framework to reduce the pollution from plastic waste except for the United States, U.N. environmental officials say.

An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged Friday at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals.

Discarded plastic clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and rivers and entangles wildlife, sometimes with deadly results.

Rolph Payet of the United Nations Environment Program said the “historic” agreement linked to the 186-country, U.N.-supported Basel Convention means that countries will have to monitor and track the movements of plastic waste outside their borders.

The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as health care, technology, aerospace, fashion, food and beverages.

“It’s sending a very strong political signal to the rest of the world — to the private sector, to the consumer market — that we need to do something,” Payet said. “Countries have decided to do something which will translate into real action on the ground.”

Countries will have to figure out their own ways of adhering to the accord, Payet said. Even the few countries that did not sign it, like the United States, could be affected by the accord when they ship plastic waste to countries that are on board with the deal.

Payet credited Norway for leading the initiative, which first was presented in September. The time from that proposal to the approval of a deal set a blistering pace by traditional U.N. standards for such an accord.

The framework “is historic in the sense that it is legally binding,” Payet said. “They (the countries) have managed to use an existing international instrument to put in place those measures.”

The agreement is likely to lead to customs agents being on the lookout for electronic waste or other types of potentially hazardous waste more than before.

“There is going to be a transparent and traceable system for the export and import of plastic waste,” Payet said.

 
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Dementia is a rapidly growing public health problem around the world. Fifty million people suffer from dementia, and in the next 30 years, that number is expected to triple.

Researchers are looking for ways to treat or prevent dementia, and a promising clinical trial is underway in the U.S.

Dementia is not a normal part of aging, but age is a huge risk factor. Regular exercise, a healthy diet, maintaining healthy blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels help stave off dementia as we grow older

As people around the world live longer, health agencies and researchers are looking for ways to prevent, stop or treat dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, one of the most common types of dementia.

Promising clinical trial

David Shorr was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 56.He is about to undergo a new procedure that could treat early stage Alzheimer’s. He is with his doctor, Vibhor Krishna, a neurosurgeon at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.

The procedure Shorr is about to have involves sound waves. Ultrasound waves target and open the blood-brain barrier — a protective layer that shields the brain from infections. But Krishna says the barrier also makes it hard to treat neurodegerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“Opening the blood-brain barrier allows us to access more of the brain tissue and be able to increase the effectiveness or bioavailability of the therapeutics,” Krishna said.

Shorr and his wife, Kim, were willing to try any new treatment that might help with his dementia. Kim describes the couple’s reaction when they received a phone call inviting Shorr to participate in a clinical trial.

“There’s this trial. Would you be interested?” she said, describing the call. “And without really knowing what it was, we said, Sure.’”

Ultrasound targets protein buildup

Shorr became one of 10 patients enrolled in the study. The trial tests MRI-guided imaging to target the part of the brain responsible for memory and cognition. Krishna explains that’s where Alzheimer’s patients have a buildup of toxic proteins called amyloid.

“Higher deposition of amyloid goes hand in hand with loss of function in Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

Krishna says this procedure might allow a patient’s own immune system to clear some of the amyloid.

In this procedure, ultrasound wave pulses cause microscopic bubbles to expand and contract in the brain.

“The increase and decrease in size of these microbubbles mechanically opens the blood-brain barrier,” Krishna said.

The patient is awake during the procedure.

Study could help others

Opening the barrier may one day allow doctors to deliver medication straight to the site of the disease.

Kim Shorr realizes her husband might not benefit from this treatment.

“We’re hopeful it can help him, but we also know maybe it will help somebody else,” she said.

Shorr is glad to be part of a study that could help others who are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, even if it doesn’t help him.
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Contributors include Erikas Mwisi reporting from Beni, North Kivu; Margaret Basheer from the United Nations; and Eddy Isango, James Butty and Carol Guensburg from Washington.

Armed attacks, misinformation and a growing funding gap continue to impede the response to the Ebola outbreak in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with the World Health Organization warning that the situation could spiral out of control.

Insecurity leaves response teams “unable to perform robust surveillance nor deliver much needed treatment and immunizations,” the WHO reported Friday in its latest update on the outbreak confirmed last August. The health organization warned that “without commitment from all groups to cease these attacks, it is unlikely that this EVD [Ebola virus disease] outbreak can remain successfully contained in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.”

The disease could spill into other parts of the country and across the borders of neighboring Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, the health organization suggested.

This month alone has brought setbacks such as a violent assault on a burial team in the town of Katwa and a gunfight between at least 50 armed militia and security forces in the city of Butembo, WHO reported. Mourners also buried Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, a 41-year-old Cameroonian doctor killed April 19 while working for WHO and meeting with other front-line workers at Butembo University Hospital.

The threats continue.

On Thursday, a VOA correspondent in Butembo saw a series of letters scattered on a street, each weighted down with pebbles. Written in Swahili and attributed to Mai-Mai fighters, the letters warned police, soldiers and the general public against showing any support for Ebola responders or treatment centers. 

Anderson Djumah, whose 10-year-old son is being treated for Ebola at the general hospital in the North Kivu town of Beni, complained that “the lack of security has just added more suffering.”

“Even Ebola treatment centers are targeted by the assailants. We’re afraid. Ebola is killing so many people. We’re still expecting that the government would be able to protect us,” he said. “… [But] some people who are sick with Ebola are fleeing to other places for their lives and are meanwhile spreading the sickness.”

Complications for care

Violence sends people into hiding and disrupts response operations such as contact tracing, vaccination and safe burials, giving “time and space to the virus to spread within the community and make more victims,” Jessica Ilunga, spokeswoman for the DRC’s health ministry, told VOA.

“Every time we have a security incident, the number of cases and deaths obviously increases,” Ilunga said.

The health ministry, leading the response with WHO’s help, reported 1,600 total cases as of Wednesday, with 1,534 confirmed and 66 likely. This second-worst Ebola outbreak already has claimed 1,069 lives. The 2014-15 West African outbreak killed more than 11,000.

Many of the victims have died at home, potentially exposing others to the disease and leaving gaps in how — and to whom — the virus may have been transmitted.

“You don’t know who those contacts are,” said epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and principal investigator for the Outbreak Observatory, a project of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “… Chances are you can’t offer them vaccines or treatment.”

Funding for the Ebola response has fallen far short of need, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email to VOA Wednesday. As of May 2, WHO had received $32.5 million of the $87 million it estimated needing for six months ending in July.

“If the funds are not received,” Jasarevic wrote, “WHO will be unable to sustain the response at the current scale.” 

​New challenges in 10th DRC outbreak

This is the DRC’s 10th reported outbreak since the virus’ discovery near the Ebola River in 1976. The country has proved adept at snuffing out past outbreaks of Ebola, which has been found in bats, monkeys and other animals sometimes consumed as “bush meat.” The virus spreads through contact with an infected person’s body fluids.

Ebola was unfamiliar in the northeast, a region already destabilized by at least two decades of conflict. More than 100 armed groups roam the area, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

High mobility and population density also raise the potential that the virus could cross into Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been providing technical guidance to the DRC and its neighbors, for instance, helping them ramp up surveillance and vaccination tracking.)

Wary public

Skepticism also factors into the Ebola equation. The northeast is an opposition stronghold, and its residents were angered to be kept from voting in December’s general elections, as former U.S. diplomat John Campbell pointed out in a Council on Foreign Relations blog post.

A study published in The Lancet medical journal in March found low public trust in local authorities and broad acceptance of misinformation about Ebola. Just a third of the 961 respondents — adults surveyed in North Kivu’s Beni and Butembo last fall — said they had confidence that local authorities acted in the public interest. A fourth indicated they didn’t believe Ebola exists.

Mistrust and misinformation make it less likely that individuals will heed public safety directives, such as accepting Ebola vaccines, seeking formal medical care or supporting safe burial practices, the researchers noted.

That mistrust can be weaponized, as Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders experienced. Two of the international aid group’s Ebola treatment centers, in Katwa and Butembo, were attacked in February. MSF suspended services there, saying its ability to respond in the outbreak’s epicenter had been “crippled.” 

Anne-Marie Pegg, MSF’s clinical lead for epidemic response, said some Congolese look critically at the disparity between local clinics, which, if they exist, might lack basics such as running water and electricity, and the better-equipped Ebola treatment centers set up by international aid groups.

“Very little investment has gone into the existing health structures and the existing health system, and people notice this,” Pegg said. She said MSF, in “numerous interactions,” has heard complaints that international groups are involved “‘only because we [locals] are contagious and we’re a threat to you.’

“It’s not surprising that something like Ebola can be manipulated for any variety of reasons,” Pegg added. “… Absolutely, there are interest groups from all sides that are trying to use this.”

MSF continues to work in the region while pressing for “better integration of Ebola treatment into the health care system,” Pegg said. The virus’ early symptoms, such as headaches and muscle pain, are indistinguishable from those of malaria or other more common ailments, so “it’s difficult for someone who’s sick to think, ‘I have Ebola.’ So the capacity to isolate someone who may have an Ebola infection and test for that … needs to happen at a local level” rather than sending patients to a treatment center. “It would be nice if those people could be treated closer to home” and started on treatment while awaiting test results. If the virus is confirmed, then transfer the patient to an Ebola treatment center, “which is the best place.”

But, she said, MSF’s goal is to treat whatever ailment a patient might have.

​Vaccine plans revised

As Ebola infections rise, a WHO advisory group this week recommended that an approved vaccine be distributed more widely in smaller doses and that an experimental vaccine, developed by Johnson & Johnson, also be offered. More than 100,000 doses of the approved Merck vaccine have been distributed since August, but supplies are running low. The dosage would be halved from the current 1 milliliter for the primary and secondary “ring vaccination,” which prescribes inoculation for anyone in contact with an infected person. Eligibility would be expanded through “pop-up and targeted geographic approaches” in high-risk areas.

“We know that vaccination is saving lives in this outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The advisory group also recommended more training for local health workers.
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