YCLOAK

The World Health Organization says the arrival of one of three trial Ebola vaccines in Uganda Thursday “marks a historical milestone in the global capacity to respond to outbreaks.”

The 1,200 doses of the Sudan ebolavirus vaccine arrived “just 79 days after the outbreak was declared on 20 September,” the WHO said.

“Uganda is showing that life-saving research can be promptly organized in the midst of an outbreak,” said Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Acero, Uganda’s minister of health.

In contrast, WHO said that “To start Phase 3 trials in Guinea during the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2015, it was 7 months from declaration to arrival of vaccines. This was a great achievement and set historical records at the time.”

The vaccine for the Sudan ebolavirus is one of the three candidates recommended for the trial by an independent WHO expert panel. The other two will be added to the trial when the doses arrive.
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While China is beginning to loosen its COVID-19 restrictions, medical practitioners there are preparing for a possible onslaught of COVID cases, which analysts predict could be just weeks away.

China had one of the toughest anti-COVID policies in the world. Its zero-COVID campaign put anyone with COVID in a hospital or locked them up in their residences.

In a change announced Saturday, officials said truck drivers and ship crews transporting anti-virus goods domestically would no longer be stopped at checkpoints to confirm their COVID-negative status.

The move comes as people in China are stockpiling masks, food and medicine, fearing a next wave of COVID cases as restrictions are loosened.

Demonstrations across China in recent days, protested the government’s handling of the COVID crisis as people tired of lockdowns and constantly changing restrictions.

People watching the World Cup for example, have seen that most of the rest of the world is living with COVID and has avoided the harsh restrictions imposed on Chinese residents.
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Australian scientists have discovered a deep-ocean sharks’ graveyard containing the fossilized teeth of the ancient ancestor of the megalodon shark. They have also found a new species of shark.

The discoveries were made across two expeditions on the research vessel (RV) Investigator, which is operated by Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or the CSIRO.

It has explored Australia’s newest marine sanctuaries; the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park in the remote Indian Ocean, and the Gascoyne Marine Park off the coast of Western Australia.

At depths of more than 5 kilometers, researchers have recovered remnants of ancient and modern sharks, including the teeth of a 12-meter-long shark that was the closest known relative to the mighty megalodon.

It’s considered to have been one of the most powerful predators ever, but it died out about 3.5 million years ago.

The voyage’s chief scientist, John Keesing, told VOA that significant discoveries have been made.

“From the greatest depths, so this is around 5,000 meters, we have trawled up recent and fossil sharks’ teeth,” he said. “So, the ones we have found on this trip are from great white sharks and mako sharks. Out of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands they found similar to that but in addition, fossil teeth from a relative of one of the largest-ever sharks, the megalodon. So, that is the ancestor of modern sharks.”

The search areas in the Indian Ocean are known to have some of the world’s most diverse marine life, but researchers believe much of what lies beneath the waves is a mystery.

A new type of small striped shark was also discovered in the Gascoyne Marine Park. Scientists have said it is “unique to Australia.” They have yet to formally describe it or give it a name. The CSIRO has said that about a third of the species of marine life collected on biodiversity survey voyages could well be new to science.

The RV Investigator has a crew of 54, 35 of whom are scientists. The research vessel is operational 24 hours a day.
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As the global program for distributing COVID-19 vaccinations to low and middle-income countries is set to be phased out after next year, experts are warning of a messy transition to ensure countries with the lowest inoculation rates are protected against the coronavirus and new variants are prevented.

The sunsetting of COVAX was agreed to earlier this week in a meeting of the board of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization known as GAVI. The alliance is the driving force behind the international vaccine-sharing mechanism, along with the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

GAVI said COVAX has enough capacity to continue through 2024. At that point, it plans to phase out the program to 37 developing countries while continuing to provide COVID vaccine doses and the funds to deliver them to 54 of the world’s poorest countries who still want them up to 2025, alongside other vaccines it provides.

“While COVAX continues to have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, the board agreed, in principle, to explore integrating future COVID-19 vaccinations into GAVI’s core programming,” it said in a statement.

Experts say demand for COVID vaccines has significantly dropped worldwide and GAVI shifting focus away from broad COVID vaccination coverage makes sense. However, they warn of a messy transition from the global emergency coordination mechanisms that were set up quickly at the start of the pandemic toward a longer-term COVID management initiative.

“There will be major questions coming from the transition, including how many low- and middle-income countries will continue to receive the financing and logistics support they need, to the impact on GAVI’s other immunization programs of integrating COVID-19 vaccination,” said Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.

“There’s lack of consensus among the various operating entities and no one person or organization ‘in charge’ to drive the process,” he told VOA. In addition, routine immunizations usually target children while most COVID-19 vaccinations are for adults, so there isn’t a clear alignment.

Udayakumar said that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue for some time, and future efforts should support continued vaccination of high-risk populations and preparedness for new variants and future pandemic threats.

U.S. efforts

The U.S. remains the world’s largest vaccine donor with a pledge of more than 1.2 billion doses delivered by end of 2022. A significant portion has not been delivered, partly due to reduced demand.

“As of this week, have donated over 670 million doses to 116 countries and economies,” a senior administration official told VOA.

In February the administration adjusted its pandemic response strategy to address hurdles faced by lower-income countries to vaccinate their citizens through Global Vax, a program launched late last year by USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Global VAX is billed as a whole-of-government effort to turn vaccines in vials into vaccinations in arms around the world. It includes bolstering cold chain supply and logistics, service delivery, vaccine confidence and demand, human resources, data and analytics, local planning, and vaccine safety and effectiveness.

The official said the U.S. will continue its efforts. “We are not done fighting COVID. Not at home, and not across the globe. Every country and every organization need to continue their work to fight this virus everywhere.”

However, questions remain on funding for U.S. plans to continue its pandemic response including preventing future threats. The administration is calling on Congress, which has until December 16 to pass a critical government funding bill that includes $10 billion to fight COVID at home.

The $10 billion has been pared down from the original $22.5 billion request submitted earlier this year which included $5 billion for its international response that has gone unfulfilled.
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Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, conference in Montreal. The union’s hundreds of members include government agencies from around the world, and it’s one of the planet’s widest-reaching environmental networks. 

The IUCN uses its Red List of Threatened Species to categorize animals approaching extinction. This year, the union is sounding the alarm about the dugong — a large and docile marine mammal that lives from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific Ocean. 

The dugong — a relative of the manatee — is vulnerable throughout its range, and now populations in East Africa have entered the red list as critically endangered, IUCN said in a statement. Populations in New Caledonia have entered the list as endangered, the group said. 

The major threats to the animal are unintentional capture in fishing gear in East Africa and poaching in New Caledonia, IUCN said. It also suffers from boat collisions and loss of the seagrasses it eats, said Evan Trotzuk, who led the East Africa red list assessment. 

“Strengthening community-led fisheries governance and expanding work opportunities beyond fishing are key in East Africa, where marine ecosystems are fundamental to people’s food security and livelihoods,” Trotzuk said. 

The IUCN Red List includes more than 150,000 species. The list sometimes overlaps with the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, such as in the case of the North Atlantic right whale. More than 42,000 of the species on the red list are threatened with extinction, IUCN says. 

IUCN uses several categories to describe an animal’s status, ranging from “least concern” to “critically endangered.” IUCN typically updates the red list two or three times a year. This week’s update includes more than 3,000 additions to the red list. Of those, 700 are threatened with extinction. 

Jane Smart, head of IUCN’s Center for Science and Data, said it will take political will to save the jeopardized species, and the gravity of the new listings can serve as a clarion call. 

“The news we often give you on this is often gloomy, a little bit depressing, but it sparks the action, which is good,” Smart said. 

Pillar coral, which is found throughout the Caribbean, was moved from vulnerable to critically endangered in this week’s update. The coral is threatened by a tissue loss disease, and its population has shrunk by more than 80% across most of its range since 1990, IUCN said. The IUCN lists more than two dozen corals in the Atlantic Ocean as critically endangered. 

Almost half the corals in the Atlantic are “at elevated risk of extinction due to climate change and other impacts,” said Beth Polidoro, an associate professor at Arizona State University and the red list coordinator for IUCN. 

Unsustainable harvesting and poaching have emerged as threats to abalone, which are used as seafood, IUCN said. Twenty of the 54 abalone species in the world are threatened with extinction according to the red list’s first global assessment of the species. 

Threats to the abalone are compounded by climate change, diseases and pollution, the organization said. 

“This red list update brings to light new evidence of the multiple interacting threats to declining life in the sea,” said Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. 

 
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Chinese boats are decimating West Africa’s fish stocks and fishing communities in the Gulf of Guinea, say environmental groups.

The Institute for Security Studies, a South African think tank, said the communities could be losing more than $2 billion each year to illegal fishing, mainly from Chinese-owned boats.

Beninese fisherman Geoffroy Gbedevi said it’s getting harder to feed his daughter and pregnant wife. He said the community is suffering and the number of fish being caught is much lower than it used to be.

“Nothing is going the way it used to,” he said.

Yaya Toshu Koma Benoit is a community leader in Grand Popo, a small fishing town in Benin close to the border with Togo, where houses are empty as community members have been forced to leave to find work elsewhere.

He blamed the problem in part on techniques that catch fish before the fish are fully developed.

“That’s why there are no more fish,” he said. “If we can ban this practice, that’s good. There are lots of fishermen who use smaller mesh nets, so there are not many fish left.”

The Environmental Justice Foundation said illegal fishing boats in Ghana use Ghanaian flags, but 90 percent were traced to Chinese owners.

Steven Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation called for “basic measures to introduce transparency.”

“Cars have a number plate as an identifier,” he said. “Put very simply, give each of these vessels what we call a unique vessel identifier to get rid of all these people who in many instances are simply stealing fish from some of the poorest people on our planet.”

China has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, with one article in the state-affiliated Global Times newspaper last year rejecting what it called “Western media rumors” of China’s illegal fishing and saying Beijing had tightened oversight of deep-sea fishing boats.

Gulf of Guinea nations this year banded together to crack down on illegal fishing. Benin, Ghana and Togo agreed to joint patrols and information-sharing with support from the European Fisheries Control Agency through a center in Accra, Ghana.

But the agency’s executive director, Susan Steele, said more efforts are needed.

“Legislation, operations, training and cooperation,” she said. “One of the key things you want to be looking for is to make sure there are consequences for the people doing illegal fishing.”

Some fishermen VOA spoke to in Benin said the joint patrols seemed to be helping, and fish stocks are showing signs of improvement.

Gbedevi just wants to feed his family. He said he lives in hope that things will get better.
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A report released Friday by the World Health Organization indicates high levels — above 50% — of bacterial resistance to treatment around the world, based on data collected from 87 countries since 2020.

The study, called the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System report, found levels of resistance above 50% were reported in bacteria such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter spp, which frequently cause bloodstream and surgical wound infections in hospitals, as well as pneumonia.

These life-threatening infections require treatment with powerful, “last resort” antibiotics, such as carbapenems. However, the study also found 8% of bloodstream infections caused by these bacteria were reported to be resistant to carbapenems, increasing the risk of death due to unmanageable infections.  

The study found that while most treatment-resistance trends have remained stable over the past four years, bloodstream infections due to drug-resistant e-coli, salmonella and gonorrhea have increased by at least 15% compared to rates in 2017.

In a statement, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said “antimicrobial resistance undermines modern medicine and puts millions of lives at risk.”

He called for more microbiology testing and higher-quality data across all countries, “not just wealthier ones.”

The study also calls for more research to identify the reasons behind increased antimicrobial resistance and how it might be related to increased hospitalizations and greater use of antibiotic treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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COVAX, the global program for distributing COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, will soon be integrated into more routine vaccination programs, Gavi said Thursday.

Gavi, the nonprofit vaccine alliance that provides an array of vaccines to developing countries, said its board agreed during a meeting in Geneva to phase out COVAX after 2023, stressing that the COVID-19 vaccine would still be made available to less well-off countries, alongside other vaccines.

“While COVAX continues to have in place plans for worst-case scenarios, the board agreed, in principle, to explore integrating future COVID-19 vaccinations into Gavi’s core programming,” it said in a statement.

The aim, it said, is “to improve synergies, be more responsive to countries’ needs,” and to reduce the current burden on countries of having a specialized emergency response in place.

It has taken the lead on the COVAX initiative, alongside the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The global scheme has so far shipped more than 1.86 billion COVID-19 vaccinations doses to 146 territories, with the focus on providing donor-funded jabs to the 92 weakest economies.

“The support is continuing in 2023,” Gavi’s head of resource mobilization, Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao, told AFP.

“Then, of course, depending on how the pandemic evolves, the plan will be to really bring it into the more regular program,” she said, adding that this was what countries were asking for.

“It doesn’t disappear, but it is really integrated.”

Acute pandemic phase ‘fading’

This would allow people to combine getting a COVID-19 vaccine with receiving other vaccines, helping to counter the “backsliding” in routine vaccination since the start of the pandemic.

It could also drive up demand for COVID-19 vaccinations, Saraka-Yao said.

“We think that’s actually the best way to improve and to accelerate the demand,” she said.

COVAX was launched in June 2020, when few could have imagined that several highly effective vaccines would emerge within nine months.

The program was created to help counter the stark disparity in access to the vaccines that arose as wealthy countries scrambled to secure large stashes of various vaccines being developed.

While massive efforts have been made through the program, a yawning gap remains in vaccination rates between the richest and poorest countries.

Three-quarters of people in high-income countries have received at least one COVID vaccine dose, but fewer than a third of people in low-income countries have, according to the United Nations.

Nine countries still have COVID-19 vaccine coverage below 10%.

Despite the remaining coverage gaps, the decision to begin phasing out COVAX was not completely unexpected.

“It is acknowledging that the acute phase [of the pandemic] seems to be fading,” Saraka-Yao said, stressing that the focus was on “flexibility,” and that there was enough “capacity to continue fully in 2024.”
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The World Health Organization reports COVID-19 cases are continuing their downward spiral in Africa but warns the pandemic is not over and nations must remain vigilant.

Following a recent four-week resurgence of COVID-19, cases and deaths once again are dropping in Africa. Since this month-long spike ended on November 20, the World Health Organization has recorded slightly more than 12,300 new cases and 50 deaths.

The WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said these numbers are at their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

“Despite the recent uptick, there is hope that Africa will be spared the challenges of the previous two years when surging cases marred the holiday season for many,” said Moeti. “While the current efforts keep the pandemic within control, we are carefully monitoring its evolution. We must remain vigilant and be ready to adopt more stringent preventive measures if necessary.”

Moeti said investments in COVID-19 management over the last three years are paying off and the region is better able to cope with the virus. She notes the number of intensive care unit beds has increased and medical oxygen production has grown.

She said Africa also has strengthened its laboratory capacity including conducting genomic sequencing. But she added that worrisome gaps in vaccination remain, especially among the most vulnerable.

Moeti said it is urgent that health workers be vaccinated to protect them from getting severe illness and dying. Other high-risk groups who must be vaccinated, she said, include the elderly, people living with HIV, and those who have potentially life-threatening conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

“These, in our view, are the groups in which we need to … really push, accelerate in coverage, increasing the proportion of people that are covered and reaching the highest level of coverage possible, while also, of course, making sure that those of them who took their first series of vaccines early also are boosted so to sustain the level of immunity, particularly protect them against severe illness,” she said.

The WHO reports only 26 percent of Africans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Regional director Moeti said greater coverage can be achieved and more people reached by integrating COVID-19 vaccination into routine immunization and primary health care services.

As the pandemic winds down, she said, COVID-19 should be brought out of an emergency response mode and integrated into routine health care.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has set global malaria control efforts back, especially in Africa, the World Health Organization says.

However, this year’s World Malaria Report says countries were able to lessen disruptions to prevention, testing and treatment.

In 2019, before the pandemic struck, there were 568,000 malaria deaths. Despite the pandemic and other humanitarian emergencies, WHO information shows concerted action by countries has prevented the worst potential impacts of COVID-19-related disruptions to malaria services.

WHO officials say the world has largely managed to salvage many of the gains made against malaria during the past 20 years. 

Abdisalan Noor, head of the WHO Global Malaria Program’s Strategic Information unit, said malaria cases dramatically increased in the first year of the pandemic. However, he said the number of cases last year remained largely the same as in 2020. 

“Overall, however, the pandemic and its related disruptions have led to increases in malaria burden over the last two years, and we estimate that about 63,000 deaths and about 13 million cases [were] attributed to disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

Most deaths and cases have occurred in the WHO African region, Noor said, adding that progress in malaria control is continuing. For example, he said 11 countries with the world’s highest malaria levels have largely held the line against the disease during the pandemic.  Among them are Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Mali and Tanzania,

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Noor said nearly 300 million insecticide-treated bed nets were distributed to susceptible families. Bed nets are regarded as the most important tool against malaria, and their declining effectiveness is of concern.

Noor cited growing insecticide resistance and households’ decreasing retention of bed nets as major problems.

“In particular, because of the physical durability of the bed net itself as well as the maintenance of the bed net in the household … we are not getting the gains we would have hoped for from the ITN [insecticide-treated net], which essentially means that given that mass campaigns have been every three years, we have a considerable period between campaigns when people are not receiving effective protection,” he said.

WHO officials consider the current setback as a temporary glitch on the road to global malaria elimination. They say key opportunities, such as a new generation of malaria control tools, could help accelerate progress toward this goal.

They say long-lasting bed nets with new insecticide combinations and other innovations in vector control are in the offing, and by late next year, the world’s first malaria vaccine will be offered to millions of children. Also, they add, other lifesaving malaria vaccines are in development. 

 
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Britain’s Conservative government on Wednesday approved the United Kingdom’s first new coal mine in three decades, a decision condemned by environmentalists as a leap backwards in the fight against climate change.

Hours earlier, the government reversed a ban on building new onshore windfarms in Britain. Opponents called that announcement a cynical attempt to offset criticism of the mine decision.

Cabinet Minister Michael Gove decided the mine in the Cumbria area of northwest England would have “an overall neutral effect on climate change and is thus consistent with government policies for meeting the challenge of climate change,” the government said.

It said coal from the mine would be used to make steel — replacing imported coal — rather than for power generation.

The mine will extract coking coal, the type used in steelmaking, from under the Irish Sea and process it on the site of a shuttered chemical plant in Whitehaven, a town 550 kilometers northwest of London.

Supporters say the mine will bring much-needed jobs to an area hard hit by the closure of its mines and factories in recent decades.

Opponents say the mine is a major blow to the U.K.’s status as a world leader in replacing polluting fossil fuels with clean renewable energy. They argue it will undermine global efforts to phase out coal and make it harder for Britain to meet its goals of generating 100% of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 and reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

John Gummer, a Conservative politician who heads the Climate Change Committee, a government advisory body, said the decision “sends entirely the wrong signal to other countries about the U.K.’s climate priorities.”

Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace U.K., said “the U.K. government risks becoming a superpower in climate hypocrisy rather than climate leadership. How can we possibly expect other countries to rein in fossil fuel extraction when we’re building new coal mines here?”

Britain has taken steps to bolster its domestic energy supply since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent oil and gas prices soaring. The U.K. imports little Russian oil or gas, but its lightly regulated energy market leaves customers highly exposed to price fluctuations.

Many homes and businesses have seen bills double or triple in the past year, though a government price cap — due to end in April — has prevented even steeper hikes.

The invasion of Ukraine has made countries across Europe reconsider plans to cut their use of fossil fuels. Britain has also approved more North Sea oil and gas drilling, while the Czech Republic reversed a plan to stop coal mining in a key region.

France recently restarted a shuttered coal plant, abandoning an earlier vow by President Emmanuel Macron to close all coal-burning plants in the country by the end of this year.

The mine decision came a day after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak lifted a ban on building new windfarms on British soil.

Wind produced more than a quarter of the U.K.’s electricity in 2021. But since 2015, the Conservative government has opposed new wind turbines on land because of local opposition. A majority of Britain’s wind farms are at sea.

While running for the Conservative Party’s leadership in the summer, Sunak pledged to keep the ban. But amid growing calls for change from Conservative lawmakers, the government said Tuesday it could allow wind farms in areas where communities support them, pending a “technical consultation.”
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Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even the now extinct mastodon.

“The study opens the door into a past that has basically been lost,” said lead author Kurt Kjaer, a geologist and glacier expert at the University of Copenhagen.

With animal fossils hard to come by, the researchers extracted environmental DNA, also known as eDNA, from soil samples. This is the genetic material that organisms shed into their surroundings — for example, through hair, waste, spit or decomposing carcasses.

Studying really old DNA can be a challenge because the genetic material breaks down over time, leaving scientists with only tiny fragments.

But with the latest technology, researchers were able to get genetic information out of the small, damaged bits of DNA, said senior author Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge. In their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they compared the DNA to that of different species, looking for matches.

The samples came from a sediment deposit called the Kap Kobenhavn formation in Peary Land. Today, the area is a polar desert, Kjaer said.

But millions of years ago, this region was undergoing a period of intense climate change that sent temperatures up, Willerslev said. Sediment likely built up for tens of thousands of years at the site before the climate cooled and cemented the finds into permafrost.

The cold environment would help preserve the delicate bits of DNA — until scientists came along and drilled the samples out, beginning in 2006.

During the region’s warm period, when average temperatures were 20 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 19 degrees Celsius) higher than today, the area was filled with an unusual array of plant and animal life, the researchers reported. The DNA fragments suggest a mix of Arctic plants, like birch trees and willow shrubs, with ones that usually prefer warmer climates, like firs and cedars.

The DNA also showed traces of animals including geese, hares, reindeer and lemmings. Previously, a dung beetle and some hare remains had been the only signs of animal life at the site, Willerslev said.

One big surprise was finding DNA from the mastodon, an extinct species that looks like a mix between an elephant and a mammoth, Kjaer said.

Many mastodon fossils have previously been found in what were temperate forests in North America. That’s an ocean away from Greenland, and much farther south, Willerslev said.

“I wouldn’t have, in a million years, expected to find mastodons in northern Greenland,” said Love Dalen, a researcher in evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University who was not involved in the study.

Because the sediment built up in the mouth of a fjord, researchers were also able to get clues about marine life from this time period. The DNA suggests horseshoe crabs and green algae lived in the area — meaning the nearby waters were likely much warmer back then, Kjaer said.

By pulling dozens of species out of just a few sediment samples, the study highlights some of eDNA’s advantages, said Benjamin Vernot, who researches ancient DNA at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and was not involved in the study.

“You really get a broader picture of the ecosystem at a particular time,” Vernot said. “You don’t have to go and find this piece of wood to study this plant, and this bone to study this mammoth.”

Based on the data available, it’s hard to say for sure whether these species truly lived side by side, or if the DNA was mixed together from different parts of the landscape, said Laura Epp, an eDNA expert at Germany’s University of Konstanz who was not involved in the study.

But Epp said this kind of DNA research is valuable to show “hidden diversity” in ancient landscapes.

Willerslev believes that because these plants and animals survived during a time of dramatic climate change, their DNA could offer a “genetic roadmap” to help us adapt to current warming.

Stockholm University’s Dalen expects ancient DNA research to keep pushing deeper into the past. He worked on the study that previously held the “oldest DNA” record, from a mammoth tooth around a million years old.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you can go at least one or perhaps a few million years further back, assuming you can find the right samples,” Dalen said.
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A law allowing limited euthanasia in Canada is set to expand to make the procedure available to people with mental illness. As Craig McCulloch reports, this is causing a variety of reactions.

Canada’s law permitting euthanasia, or Medical Assistance in Dying, became personal for Vancouver-area resident Marcia McNaughton in November. Suffering from metastasized stomach cancer, her 80-year-old aunt Ella Tikenheinrich chose to end her life with medical assistance.

McNaughton was not aware of her aunt’s choice until almost the end, and the extended family supported it.

“As a family, all we did was support her and love her decision,” McNaughton said. “And I have to say one thing — to be in control of your own time, it is an amazing thing.”

On March 17, the law permitting what is termed Medical Assistance in Dying — commonly called MAiD — will expand to include those suffering from mental illness. Currently, only individuals whose death is deemed to be reasonably foreseeable or who suffer from a debilitating illness, like McNaughton’s aunt, qualify to get medical assistance to end their life.

Ottawa-based Canadian Physicians for Life has always been strongly opposed to any form of legalized euthanasia.

Executive Director Nicole Scheidl said it is an abdication of responsibility of the government and doctors to offer death as a solution instead of treatment. She feels the coming changes allow for a doctor to decide who gets medical assistance to die and who gets suicide prevention.

“That goes to the very heart of what the physician thinks — the quality of life of the person in front of them,” Scheidl said. “And clearly, that’s not a decision that should ever fall to a doctor. As well, people who are suicidal don’t clearly see that they need suicide prevention. They all want suicide assistance.”

Victoria-based lawyer Chris Considine has been at the forefront of strongly advocating for euthanasia going back three decades. In the early 1990s, he represented Sue Rodriguez, who was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, taking her fight for a doctor-assisted death all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Although they lost that case on a 5 to 4 vote, the decision was overturned in 2016. Rodriguez got a doctor-assisted death from an unnamed person in February 1994.

Considine still supports medically assisted suicide but says unlike a terminal illness such as ALS or cancer, issues involving mental health are not as clear cut.

He said there has been a dramatic increase in mental health illnesses, but not treatment.

“In addition, there are underlying causes for mental health which are not strictly organic,” Considine said. “There may be depression caused by poor housing, poor job prospects and other issues, which will drive people into a deep depression. Those issues could be solved, and therefore, there may not really be a need for MAiD.”

Considine said if the March date for expanding the euthanasia law is not pushed back, he hopes strict guidelines are put in place so it does not become a substitute for housing, health care and other forms of social assistance.
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Negotiators are meeting in Geneva this week to thrash out a pandemic treaty aimed at ensuring the flaws that turned COVID-19 into a global crisis could never happen again. 

As the third anniversary of the emergence of the virus rolls around, negotiators are raking over an early concept draft of what might eventually make it into an international agreement about how to handle future pandemics. 

“The lessons of the pandemic must not go unlearned,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the negotiating panel at the start of three days of talks, which conclude Wednesday. 

An intergovernmental negotiating body is paving the way toward a global agreement that would regulate how nations prepare for and respond to future pandemic threats. 

They are gathered for their third meeting, refining and going over their ideas so far. 

A progress report will be put before WHO member states next year, with the final outcome to be presented for their consideration in May of 2024. 

The dense, 32-page early draft “is a true reflection of the aspirations for a different paradigm for strengthening pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and recovery,” said Tedros. 

The so-called conceptual zero draft contains various notions, some of which will have to be developed and others thrown out as negotiators pare down the text ahead of the next meeting in February. 

The trick will ultimately be finding the balance between something bold and with teeth, and something all countries can agree to. 

‘Don’t blow this opportunity’

“There’s a lot of material currently that probably doesn’t belong in there,” said Pamela Hamamoto, the lead U.S. negotiator. 

“There’s a lot that needs to change before we’re going to sign onto it. That is the same for a lot of member states — probably most,” she told reporters. 

Hamamoto said Washington wanted to see transparency fixed into the accord, along with better surveillance and rapid response, plus swift and comprehensive data sharing. 

The United States also wants to see more equitable access to medical countermeasures, possibly through regional manufacturing. 

“A pretty broadly-held view is that we need to make sure that the process is set up right so … we basically don’t blow this opportunity to put together an accord that is going to be meaningful and implementable,” Hamamoto said. 

The Panel for a Global Public Health Convention, an independent coalition of statespeople and health leaders, said the conceptual draft did not go far enough, despite its bright spots. 

The panel said more should be done to establish accountability and clear timelines for alert and response to avoid damaging consequences when an outbreak emerges. 

Negotiations at ‘crossroads’

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said the negotiations must not overlook the role of clinical trials in any pandemic response. 

Mohga Kamal-Yanni, of the NGO coalition People’s Vaccine Alliance, said the draft showed negotiations were “at a crossroads.” 

“A treaty could break with the greed and inequality that has plagued the global response to COVID-19, HIV/AIDS and other pandemics. Or it could tie future generations to the same disastrous outcomes,” she said. 

“Governments must resist any attempts to turn a pandemic treaty into another obscene profit opportunity for pharmaceutical companies.” 

Three years in, the pandemic still has power to disrupt lives and societies — as seen in the recent unrest in China over lockdowns. 

Countries have reported 6.6 million deaths to the WHO, while around 640 million confirmed cases have been registered.  

But the U.N. health agency says this will be a massive undercount. 

Global Fund executive director Peter Sands told reporters last month that “having a nice treaty … will have only a partial impact on how effectively we respond.” 

He said the world was undoubtedly already better prepared for the next pandemic but warned: “That doesn’t mean we are well prepared. It just means we’re not as badly prepared as we were before.” 

 
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Price increases among seven out of 10 drugs in 2021 are behind an $805 million increase in U.S. spending from the year before and were not supported by clinical evidence, an influential U.S. pricing research firm said on Tuesday. 

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) said the spending increase in 2021 was less than the $1.67 billion rise in the previous year. This is the third year the group has looked at the top 250 drugs by spending and assessed if those driving U.S. spending increases were justified.

“Last year, a huge part of the (increase in) spending was all one drug … this year, we saw the increase was more spread out across different drugs,” ICER’s Chief Medical Officer David Rind told Reuters. 

In 2020, Abbvie’s rheumatoid arthritis therapy Humira led to an almost $1.4 billion increase in U.S. drug spending, accounting for more than 80% of the total increase. 

Rind said Humira dropped off the list of the 10 costliest prescription drugs because its net price hike was lower in 2021. Since there was no single drug that drove the increase in spending this year, the rise is also relatively smaller compared with 2020, he added. 

Bausch Health’s Xifaxan, an antibiotic drug for traveler’s diarrhea, led to an increase of nearly $175 million in spending, among the highest this year. 

Johnson & Johnson’s schizophrenia therapy Invega Sustenna and Amgen’s osteoporosis drug Prolia followed closely with spending increases of $170 million and $124 million, respectively. 

The three drugmakers did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. 

President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act will allow the government to choose 10 drugs to negotiate the prices of from among the 50 costliest drugs for Medicare, the government health care program for people age 65 and older or disabled, starting in 2026. 
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