Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano may be disrupting life in paradise with its bursts of ash and bright-orange lava, but it also has scientists wide-eyed, eager to advance what’s known about volcanoes.

The good news is: Volcanoes reveal secrets when they’re rumbling, which means Kilauea is producing a bonanza of information.

While scientists monitored Big Island lava flows in 1955 and 1960, equipment then was far less sophisticated. Given new technology, they can now gather and study an unprecedented volume of data.

“Geophysical monitoring techniques that have come online in the last 20 years have now been deployed at Kilauea,” said George Bergantz, professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington. “We have this remarkable opportunity … to see many more scales of behavior both preceding and during this current volcanic crisis.”

Starting May 3, Kilauea has fountained lava and flung ash and rocks from its summit, destroying hundreds of homes, closing key highways and prompting health warnings. Kilauea is one of five volcanos that form the Big Island, and is a “shield” volcano — built up over time as lava flows layer on top of layer.

Technically speaking, it has been continuously erupting since 1983. But the recent combination of earthquakes shaking the ground, steam-driven explosions at the top, and lava creeping into a new area some 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the summit represents a departure from its behavior over the past 35 years, said Erik Klemetti, a volcanologist at Ohio’s Denison University.

What’s happening now is a bit more like the Kilauea of nearly a century ago. In 1924, steam explosions at the summit lasted for more than two weeks.

Scientists are looking into what caused the change and whether this shift in the volcano’s magma plumbing system will become the new normal.

Radar allows researchers to measure the height of ash plumes shooting from the summit, even when they occur at night. Plume heights are an effect of how much heat energy is released and the explosion’s intensity.

“It’s one of the key factors that dictates how far ash will be dispersed,” said Charles Mandeville, volcano hazards coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey. The other is where the winds are blowing. Such knowledge is useful in alerting the public.

Scientists can also monitor where gas is emerging, as well as determine its composition and volume. They can even measure the subtle rise and fall of the ground over a broad area and time — down to seconds — which suggests when and where magma is pooling underground.

Discovering variations or correlations between past and present activity provides more clues on what’s happening. It also helps scientists understand past lava flows, anticipate what could occur next, and pinpoint signs or patterns before an eruption.

“You’re sort of zeroing in on finer and finer levels of detail into how the volcano works,” said Michael Poland, a U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist. “The more stuff you put on the volcano to make measurements, the more you realize there’s stuff going on that you never knew.”

Better technology has also meant U.S. Geological Survey scientists have been able to accurately forecast Kilauea’s behavior as it sputters over Puna, the island’s most affected district.

“They’ve been spot on,” said Janine Krippner, a volcanologist at Concord University in West Virginia. “It’s incredible — they’re looking at things happening below the surface, using the monitoring equipment that they have, the knowledge they have of past eruptions, and have been able to get people to not be in a deadly area.”

This is unfortunately not always possible, as nature can be unpredictable. On June 3, Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire sent a mixture of hot gas, rock and other material racing down its slopes and inundating the valley, killing nearly 100 people.

Krippner compared the Guatemala eruption to opening a can of soda after shaking it vigorously. Volcanic gas underneath created bubbles that expanded, increasing pressure that blew magma apart when it reached the surface, spewing cooled lava rocks ranging from the size of sand grains to boulders.

Explosions can be bigger, or occur differently, than expected, and that presents a learning opportunity for scientists, who work on computer models to map out areas that may be at higher risk in the future. “Looking at the footage afterward, we can start to tease out how these things actually work,” Krippner said, as it’s often too dangerous for experts to physically get close to an eruption.

Volcanic eruptions happen fairly regularly — as many as 60 occur worldwide each year — but many are in isolated areas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

After Kilauea’s 1924 summit explosions, the volcano entered a decade of piddly rumblings, followed by 18 years of silence. Experts say Kilauea may be heading toward years — even decades — of little or no activity.

For now, volcanologists feel a “tremendous amount of responsibility” to learn as much as possible from the volcano, Poland said. Its latest activity has destroyed about 400 homes — including about 280 over the last several days — and displaced thousands of residents. Lava from Kilauea has also downed power lines and knifed across highways.

“It’s coming at a great cost in terms of impact on the lives and livelihoods of so many people — we owe it to the people of Puna to make sure that we learn the lessons the volcano is teaching us,” Poland said.
…

Marking World Environment Day, the United Nations on Tuesday named plastic one of the biggest environmental threats facing the world. 

The report, Single-Use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustainability, said while government regulation on the use of plastic has made some impact on reducing waste, it is not enough, and more urgent action is needed. 

“Our world is swamped by harmful plastic waste,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech. “Microplastics in the seas now outnumber stars in our galaxy.”

“From remote islands to the Arctic, nowhere is untouched. If present trends continue, by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic than fish,” he said.

The report noted that by some estimates, as many as 5 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year. 

While acknowledging that combating plastic waste is different for every country, the U.N. report suggested 10 universal steps that policymakers can follow, including use of more eco-friendly alternatives to plastics and the promotion of reusable products.

​According to the Ocean Conservancy, 8 million metric tons of plastic enters the Earth’s oceans every year, which adds to the estimated 150 million metric tons already in the marine environment. 

A 2017 report by the Ocean Conservancy said China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are dumping more plastic than the rest of the world combined.

But the advocacy group warned that the problem is not Asia’s alone. It noted the United States tosses out more than 33 million tons of plastic, of which less than 10 percent is recycled. 

For years, environmentalists have warned of the deadly effect plastic trash has on marine wildlife. This week, a pilot whale died in Thailand after struggling for five days to stay alive. Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources announced that the whale had 80 plastic bags lodged in its stomach. 

A Thai marine official said the whale, which normally feeds on squid, probably mistook the floating debris for food. 
…

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports no new cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been confirmed since May 17. WHO finds of 56 reported cases, 37 are confirmed, 13 are probable and six are suspected. The death toll stands at 25.

The U.N. agency said not too much should be read into the fact that the number of confirmed Ebola cases has remained stable since mid-May. It said  these numbers should be viewed with some caution.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said it is critical that all people who have had contact with an infected person are identified. He said even one person with Ebola could create a number of new cases by coming in contact with people at social events or religious ceremonies such as funerals.

Jasarevic told VOA it is premature to let down one’s guard. He says health care workers, responders and communities must remain vigilant.

“The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo is not over and we need to continue to work,” he added. “… There are lots of areas that are difficult to reach that we have to go to, that we need to make sure that we get to all the contacts. So, there still are contacts that have not been reached. So, it is really too early to say that the outbreak is contained.”

Jasarevic said good progress is being made in vaccinating people who have come in contact with infected individuals. He said a vaccination campaign in Mbandaka, a city of more than one million people, is now over as all 577 known contacts of Ebola patients, health care workers and other vulnerable people there have been inoculated against the disease.

He said vaccinations are ongoing in the village of Bikoro, where Ebola was first detected and in Iboko a remote, difficult to reach area.

Ebola has broken out nine times in the DRC since the virus was discovered in that country in the 1970s. An outbreak in West Africa a few years ago left more than 11,000 people dead.
…

A pill could soon radio signals from inside your gut to help doctors diagnose diseases from ulcers to cancer to inflammation, according to a new study.

Scientists have developed a small, swallowable capsule that mixes synthetic biology and electronics to detect bleeding in the digestive tract.

The system can be adapted for a wide range of medical, environmental and other uses, the researchers say.

The biological part of the pill uses bacteria engineered to glow when exposed to heme, the iron-containing molecule in blood.

The electronic side includes a tiny light detector, computer, chip, battery, and a transmitter that sends data to a cell phone or computer.

“A major challenge for sensing in the GI tract is, the space available for a device is very limited,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology electrical engineer Phillip Nadeau.

Using very low-power electronics they designed, Nadeau and colleagues fit all the components into a capsule about 3 centimeters long by 1 centimeter wide.

It’s still a bit big to swallow. But Nadeau says with engineering work it can likely be made about a third that size.

The engineered bacteria are contained in chambers covered by a membrane that lets small molecules in but does not let the organisms out. The researchers say the bacteria can be engineered to die if they accidentally leak from the capsule. Or future models may just use the key enzymes, rather than whole bacteria.

In laboratory tests, the pill successfully distinguished pigs fed small amounts of blood from those not given blood. The capsule has not yet been tested on humans. The team aims to do so in the next year or two.

Since the components are all fairly cheap to manufacture, the researchers speculate that the cost would be in the range of tens to hundreds of dollars.

And they say the same platform could be used to detect markers of a range of illnesses. Or, it could be used to sense chemicals in the environment.

“It’s really exciting, and I think it’s got a lot of legs,” said Rice University bioengineer Jeff Tabor, who was not part of the research team.

But Tabor notes that the sensors may need to be much more sensitive than what was used in the pig tests. He says there may be much less blood in the guts of actual patients than what the pigs were given. Other conditions may have the same limitations.

“For many actual diseases, you might have far less of the molecule that you need to sense available to you,” he added.

The research is published in the journal Science.
…

Five and a half thousand kilometers of open water lie before Ben Lecomte as he attempts to swim across the entire Pacific Ocean. The journey of endurance for science begins June 5. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
…

The U.S. Defense Department’s inspector general has opened an investigation into misconduct allegations against White House physician Ronny Jackson, the inspector general’s office said in a statement on Monday.

President Donald Trump nominated Jackson to be veterans affairs secretary in March, but Jackson withdrew from consideration a month later amid allegations he had overseen a hostile work environment as White House physician, drank on the job and allowed the overprescribing of drugs.

Jackson, a U.S. Navy rear admiral, has denied the allegations.

“The DoD Office of Inspector General has initiated an investigation into allegations related to Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Ronny L. Jackson,” Bruce Anderson, spokesman for the inspector general’s office, said in a statement.

Democrats on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee have said more than 20 current and former colleagues had come forward to accuse Jackson of prescribing himself medications, getting drunk at a Secret Service party and wrecking a government vehicle.

Jackson has worked as a presidential physician since 2006. After withdrawing his nomination for the VA post, Jackson stopped serving as Trump’s lead physician.
…

A woman with an aggressive form of breast cancer which defied chemotherapy and spread to other organs, was cured with an experimental treatment that triggered her immune system, researchers said Monday.

The woman has been cancer-free for two years, reported the U.S.-based team, presenting their results as “a new immunotherapy approach” for the treatment of patients with a late-stage form of the disease.

Other experts not involved in the work hailed it as “exciting”.

So-called “immunotherapy” has already been shown to work in some people with cancer of the lung, cervix, blood cells (leukaemia), skin (melanoma) and bladder.

But an immune breakthrough for bowel, breast and ovary cancer has remained elusive.

In the latest study, a team extracted immune cells called lymphocytes from the patient, tweaked them in the lab, then reinjected them.

The woman was 49 when she signed up for the clinical trial after several attempts at a cure through conventional treatments had failed, said the study published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.

The cancer had spread to various parts of her body, including the liver.

A person’s immune system is designed to kill invaders, including rogue, cancerous cells. But it can fail, often because it cannot recognize cancer cells containing the patient’s own DNA.

Immunotherapy trains a patient’s own immune cells to recognize and fight cancer.

For the new study, researchers took lymphocytes from a tumor in the woman’s body and scanned them for specific types which reacted to mutant, cancerous cells.

Complete regression

These were reactivated or “switched on” in the lab and injected back, along with a so-called “immune checkpoint inhibitor” — another type of immunotherapy that has shown success in other types of cancer.

This resulted in a “highly personalized” anti-cancer therapy that yielded “complete tumor regression,” the researchers wrote.

In a comment also published by Nature Medicine, expert Laszlo Radvanyi from Canada’s Ontario Institute for Cancer Research said the woman’s response to the treatment was “unprecedented” for such advanced breast cancer.

This work showed “we are now at the cusp of a major revolution in finally realizing the elusive goal of being able to target the plethora of mutations in cancer through immunotherapy,” he wrote.

In a reaction via the Science Media Centre in London, immunotherapy professor Alan Melcher of The Institute of Cancer Research said the trial was “fascinating and exciting.”

The work “provides a major ‘proof-of-principle’ step forward, in showing how the power of the immune system can be harnessed to attack even the most difficult-to-treat cancers,” he said.

Peter Johnson, an oncology professor at the Cancer Research UK Centre, said the study confirmed the immune system can recognize some cancers, and “if this can be stimulated in the right way, even cancers that have spread to different parts of the body may be treatable.”

The technique is “highly specialized and complex”, he cautioned, and may not be suitable for many patients.

 
…

Only 3 countries have never stopped transmission of polio: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, largely because conflicts and cultural opposition thwart vaccination efforts. A common perception in Pakistan is that polio vaccination teams face difficulties only in tribal or rural areas, but there are equally big challenges in the country’s cities, such as Lahore, the country’s second most populous city. More in this report from Saman Khan in Lahore. VOA’s Bezhan Hamdard narrates.
…

German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer will discard the name Monsanto when it takes over the controversial US seeds and pesticides producer this week, it said Monday.

But Bayer executives insisted Monsanto practices rejected by many environmentalists, including genetic modification of seeds and deployment of “crop protection” technologies like pesticides, were vital to help feed a growing world population.

“The company name is and will remain Bayer. Monsanto will no longer be a company name,” chief executive Werner Baumann told journalists during a telephone conference.

Bayer’s $63 billion (54 billion euro) buyout of Monsanto — one of the largest in German corporate history — is set to close Thursday, birthing a global giant with 115,000 employees and revenues of some 45 billion euros.

Bosses plan to name the merged agrichemical division Bayer Crop Science once the merger is complete, German business newspaper Handelsblatt reported, citing “industry sources”.

The Monsanto brand “was an issue for some time for Monsanto management,” noted Liam Condon, president of Bayer’s crop science division, adding that the US firm’s employees were “not fixated on the Monsanto brand” but “proud of what they’ve achieved.”

Weedkiller arms race

Producing high-tech genetically modified seeds, many designed to grow crops resistant to its proprietary pesticides, Monsanto has been a target for environmentalist protests and lawsuits over harm to health and the environment for decades.

“It’s understandable that Bayer wants to avoid having bought Monsanto’s negative image with the billions it has spent on the firm,” said Greenpeace campaigner Dirk Zimmermann.

“More important than giving up the Monsanto name would be a fundamental transformation in the new mega-company’s policies,” he added, accusing Bayer of having “no interest in developing future-proof, sustainable solutions for agriculture.”

Activists fear the firm’s addition to Bayer will further reduce competition in the hotly-contested agrichemical sector, limiting farmers’ and consumers’ choices if they want to avoid GM and chemically treated crops.

What’s more, in recent years weeds have begun to emerge that are resistant to products like Monsanto staple glyphosate, marketed as Roundup alongside “Roundup-ready” seeds beginning in the 1990s.

As agrichemical firms scramble to respond with new pesticides and resistant seeds, there are fears of an arms race with ever-more-potent weedkillers.

Some scientists already suspect glyphosate could cause cancer, with a 2015 World Health Organization study determining it was “probably carcinogenic” — although Bayer and other defenders of the chemical have contested the research.

In 2017, attempts to block the European Union’s five-year renewal of its approval for the weedkiller were unsuccessful.

But activists are lobbying governments and France has vowed to outlaw the substance within three years.

When launching the Monsanto takeover bid, Bayer also promised it would not introduce genetically modified crops in Europe.

“We will listen to our critics and work together where we find common ground,” Baumann said, but added that “agriculture is too important to allow ideological differences to bring progress to a standstill”.

With the world population set to reach almost 10 billion people by 2050, Bayer argues its products and methods are needed to meet demand for food.

‘Number one in seeds’

Bayer has put massive resources behind the deal, raising $57 billion in financing including a new share issue worth six billion euros announced Sunday.

It will also sell large parts of its existing agrichemical and crop seeds business to BASF in concessions to competition authorities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Once the buyout and the sales to BASF are completed, Leverkusen-based Bayer’s crop science business plus Monsanto will account for around half its turnover, with the remainder coming from pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter health products.

At around 19.7 billion euros in 2017, Monsanto and Bayer’s combined agriculture sales outweighed those of competitors ChemChina, DowDuPont and BASF, according to figures provided by Bayer.

“We estimate that Bayer will become number one in seeds and number two in crop protection globally” following the merger, analysts at Standard and Poor’s wrote Monday.

Nevertheless, the ratings agency downgraded its score for Bayer’s debt from “A-” to “BBB,” while upgrading the outlook to “stable”.

“Bayer’s stronger business position in agriculture products… does not fully offset the increased debt in its capital structure,” the analysts wrote.

 
…

An accident, a stroke, or a disease can leave someone paralyzed and unable to walk. That happens to more than 15 million people around the world each year.

But new technological advances and physical therapy could help some of them walk again.  

Among the most promising is the use of robotic exoskeletons, like one made by Ekso Bionics. It looks a bit like a backpack that straps on the user’s back and around the midsection. Robotic ‘legs’ complete with foot panels extend from either side of the pack and wrap around the patient’s legs. A video game-style controller attaches to the pack with a long cord.

“I’m going to be a robot!”

Lindsey Stoefen has been doing physical therapy with the exoskeleton for an hour a day, as she works to recover from the rare disorder that put her in a wheelchair in October.

The 17-year-old athlete climbed into a specially designed exoskeleton for the first time in late April, after becoming an in-patient at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Chicago.

She recalls being nervous. “I was like ‘Dang, I’m going to be a robot!’ I was scared at first.  I was like, ‘Am I going to like it?  Will I be okay?’  And once I got into it, I loved it.”

Lauren Bularzik, Lindsey’s physical therapist, says the exo robots help to accelerate the rehabilitation process. “For someone who takes a lot of energy to only walk a few feet, exo can get them up, can get them moving, it can supplement their movements, get that reciprocal pattern, encourage the correct motor planning.”

Beside speeding up recovery times, these robotic skeletons are especially helpful for those with paralysis, from spinal cord injuries and strokes. Using the machine can help some patients rewire their brains to use secondary muscles, so they can eventually walk again – without the device.

The downside

Scientists at the University of Notre Dame are leading the way with their work on wearable robots that allow patients to regain some or all of their mobility.  But Patrick Wensing, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, says exoskeletons have one big drawback.

“While existing exoskeletons are very powerful, they don’t understand what the user wants to do. So in order to transition between activities in daily life, you often have to press a button interface to tell the exoskeleton ‘I would like to stand up now.’”

Wensing and his team are collaborating with Ekso Bionics, a leading developer of wearable robots, to create a machine that can understand what its user wants to do without implanted sensors and complicated control panels.

The new three-year project funded by The National Science Foundation’s robotic initiative, hopes to achieve a more fluid, intuitive system.

Taylor Gambon has spent the last year analyzing data from exoskeleton users and comparing them to models of everyday walking. “What we’re seeing is that slow walking in general, whether in the exoskeleton or just the human, is much different from walking at a speed that you would choose naturally.”

Later this year, the team will travel to Ekso Bionics’ California headquarters, where they will work directly with exoskeletons to design programs that interact with users of various disabilities, so that more people like Lindsey Stoefen can get back on their feet again.
…

Every year more than 15 million people worldwide suffer injuries and illnesses that leave them unable to walk according to the World Health Organization. But new technological advances and physical therapy could help some of them walk again. Among the most promising – is the use of robotic exoskeletons. As Erika Celeste reports, scientists at the University of Notre Dame are leading the way with their work on wearable robots that allow patients to regain some or all of their mobility.
…

The French news agency AFP is reporting five new suspected cases of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

AFP reported Saturday that DRC health authorities had recorded two new cases of illness in the Wangata area and three new cases in Bikoro. Both areas are in the northwest Equateur province.

A new Ebola virus outbreak was declared in DRC on May 8 in Bikoro. Since then, about 50 cases of infection have been reported, with 25 of them leading to death.

This is the most serious outbreak of Ebola virus since a massive outbreak in western Africa that ended in 2016 after infecting more than 28,600 people.

On May 30, the World Health Organization said there had been 37 confirmed cases and 13 probable cases in DRC since the start of this outbreak. The fast-acting virus has killed about half its victims in the current outbreak.

Meanwhile, the WHO has been involved in an effort to create a vaccine against the Ebola virus, which has broken out nine times in DRC since its discovery in the 1970s.

On Friday, Peter Salama, the head of emergency response for the WHO, told VOA that teams had vaccinated about 500 people who had contact with Ebola cases discovered recently in Equateur’s capital, Mbandaka.

So far, he said, it appears that the highly contagious virus has not spread in the city.

VOA’s Jackson Mvunganyi and Kate Pound Dawson contributed to this report.
…

U.S. health officials say five people have now died from an E. coli outbreak involving romaine lettuce.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that another four people had died from the outbreak. The patients who died were from Arkansas, California, Minnesota and New York.

The agency said 197 patients from 35 states have become ill from eating contaminated romaine lettuce or from coming into contact with those who did. At least 89 people have been hospitalized.

The CDC said many of the new cases involved people who became ill two to three weeks ago, when contaminated romaine lettuce, which is popular in salads, was still being sold.

Health officials have linked the E. coli outbreak to romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona. Officials urged people to throw away all romaine lettuce after the first outbreak was reported in March and now officials say the growing season in Arizona has ended.

While the danger has mostly passed, reports of the illness are still coming in because of the time it takes officials to collect hospital information.

Most E. coli bacteria are not harmful, but some produce poisonous substances known as Shiga toxins, which can cause severe stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea and vomiting.
…

There is hope that the world’s latest Ebola virus outbreak may be contained in the coming weeks, top experts from the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders (Medicins San Frontieres) say.

However, they told VOA this week that dangers remain as hundreds of international and local workers battle the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“Yes, we are confident we can eventually contain this outbreak,” said Dr. Peter Salama, the WHO’s head of emergency response, but questions about speed and logistics remain. “Remember, we’re talking about very remote rural villages surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of forested area.”

One encouraging sign is that epidemiologists have tracked the origins of the outbreak in rural DRC, said Dr. Hilde de Clerck, who is part of the aid group’s response command center in Brussels.

“It’s definitely too early to say it’s under control, but it seems rather positive,” she said Thursday. The epidemiologists have tracked what she called the transmission tree, locating the patients and their families, which gives scientists a good overview of the origins of the outbreak and how it has spread.

“It’s a good sign that we have this vision, and it’s also a good sign that our teams seem to say these people seem linked,” and confined to a few families and a few villages.

This outbreak raised fears that it could spread like the West Africa epidemic in 2014-16, which killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. That was the worst outbreak in the known history of the disease.

Understandable pace

De Clerck said it was not a surprise that the current outbreak seemed to be moving slowly. Rural outbreaks in the DRC generally are contained fairly quickly because villages are isolated and people are not likely to travel to other areas.

In the West African outbreak, which started in Guinea, better roads and the willingness of people to travel to other towns allowed the virus to spread more quickly, she said.

Other factors also are in play, Salama said Thursday. Reforms in the WHO emergency response program over the past few years allowed a very rapid reaction to the outbreak, he said. In addition, other aid agencies mobilized quickly. MSF was able to deploy a Congolese team from Kinshasa immediately to the first village where the disease was suspected.

What’s more, this time, a vaccine program has been used from the start. “We didn’t have a possibility of using an Ebola vaccine in previous outbreaks,” Salama said.

Medical teams are using a process called ring vaccination with a new drug developed by the company Merck. “We find a confirmed case, and then vaccinate all the close contacts of that case and then the contacts of those contacts,” he said.

The immunization program may be key to halting the spread of the virus in Mbandaka, the capital of Equiteur province. Four cases were confirmed in the city of more than 1 million people, raising fears of a wider spread, as the city sits on the Congo River, which connects to Kinshasa and Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo. 

However, Salama said, teams have vaccinated about 500 contacts of the Mbandaka cases, and it appears the virus hasn’t spread in the city.

“Still we should be vigilant for the city, because indeed Mbandaka is a big city and the River Congo is not far, with indeed the boats on the river. But the good news for now is that Mbandaka reports extremely few cases and they seem all linked one to the other,” de Clerck said.

With any outbreak, de Clerck said, medical teams must build trust in communities, especially with something like Ebola, which has a high mortality rate. 

“People are very often afraid, or sometimes people think it could be witchcraft or something that is causing those deaths. So we have health promoters on the field to explain to people what is going on and encouraging people actually to come to the health structures,” she said.

Respect for residents, traditions

Health teams need to respect communities and traditions. For instance, she said, it’s not necessary to quarantine contacts of Ebola patients. People are not contagious if they don’t show symptoms, she said. MSF encourages contacts of patients to continue their daily lives, but to check in frequently with medical providers.

And when people do fall ill, the best treatment centers don’t bar visitors. “People are isolated, but we always say an isolation is not a prison. You need to have patient terraces, you need to have windows and people can talk over the windows, over the terraces to their family members, to their neighbors,” as long as visitors stay at least two meters away from patients and don’t touch them, she said.

In the burials of Ebola victims, there can be compromises to allow mourners to follow some traditions safely. It takes more time, de Clerck said, to do such things as allowing a family member to wear a protective suit to help prepare a loved one’s body for burial, or to arrange ways for mourners to gather safely, but it’s possible.

There is a need for promptness in treatment and burial, “but you cannot destroy all traditions, because people will not trust you … and they will refuse to participate or to follow your advice. It’s way better to have the community on your side,” she said.
…

The World Health Organization has expanded its Ebola vaccination campaign in the Democratic Republic of Congo to include high risk people in three areas. Latest WHO figures show 37 confirmed cases and 13 probable ones.

Since the start of the Ebola vaccination campaign in May, the World Health Organization said 682 people have been vaccinated, among them nearly 500 in Mbandaka, a city of more than one million people.

The campaign recently was expanded to include Bikoro, where Ebola was first discovered on May 8 and the Iboko health zone, which is the most remote of the three areas. Those immunized include health workers, responders and other people at high risk of falling ill from the fatal disease.

WHO officials say the vaccine, which has not been formally approved, appears to be providing protection and giving rise to hope that it can help stop the spread of the Ebola virus.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was president of Liberia during the unprecedented Ebola epidemic in West Africa, shares that hope. Ebola broke out in West Africa in late 2013. By the time it was brought under control in 2016, the disease had killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Liberia lost 4,800 people during that outbreak.

While on a visit to Geneva earlier this week, she told VOA there has been an improvement in health care delivery systems, including infection control since the experience with Ebola.

“So the capacity to be able to address any outbreak is now improved in the affected countries, as well as in other places,” she added. “I think there is an important new dimension in the fight for Ebola and that is vaccines.

Sirleaf said vaccine trials in Guinea and now in the DRC have shown good results.

“We are hoping that DRC like others will have a capacity to deal with it, to stop the spread,” she said. “… We are hoping that DRC will come out of this without the major effect, the major results that we saw in the three countries that were not prepared for this.”

The vaccine developer, Merck, has contributed 7,500 doses of the Ebola vaccine to the DRC. The company says as many as 300,000 more doses are available in case of a serious outbreak.
…

After President Donald Trump said the United States was getting out of the Paris climate agreement because it put the U.S. at a “big economic disadvantage,” the last two holdouts said they were getting in.

Nicaragua and Syria announced late last year that they would join the global agreement to reduce emissions of planet-warming gases.

Experts said it’s one way that Trump’s decision to pull back from tackling climate change has galvanized others to step up.

But whether others will fill the gap the U.S. has left remains an open question.

No other country has followed his lead, said former lead climate negotiator Todd Stern.

“The first, most important piece of good news, and it wasn’t a foregone conclusion, is that other countries stayed in,” he said.

Stepping up

Some countries have announced plans to step up their efforts. China, France, Britain and several other countries have said they will end sales of fossil fuel-powered vehicles, though not all have set a deadline.

More than 60 countries, states, cities and companies have promised an end to coal-powered electricity generation.

In the U.S., experts note that states, cities and businesses have been taking action to fight climate change, even when the federal government has not.

Following Trump’s announcement, an alliance representing more than half of the U.S. economy pledged to meet the nation’s Paris greenhouse gas-reduction commitment anyway.

Counted among the “We Are Still In” coalition’s 2,770 members are New York, California and seven other states; 230 cities, including nine of the 10 most populous; and Unilever, Intel, Gap Inc. and other Fortune 500 companies.

Some states announced plans to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Virginia and New Jersey moved to require power plants to pay for their carbon pollution, joining a nine-state cap-and-trade program.

“A lot of this work would have occurred naturally,” noted Virginia deputy secretary of commerce and trade Angela Navarro, but Trump’s decision “gave us a galvanizing point.”

More than 400 companies worldwide have promised to reduce their emissions in line with global climate goals, and 26 U.S.-based companies, including McDonald’s, Walmart and PepsiCo, have already set targets.

Market forces have also helped U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fall steadily since 2007. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has created a boom in natural gas, replacing dirtier coal in power plants. And the cost of wind and solar energy has been plummeting.

Tipping the balance

But it’s unclear whether the trend will continue. The Trump administration is working to undo regulations aimed at limiting greenhouse gases from power plants, vehicles and other sources.

“The question is, how will it all pencil out?” asked Rhodium Group climate policy analyst Kate Larsen. “Are the federal rollbacks more than enough to tip the balance?”

State, city and business action is “a really good place to start,” she added, “but over time, it’s not a great replacement for federal action.”

The world pledged in Paris to keep global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It is currently falling far short of that goal.

All countries have to ramp up their efforts. But with the Trump administration stepping back, former U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern said other countries may be less willing to step up.

“You see the United States — the biggest historic emitter, the second biggest emitter now — suddenly saying, ‘Never mind.’ What’s the impact of that? Obviously not good,” Stern said.

Negotiators will meet in Poland in December aiming to finalize the “rule book” for how to implement the Paris climate agreement. Experts said that will be one of the first indications of how serious countries are about increasing efforts to meet their climate goals, with or without the United States.
…

Student photographer Madeline Morales takes her camera everywhere she goes. She is always looking for something interesting to shoot.

“I try to look at things with a lot of light; a lot of what draws me is positivity – something that means love or happiness,” said Morales.

At 15 years of age, she has lived through experiences most teens have not had to deal with. She has faced cancer, chemotherapy and radiation, but she stays optimistic and tries to find beauty through her camera lens. Today, she will see something most people will never see in their lifetime.

“It makes me feel excited, a little bit nervous,” said Morales, whose photos were on display at a gallery show in Los Angeles.

“I think with photography and having that faith in God has really helped me a lot to staying positive and being motivated to want to keep fighting this disease,” she said.

Morales was one of 23 students who shared their experiences with cancer through photos at the Pablove Foundation’s gallery show of its advanced photography class. The foundation aims to improve the lives of children living with the disease through its Shutterbugs photography program. The Pablove Foundation also provides money for underfunded pediatric cancer research. Proceeds from the students’ prints will go toward pediatric cancer research grants.

The Pablove Shutterbugs program offers photography classes in eight cities across the United States.

“Being in these classes with other people that completely understand their experience and can be a community with them has been really impactful and has really made them feel a lot more comfortable in what they’ve been through and where they’re going with it,” said Ashley Blakeney, program manager of Pablove Shutterbugs.

She said the photography classes give students living with cancer a sense of community at a time when they often feel isolated in their experience. Photography also helps build confidence, said Blakeney.

“Pavlove Shutterbugs serve as a distraction for these students while they’re going through their treatment because it literally is an out of hospital experience first and foremost,” she said, adding, “Because they are able to build this skill set and to be the really great photographers that they are. They’re incredible. It gives them something to brag about in a sense that they can now say “I am an artist. I am a photographer. I have this voice, and I have this story to tell” and they’re able to do that through their images.”

.

Another student photographer featured in the gallery show is Bayu Lukman.

“Most of my photos’ themes focused on hope,” said Lukman

Lukman was diagnosed with cancer after graduating from elementary school. He described the devastating emotional side of living through cancer and its treatments of chemotherapy and radiation.

“You kind of get really depressed and you don’t want to live anymore.” Lukman continued, “You need to stay optimistic and push yourself through.”

With photography, many young students see the world through the lens of optimism, where their identity is not dictated by cancer.

“There’s more to us than just having cancer, that we have more of a story to tell besides cancer. We want people to see what we see even if it’s through the lens,” said Morales.

“Pablove helped me understand more about the struggles of cancer and has given me a small chance to actually assist in the world a bit with photography, I’d say, to express my story and allow it to hopefully to reach other kids so they understand how to deal with it hopefully,” said Lukman.
…

Cancer is not just an illness of the body, it also takes a toll on a patient’s emotional well-being. To fight feelings of isolation and depression, an organization called the Pablove Foundation created a program that teaches photography to children living with cancer. Through a camera lens, young cancer patients can focus on the beauty in life. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from a gallery show in Los Angeles where some of these students’ pictures are on display.
…

Health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing against time to contain an outbreak of Ebola. So far, the World Health Organization reports at least 25 people have died out of the 58 people who have gotten the virus. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports that efforts to vaccinate people exposed to Ebola started more than 10 days ago.
…

President Donald Trump is overstating progress against the opioid epidemic, claiming “the numbers are way down” despite an increase of opioid-related deaths and overdoses in his first year in office.

A look at his comments during a political rally in Nashville on Tuesday night:

TRUMP: “We got $6 billion for opioid and getting rid of that scourge that’s taking over our country. And the numbers are way down. We’re getting the word out — bad. Bad stuff. You go to the hospital, you have a broken arm, you come out, you’re a drug addict with this crap. It’s way down. We’re doing a good job with it. But we got $6 billion to help us with opioid.”

THE FACTS: Opioid prescriptions are down; deaths and other indicators of the epidemic are up, according to the latest statistics, from 2017. And those developments have nothing to do with the $6 billion approved by Congress because that money is for this year and next.

Trump didn’t specify what numbers he was talking about. But according to data released in April, prescriptions for opioid painkillers filled in the U.S. fell almost 9 percent last year, the largest drop in 25 years. The total dosage of opioid prescriptions filled in 2017 declined by 12 percent because more prescriptions were for a shorter duration, fewer new patients started on them and high-dose prescriptions dropped. The numbers are from health data firm IQVIA’s Institute for Human Data Science.

But legal prescriptions are only one front of the epidemic. 

Drug overdose deaths involving opioids rose to about 46,000 for the 12-month period ended October 2017, up about 15 percent from October 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The numbers are preliminary because of continuing cause-of-death investigations later in the reporting period. They could go higher.

Other measures from the CDC also point to increasing severity of the problem last year.

For example, emergency department visits for overdoses of opioids — prescription pain medications, heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl — rose 30 percent in the U.S. from July 2016 to September 2017. Overdoses shot up 70 percent in the Midwest in that time while increasing by 54 percent in large cities in 16 states.

“Getting rid of that scourge” is the intent, but the numbers don’t show it fading.
…

The American Cancer Society is recommending people start testing for colon and rectal cancer at age 45, rather than 50 as currently prescribed.

It also recommends people who are in good health and with a life expectancy of more than 10 years continue regular colorectal cancer screening through the age of 75.

The group said the initial test does not have to be a colonoscopy, but instead could be one of several non-invasive tests, such as a home stool test available by prescription.

“All of these tests are good tests, and the choice should be offered to patients,” said the cancer society’s Dr. Rich Wender. “The best test is the test that gets done.”

The change in procedure is based on new information about a marked increase in the incidences of colorectal cancer, particularly rectal cancer, among younger individuals. Experts aren’t sure why there has been a 50 percent increase in cases since 1994.

Most colon cancer occurs in adults 55 and older, and the good news is that rates of cases and deaths have been falling for decades. Colon cancer, combined with rectal cancer, is the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.

This year, more than 140,000 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with it, and about 50,000 will die from it.
…

Fewer people are smoking worldwide, especially women, but only one country in eight is on track to meet a target of reducing tobacco use significantly by 2025, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

Three million people die prematurely each year because of tobacco use that causes cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and stroke, the world’s leading killers, it said, marking World No Tobacco Day. They include 890,000 deaths through secondhand smoke exposure.

The WHO clinched a landmark treaty in 2005, now ratified by 180 countries, that calls for a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship, and taxes to discourage use.

“The worldwide prevalence of tobacco smoking has decreased from 27 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2016, so progress has been made,” Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO’s prevention of noncommunicable diseases department, told a news briefing.

Better pace in industrialized nations

Launching the WHO’s global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco smoking, he said that industrialized countries were making faster progress than developing countries.

“One of the major factors impeding low- and middle-income countries certainly is countries face resistance by a tobacco industry who wishes to replace clients who die by freely marketing their products and keeping prices affordable for young people,” he added.

Progress in kicking the habit is uneven, with the Americas the only region set to meet the target of a 30 percent reduction in tobacco use by 2025 compared with 2010, for both men and women, the WHO said.

However, the United States is currently not on track, bogged down by litigation over warnings on cigarette packaging and lags in taxation, said Vinayak Prasad of the WHO’s tobacco control unit.

Parts of Western Europe have reached a “standstill,” particularly because of a failure to get women to stop smoking, African men are lagging, and tobacco use in the Middle East is actually set to increase, the WHO said.

Risk awareness

Overall, tobacco kills more than 7 million a year and many people know that it increases the risk of cancer, the WHO said. But many tobacco users in China and India are unaware of their increased risk of developing heart disease and stroke, making it urgent to step up awareness campaigns, it said.

“The percentage of adults who do not believe smoking causes stroke are, for example, in China as high as 73 percent; for heart attacks, 61 percent of adults in China are not aware that smoking increases the risk,” Bettcher said. “We aim to close this gap.”

China and India have the highest numbers of smokers worldwide, accounting for 307 million and 106 million, respectively, of the world’s 1.1 billion adult smokers, followed by Indonesia with 74 million, WHO figures show. India also has 200 million of the world’s 367 million smokeless tobacco users.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday to give patients with deadly diseases the “right to try” experimental drugs that might extend their lives.

At a White House signing ceremony, Trump called the measure a “fundamental freedom” for people with life-threatening conditions to use medications that have shown promise in initial testing but not been approved by U.S. regulators for sale to the public.

The bill cleared Congress last week after a spirited debate in which Republicans said it could give hope to thousands of people looking to save their lives, while many Democrats opposed to it said it would give patients false hope.

Trump had voiced support for the legislation at his State of the Union address in January, saying that the terminally ill should not have to leave the U.S. in search of an experimental drug in another country. 

Patients will be able to take advantage of the provision only if they have exhausted their treatment options using drugs already approved by U.S. regulators. They then will be able to use drugs the Food and Drug Administration has yet to declare as safe.
…

The California public health system will start delivering healthy meals to 1,000 patients with congestive heart failure or type 2 diabetes… and little purchasing power. The patients, who are part of a pioneering three-year pilot program, will receive a personalized diet and nutritional education to determine the impact of good nutrition on their ailment, and whether a healthier menu can lower their medical costs.
…