Saudi Arabia said Saturday it will permit 1 million Muslims from inside and outside the country to participate in this year’s hajj, a sharp uptick after pandemic restrictions forced two years of drastically pared-down pilgrimages.

The hajj ministry “has authorized 1 million pilgrims, both foreign and domestic, to perform the hajj this year,” it said in a statement.

One of the five pillars of Islam, the hajj must be undertaken by all Muslims with the means at least once in their lives. Usually one of the world’s largest religious gatherings, about 2.5 million people took part in 2019.

But after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Saudi authorities allowed only 1,000 pilgrims to participate.

The following year, they upped the total to 60,000 fully vaccinated citizens and residents chosen through a lottery.

This year’s hajj, which will take place in July, will be limited to vaccinated pilgrims under age 65, Saturday’s announcement said.

Those coming from outside Saudi Arabia will be required to submit a negative COVID-19 PCR result from a test taken within 72 hours of travel.

The government wants to promote pilgrims’ safety “while ensuring that the maximum number of Muslims worldwide can perform the hajj,” Saturday’s statement said.

Easing restrictions

The hajj consists of a series of religious rites that are completed over five days in Islam’s holiest city, Mecca, and surrounding areas of western Saudi Arabia.

Hosting the hajj is a matter of prestige for Saudi rulers, as the custodianship of Islam’s holiest sites is the most powerful source of their political legitimacy.

Before the pandemic, Muslim pilgrimages were key revenue earners for the kingdom, bringing in some $12 billion annually.

The restrictions in 2020 and 2021 stoked resentment among Muslims abroad who were barred.

The kingdom of approximately 34 million people has so far recorded more than 751,000 coronavirus cases, including 9,055 deaths, according to health ministry data.

In early March it announced the lifting of most COVID restrictions including social distancing in public spaces and quarantine for vaccinated arrivals, moves that were expected to facilitate the arrival of Muslim pilgrims.

The decision included suspending “social distancing measures in all open and closed places” including mosques, while masks are now only required in closed spaces.
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An international donor conference on Friday raised $4.8 billion for the U.N.-backed COVAX plan to deliver coronavirus jabs to poorer countries, organizers said.

“The pandemic is not over, far from it. Until we beat COVID-19 everywhere, we beat it nowhere. That is a fact, and a responsibility for all of us,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, co-host of the online conference.

Scholz, whose bid to make COVID jabs mandatory for over-60s in Germany failed in parliament this week, warned that the ongoing pandemic risked creating new variants that could be “more dangerous” than previous ones.

The conference, hosted by Germany, Ghana, Senegal and Indonesia, sought to address a yawning gap in vaccination rates between the world’s richest and poorest countries.

The COVAX program, co-led by vaccine-sharing alliance Gavi, the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, has so far delivered 1.4 billion doses to 145 countries — far short of the planned 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.

Governments from developed nations pledged $3.8 billion Friday to bring the vaccine to 92 low- and middle-income countries.

Development banks including the World Bank and the European Investment Bank contributed $1 billion Friday.

COVAX had said in January that it needed $5.2 billion to fund jabs for the world in 2022.

The WHO wants 70% of every country’s population vaccinated by July.

But records are uneven.

Nearly 80% of France’s population, for example, has received two doses. But only 15% of the population on the continent of Africa is fully vaccinated, according to Oxford University data.

COVAX says it currently has enough doses to vaccinate about 45% of the population in the 92 low- and middle-income countries receiving donations. But 25 of those countries lack the infrastructure for an effective immunization campaign.

Making matters worse, many developing countries are slated to receive doses too close to their expiration date.

“Vaccine inequity is the biggest moral failure of our times, and people and countries are paying the price,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier this year.
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The United Nations warned Friday that an old, neglected oil tanker carrying more than a million barrels of oil is a ticking “time bomb” at “imminent risk” of a major spill off the coast of Yemen that could cost $20 billion to clean up.

“If it were to happen, the spill would unleash a massive ecological and humanitarian catastrophe centered on a country already decimated by more than seven years of war,” U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen David Gressly told reporters. “The environmental damage could affect states across the Red Sea. The economic impact of disrupted shipping would be felt across the region.”

The FSO Safer is one more casualty in the war between the Saudi-backed government of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Iranian-supported Houthi rebels.

U.N. officials have been seeking access to the vessel for more than three years to assess its safety, do light repairs and eventually tow it to a safe port to remove the oil. But Houthi rebels controlling the area have repeatedly reneged on promises to allow that to happen.

The tanker has had no maintenance since 2015 because of the war and only a skeleton crew is aboard the vessel. Gressly says the vessel is now beyond repair.

“In March, a U.N.-led mission to the Ras Isa peninsula, near to where the Safer is anchored, confirmed that the 45-year-old supertanker is rapidly decaying,” Gressly said. “It is at imminent risk of spilling a massive amount of oil due to leakages or an explosion.”

The ensuing environmental and ecological catastrophe would devastate Yemen’s fishing industry, fill the air with toxins and could also impact neighboring Saudi Arabia and the Horn of Africa.

Mitigation plan

Gressly said the U.N. has a plan to address the threat posed by the tanker, which the government of Yemen supports. Houthi rebels signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.N. last month establishing a framework for cooperation.

The U.N. plans to get a replacement vessel to offload the 1.1 million barrels of oil contained in the Safer – that is four times more oil than the Exxon Valdez carried when it caused a catastrophic spill in Alaska in 1989. After all the oil is transferred to the temporary vessel, the Safer would be towed to a shipyard and sold for recycling.

But the U.N. faces two significant obstacles: a lack of funding and time.

Gressly said the entire mission would cost about $80 million.

“This includes the salvage operation, the lease of a very large crude carrier to hold the oil and crew, and maintenance for 18 months,” he said.

That would be dramatically less than the $20 billion that could be needed to clean up a spill, but difficult to raise in a donor-fatigued environment.

The Netherlands, which has been very active on the Safer situation, is planning to co-host a conference in May to raise funds to complete the mission. Gressly is also embarking on a tour of Gulf countries to encourage them to step up to mitigate a potential catastrophe on their doorstep.

The work needs to get under way by mid-May so it can be completed by the end of September, when the regional weather patterns shift and the sea will become rougher and winds will increase. Such conditions multiply the risk of the ship breaking apart, Gressly said.

If they cannot start on time, Gressly warned that could mean delaying for several months, “leaving the time bomb ticking.”
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As the U.S. tries to emerge from the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic, health experts and law enforcement officials are concerned about another health crisis: a sharp rise in the number of drug related overdoses attributed to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a bulletin earlier this week to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies warning of a nationwide spike in fentanyl-related mass-overdose events.

Already this year, numerous mass overdose events have resulted in dozens of overdoses and deaths,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in an email statement to VOA.

Fentanyl-related mass overdose events are characterized as three or more overdoses occurring close in time and at the same location.

In February, five people died in an apartment outside Denver from overdoses of fentanyl mixed with cocaine. In another case, five West Point Military Academy cadets survived after overdosing on fentanyl-laced cocaine while on spring break in Florida last month. At least seven American cities have seen an increase in drug-related overdoses resulting in 29 deaths, according to the DEA.

“Drug traffickers are driving addiction, and increasing their profits, by mixing fentanyl with other illicit drugs. Tragically, many overdose victims have no idea they are ingesting deadly fentanyl, until it’s too late,” said Milgram.

Law enforcement officials believe the problem has grown worse since the government released figures last year indicating more than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in October 2021. Sixty-six percent of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is a very historic time. We have never had the amount of death and destruction than we are seeing now,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the White House office of National Drug Control Policy, last month.

Health officials say powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl can be up to 100 times more potent than morphine. Researchers say taking just two milligrams of fentanyl can kill a person.

U.S. law enforcement agencies seized nearly 10 million fentanyl pills last year, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There have also been numerous news reports of large seizures by state and local police in the last two months.

“Fentanyl has flooded the market across the country,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, speaking on CNBC. “It has contaminated other drugs such as heroin, many illicit drugs including illicit prescription medication.

Overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. But the latest data show a sharp rise during the pandemic. Last year, the United States suffered more fentanyl-related deaths than gun- and automobile-related deaths combined.

Minority drug overdoses soar

The rise in opioid related overdoses has impacted many communities. Opioid deaths among African Americans and other minority groups continue to rise. U.S. researchers found overdose deaths jumped nearly 49% among Black people in the United States from 2019 to 2020, compared with a 26% increase among white people. Overdose deaths among Native Americans and Alaska Natives were 31% higher than among white adults, according to research from UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

Law enforcement groups note that, compared to other drugs, fentanyl is inexpensive, with one pill costing just a few dollars. The price makes it a popular drug among low-income minority groups.

“We know the COVID-19 pandemic hit Black Americans especially hard, and that the risk of a drug overdose is strongly linked to many of the damaging financial, health and social effects of the pandemic that were disproportionately borne by Black people,” said Linda Richter, vice president for prevention research at the Partnership to End Addiction.

“Even before the pandemic, Black Americans had less access to the resources and support that prevent and treat addiction, and reverse a drug overdose,” Richter said in an interview with HealthDay News.

Causes of the drug crisis

A variety of factors have contributed to America’s growing opioid crisis. Law enforcement agencies point to an increasing flow of illicit drugs and fentanyl smuggled through the southern border with Mexico.

The chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid are being shipped largely from China to Mexico, where huge quantities of illicit fentanyl are produced in labs before being smuggled into the U.S.

Strong law enforcement efforts to crack down on the abuse of prescription opioids like oxycodone are believed to have shifted demand to heroin and fentanyl. The growing availability of those drugs helped fuel higher usage — and addiction — rates among Americans.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed about 2,700 cases in 2021 involving crimes related to the distribution of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, up nearly tenfold from 2017.

“Fentanyl poisonings are at an all-time high,” said Sheriff Mike Milstead of Minnehaha County, South Dakota. “These are not isolated incidents. These are happening in every state and every county in America, leaving behind grieving families. Let us be clear, these poisonings are part of a strategic maneuver by drug cartels, and it must be stopped.”

Some Republican officials have been critical of the federal government’s efforts to stop fentanyl from entering the country through the porous U.S.-Mexico border.

In Texas, National Guard units were deployed to the border region with a mission that includes stopping the flow of fentanyl from Mexico. State leaders are also calling for tougher penalties for convicted drug dealers. “This is not a fentanyl overdose, this is poisoning by fentanyl, which we want to make a murder crime in the state of Texas,” said Governor Greg Abbott at a news conference last month.

More government funding

The Biden administration has stressed treatment and prevention and proposed $42.5 billion in federal spending to address the ongoing opioid crisis.

The proposal released last month includes $21.1 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services to support prevention and treatment efforts. It would increase funding for interdiction efforts as well as addiction treatment centers in rural areas.

If approved by Congress, $80 million would be set aside for helping children impacted by the opioid crisis.

“This budget supports the Biden administration’s ongoing work to expand access to evidence-based treatment,” said Dr. Gupta, the White House official. “We want to further reduce the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl from entering our communities and prevent overdoses.”
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Without a single dollar of the $5 billion it requested for its global COVID-19 response approved, the Biden administration’s key program to help vaccinate the world is in danger of grinding to a halt.

Even as the administration marked World Health Day on Thursday with a commitment to build a safer, healthier and more equitable future around the globe, without additional funding from Congress, by September the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will no longer be able to finance Global Vax. The U.S. launched the international initiative in December to deliver shots in arms in 11 countries: Angola, Ivory Coast, Eswatini, Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

“Without additional funding to support getting shots into arms, USAID will have to curtail our growing efforts to turn vaccines into vaccinations — just as countries are finally gaining access to the vaccine supplies needed to protect their citizens,” a USAID spokesperson told VOA. USAID had initially requested $19 billion for its global vaccination initiatives.

USAID had planned to expand Global Vax to 20 additional countries, but those plans are now on hold.

Without additional funding, the U.S. will also be unable to provide oxygen and other lifesaving supplies around the world, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters earlier this week.

“And our global genomic sequencing capabilities will fall off and undermine our ability to detect any emerging variants around the world,” Zients added.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate agreed to provide $10 billion in supplemental funding for COVID-19 response domestically but did not approve the $5 billion requested by the White House for its global pandemic efforts.

With Senate Republicans insisting that any new COVID-19 spending be paid for with unspent funds from the nearly $6 trillion in COVID-19 legislation that had already been passed, Senate Democrats dropped the international funding request to get the domestic package approved first.

“While we were unable to reach an agreement on international aid in this new agreement, many Democrats and Republicans are committed to pursuing a second supplemental later this spring,” Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who had been leading negotiations with Schumer on the $10 billion COVID-19 domestic response package, said he is willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global pandemic efforts in the weeks ahead.

Airports to arms

Globally, the issue now is not the lack of vaccine doses but the ability of getting them “from airports to arms,” said Krishna Udayakumar, who leads a Duke University team that tracks global vaccine production, distribution and donation.

“How do we make sure that the trained vaccinators are there, the data system, the cold chain, that’s where a lot more money is needed,” Udayakumar told VOA.

The administration has already purchased all of the 1.2 billion doses of vaccines it has pledged to donate around the world. However, without the additional funding, some of them are in danger of expiring in warehouses in the U.S., said global health advocate Tom Hart.

Hart, president of the ONE Campaign, an advocacy organization that fights preventable diseases, said that in his decadeslong career in global health, he has never seen the U.S. reneging on its commitment.

“In the 20 years I’ve been doing this, every time we have pledged to deliver something, the United States has been able to keep that pledge, and it has created enormous goodwill around the world,” Hart told VOA.

But now, U.S. credibility is on the line. “We’ve said with great fanfare that we have these incredibly effective doses. And they are sitting here in America, ready to go to those who need them, and we can’t get them to them,” he said.

The White House said it will continue to work with lawmakers to push for additional international funding.

“We’re not quite there yet,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked by VOA about the fate of those undelivered doses. “And our hope is that we will be able to turn … vaccines into vaccinations.”

Other multilateral programs may have to step in to pick up the U.S. slack, including the COVID Vaccine Delivery Partnership mechanism established earlier this year as the next phase of COVAX, the international vaccine-sharing facility supported by the World Health Organization and health organizations Gavi and CEPI.

“The aim of the partnership is to focus on providing bespoke support for those countries furthest behind in coverage: coordinating efforts around delivery funding, technical assistance, demand planning and political engagement, led by countries themselves,” a Gavi spokesperson told VOA.

The administration would not say whether it is pushing for a separate global pandemic funding package, or one that is attached to potential additional funding for Ukraine and the global food crisis, which could come in weeks or months.

It is also not providing details on when President Joe Biden will host the second global COVID-19 summit, originally scheduled for March. Biden hosted the first summit in September 2021 when he sought to galvanize a robust response from wealthy nations to help vaccinate the world.

VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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Disease caused by the omicron variant is on average around two days shorter than the delta variant, a large study of vaccinated Britons who kept a smartphone log of their COVID-19 symptoms after breakthrough infections found.

“The shorter presentation of symptoms suggests — pending confirmation from viral load studies — that the period of infectiousness might be shorter, which would in turn impact workplace health policies and public health guidance,” the study authors wrote.

Based on the Zoe COVID app, which collects data on self-reported symptoms, the study also found that a symptomatic omicron infection was 25% less likely to result in hospital admission than in a case of delta.

While omicron’s lesser severity has been known, the study is unique in its detailed analysis and in that it corrected for any distortions caused by differences in vaccination status by looking at vaccinated volunteers only.

The researchers at King’s College London analyzed two sets of data from June 1 to Nov. 27, 2021, when the delta variant accounted for more than 70% of cases, and from Dec. 20, 2021, to Jan. 17, 2022, when omicron was more than 70% prevalent.

The patients, close to 5,000 in each group, were matched and compared 1:1 with a person of the same age, sex, and vaccination dose in the other group.

Omicron’s shorter symptom duration relative to delta was more pronounced in those with three vaccine doses. Symptoms lasted 7.7 days on average during the delta-dominated period, and only 4.4 days, or 3.3 days less, during the omicron period.

Among those with only two vaccine doses, symptoms from delta lasted for 9.6 days and 8.3 days from omicron, a difference of just 1.3 days.

The Zoe COVID Study application, previously known as the COVID Symptoms Study App, collects data on self-reported symptoms.

The company ZOE Ltd was initially founded to offer customized nutritional advice based on test kits. Its app is a not-for-profit initiative in collaboration with King’s College London and funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

The study was published in the medical journal The Lancet on Thursday and will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases later this month.
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The first-ever married couple to fly on a commercial spacecraft speaks with VOA. Plus, an all-amateur flight crew prepares for a trip to the International Space Station, and a milestone in space-based racial equality. Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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Lithium is a key component in electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems, and California officials hope their state will become a major producer. Governor Gavin Newsom has said he wants California to become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” But residents of one community want some assurances first. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Lithium Valley in the California desert. Camera: Mike O’Sullivan, Roy Kim
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The World Health Organization ((WHO)) says, following a surge of new cases in early March, the number of new worldwide COVID-19 cases and deaths has fallen for a second consecutive week.

In its weekly update released late Tuesday, the WHO reports the number of new cases overall fell by 16 percent during the week ending April 3, compared to the previous week.

As of 3 April 2022, just over 489 million cases and over 6 million deaths had been reported globally.

The agency said global deaths from COVID-19 fell sharply – by 43 percent – in the past week. The WHO attributed a sharp rise in death numbers the previous week to a change in the way deaths were counted and the addition of death numbers not previously reported in the Americas.

At the country level, the highest number of new weekly cases was reported in

South Korea, with more than 2,058,000 new cases, Germany, with more than 1, 371,000 and France, with nearly one million new cases.

South Korea’s cases declined 16% and Germany’s declined 13 percent. In France, case numbers were up 13 percent.

Across the six WHO regions, over nine million new cases and over 26,000 new deaths were reported. All the regions show decreasing trends both in the number of new weekly cases and new weekly deaths.

The WHO continues to caution, however, several countries are progressively changing their COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases being detected.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced plans to expand access to health care by proposing changes to the Affordable Care Act to allow millions of additional families to purchase health insurance and obtain tax credits to offset the cost. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Zoos across North America are moving their birds indoors and away from people and wildlife as they try to protect them from the highly contagious and potentially deadly avian influenza. 

Penguins may be the only birds that visitors to many zoos can see right now, because they already are kept inside and usually protected behind glass in their exhibits, making it harder for the bird flu to reach them. 

Nearly 23 million chickens and turkeys have already been killed across the United States to limit the spread of the virus, and zoos are working hard to prevent any of their birds from meeting the same fate. It would be especially upsetting for zoos to have to kill any of the endangered or threatened species in their care. 

“It would be extremely devastating,” said Maria Franke, who is the manager of welfare science at Toronto Zoo, which has fewer than two dozen Loggerhead Shrike songbirds that it’s breeding with the hope of reintroducing them into the wild. “We take amazing care, and the welfare and well-being of our animals is the utmost importance. There’s a lot of staff that has close connections with the animals that they care for here at the zoo.” 

Toronto Zoo workers are adding roofs to some outdoor bird exhibits and double-checking the mesh that surrounds enclosures to ensure it will keep wild birds out.

How it spreads

Birds shed the virus through their droppings and nasal discharge. Experts say it can be spread through contaminated equipment, clothing, boots and vehicles carrying supplies. Research has shown that small birds that squeeze into zoo exhibits or buildings can also spread the flu, and that mice can even track it inside. 

So far, no outbreaks have been reported at zoos, but there have been wild birds found dead that had the flu. For example, a wild duck that died after tornadoes last month in a behind-the-scenes area of the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa, tested positive, zoo spokesman Ryan Bickel said.  

Most of the steps that zoos are taking are designed to prevent contact between wild birds and zoo animals. In some places, officials are requiring employees to change into clean boots and don protective gear before entering bird areas. 

When bird flu cases are found in poultry, officials order the entire flock to be killed because the virus is so contagious. However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has indicated that zoos might be able to avoid that by isolating infected birds and possibly euthanizing a small number of them. 

Sarah Woodhouse, director of animal health at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, said she is optimistic after talking with state and federal regulators. 

“They all agree that ordering us to depopulate a large part of our collection would be the absolute last-ditch effort. So they’re really interested in working with us to see what we can do to make sure that we’re not going to spread the disease while also being able to take care of our birds and not have to euthanize,” Woodhouse said. 

Precautions taken

Among the precautions zoos are taking is to keep birds in smaller groups so that if a case is found, only a few would be affected. The USDA and state veterinarians would make the final decision about which birds had to be killed. 

“Euthanasia is really the only way to keep it from spreading,” said Luis Padilla, who is vice president of animal collections at the Saint Louis Zoo. “That’s why we have so many of these very proactive measures in place.” 

The National Aviary in Pittsburgh — the nation’s largest — is providing individual health checks for each of its roughly 500 birds. Many already live in large glass enclosures or outdoor habitats where they don’t have direct exposure to wildlife, said Dr. Pilar Fish, the aviary’s senior director of veterinary medicine and zoological advancement. 

Kansas City Zoo CEO Sean Putney said he’s heard a few complaints from visitors, but most people seem OK with not getting to see some birds. “I think our guests understand that we have what’s in the best interests of the animals in mind when we make these decisions, even though they can’t get to see them,” Putney said. 

Officials emphasize that bird flu doesn’t jeopardize the safety of meat or eggs or represent a significant risk to human health. No infected birds are allowed into the food supply, and properly cooking poultry and eggs kills bacteria and viruses. No human cases have been found in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
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As the world impatiently looks for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, another tenacious pandemic, tuberculosis, has gained new strength and threatens millions of people around the world, health experts say.   

With less funding for its detection and care programs, and more deaths resulting from it, the global fight against TB has seen major setbacks.  

“We’ve lost five years of progress or more in the fight against TB because of the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic,” David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told VOA.    

Dowdy’s assessment is echoed by the World Health Organization. “The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of global progress in tackling tuberculosis and for the first time in over a decade,” said Amna Smailbegovic, a WHO spokesperson.  

More than 66 million lives have been saved through TB treatment programs since 2000, and the WHO had expected to treat 40 million TB cases between 2018 and 2022, cutting deaths in half over the 10 years ending in 2025. 

Not only have these targets been pushed back several years, but whether they can be achieved at all depends on how and when the world effectively ends the COVID-19 pandemic, the experts say. 

“The situation continues to look bleak according to the data reported monthly from 90 countries,” Smailbegovic said. “There has been insufficient progress made in closing case detection gaps, with still far fewer people diagnosed and treated or provided with TB preventive treatment compared with 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. There remains a shortfall of 13% in notifications of people with TB compared with before the onset of the pandemic.”   

TB deaths up 

TB, which has existed some 9,000 years in human societies, is an airborne disease spread by coughing or sneezing, and the pathogen is carried by an estimated 1.8 billion people or one-quarter of the world population, according to the WHO.  

More than 1.5 million people died from TB in 2020, up from 1.4 million the year before.  

With the marked reduction in detection and care during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is feared that as many as an additional 500,000 deaths could be added to the TB mortality rate, which will push “the world back a decade, to the level of TB mortality in 2010,” the agency has warned.  

A major cause for this is that many countries have directed most health resources to deal with the COVID-19 emergency.  

Over the past two years, hospitals that treated TB patients turned to COVID-19 cases, and TB specialists, who were also diverted to COVID-19 patients, could not follow up with their TB patients, according to TB Alliance, a nongovernmental research organization.   

“In spite of the fact that it has almost forever been the greatest global pandemic, unfortunately COVID has taken over in terms of the number of deaths caused by an infectious disease over the last couple of years. So now TB, from the point of view of deaths, is No. 2 behind COVID,” Mel Spigelman, president and CEO of TB Alliance, told VOA.  

COVID-19 has caused more than 6.16 million deaths so far worldwide with more than 982,000 deaths alone in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, which has been tracking cases globally. 

Drop in funding  

While the response to COVID-19, particularly the relatively quick development of several highly effective vaccines, has been commended widely, the approach has come at a cost of reduce funding for TB programs.  

Annually, about $13 billion is needed to diagnose, treat and research TB, and even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the global TB programs received less than half that.  

Funding dropped to $5.3 billion in 2020, about $500 million less than 2019, according to WHO figures.  

Meanwhile, governments and other donors spent more than $100 billion on developing COVID-19 vaccines.   

While India, Indonesia, the Philippines and China carry the highest TB burden, TB incidences increased 9.4% in the U.S. last year compared with 2020.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe economic recessions around the world, forcing millions of already vulnerable people deeper into poverty. This, experts say, has created an environment conducive for a resurgence of TB, which has historically seen increases during times of war and widespread hunger.  

“What we’ve learned from the history is that TB will definitely get worse in the settings of war, hunger, famine, etc.,” said Spigelman, adding, “TB anywhere is TB everywhere.” 
…

Amazon on Tuesday announced deals for scores of launches to deploy a “constellation” of satellites in low orbit around the Earth to provide internet service to people below.

Amazon said that its contracts with Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history.

The overall cost and timing of launches booked to make Amazon’s Project Kuiper a reality were not disclosed.

“We still have lots of work ahead, but the team has continued to hit milestone after milestone across every aspect of our satellite system,” Amazon senior vice president Dave Limp said in a statement.

“Project Kuiper will provide fast, affordable broadband to tens of millions of customers in unserved and underserved communities around the world.”

U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, head of the space company SpaceX, has already put more than 1,500 satellites into orbit to create a Starlink internet service network.

Late last year Boeing entered the space internet race, getting U.S. authorization for satellites that will provide internet services from above.

Project Kuiper aims to provide high-speed broadband internet service to households, schools, hospitals, businesses, disaster relief operations and others in places without reliable connectivity, according to Amazon.

Amazon is developing Kuiper in-house, and planned to take advantage of capabilities already present in its other divisions, such as logistics operations and AWS cloud computing arm.

Musk formed an alliance with Microsoft, which is Amazon’s biggest rival in the cloud computing market, to use its Azure platform to provide his version of satellite-powered internet service.

With some of Amazon’s launch contracts awarded to Blue Origin, one Bezos operation will be feeding business to another.

Bezos has used some of his Amazon wealth to create and fund private space exploration enterprise Blue Origin.

“We’re honored to support Amazon’s ambitious mission to provide reliable, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world,” Blue Origin senior vice president Jarrett Jones said in a joint release.

Rocket booster

It was Amazon’s plan from the outset to enlist multiple rocket launch companies, according to Project Kuiper vice president of technology Rajeev Badyal.

The approach reduces risk of launch delays slowing the project, and saves Amazon money with competitive pricing, according to Badyal.

“These large, heavy-lift rockets also mean we can deploy more of our constellation with fewer launches, helping simplify our launch and deployment schedule,” Badyal said.

The massive number of launch bookings was also expected to boost that industry in the U.S. and Europe.

Badyal gave the example of Arianespace relying on suppliers from 13 European countries to produce its Ariane 6 rockets.

Eighteen of the contracted launches will employ Ariane 6 rockets.

“This contract, the largest we’ve ever signed, is a great moment in Arianespace’s history,” Arianespace chief executive Stephane Israel said in the release.

“It is a major win for the European launcher industry.”

ULA won the largest share of contracts and planned to build a second launch platform at its site in Cape Canaveral, Florida as part of the arrangement.

That joint venture is operated by U.S. giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

“This agreement marks the beginning of an exciting new era for ULA and for the entire U.S. launch industry,” said ULA chief executive Tory Bruno.
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Cases of a parasitic disease called Leishmaniasis are increasing at an alarming pace in a town in northeastern Syria called Tel Tamr. VOA’s Zana Omer has more in this story narrated by Sirwan Kajjo.
Camera: Zana Omer
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Climate scientists warn the world is courting disaster if it fails to swiftly do what’s required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The International Panel on Climate Change released a report on mitigating climate change. After two previous reports on the physical science behind climate change and on its potential impacts, the United Nation’s top climate body says changes are now causing huge disruptions in the natural world and in human well-being. 

Over the last decade, the report says average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history.    

However, the co-chair of the panel’s third working group, Jim Skea, says the rate of growth has slowed in the last two years along with increasing evidence of many countries taking climate action. 

“Despite this progress, our assessment concludes that unless there are immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees will be beyond reach,” he said. “Now limiting warming to around two degrees still requires global emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by a quarter by 2030.” 

The report says the energy sector accounts for a third of all emissions, and major transitions will be required to slow global warming. This, it says, will involve substantial reductions in fossil fuel use, widespread electrification, improved energy efficiency, and the use of alternative fuels. 

The vice-chair of the third working group, Diana Urge-Vorsatz, says the right policies can result in a 40 to 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. She says changes in lifestyle and behavior also can reduce the carbon footprint, as well as improve health and well-being. 

“Of the 60 actions we assessed in this report, on an individual level, the biggest contribution comes from switching to walking and cycling and using electrified transport. Other effective options include reducing air travel and adapting our houses,” Urge-Vorsatz said.  

Scientists on the intergovernmental panel agree business as usual is not an option in meeting the many challenges of climate change. They warn the longer action is put off, the more irreversible it will become. 
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