YCLOAK

The World Health Organization is monitoring a cluster of 10 cases of pneumonia from an unknown cause in an outbreak in Argentina that so far has included three deaths.

The cases are linked to a single private clinic in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, located in the northwest part of the country, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional office of the WHO.

An initial report Tuesday included five health care workers and a patient who was treated in the intensive care ward of the clinic, with symptoms emerging Aug. 18-22.

On Thursday, local health officials reported another three cases, bringing the total to nine, including three deaths. All three people who died had other health conditions.

On Friday, Argentina reported an additional case.

Symptoms have included fever, muscle and abdominal pain and shortness of breath. Several patients had pneumonia in both lungs.

Tests for known respiratory viruses and other viral, bacterial and fungal agents were all negative, PAHO said. Biological samples have been sent to Argentina’s National Administration of Laboratories and Health Institutes for additional testing, which will include an analysis for the presence of toxins.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said given that the lungs are heavily involved, the cause is likely something the patients inhaled.

He first suspected Legionnaires’ disease, which is caused by inhaling droplets of water containing Legionella bacteria, but tests have ruled that out.

PAHO and the WHO are monitoring the outbreak and assisting local health officials with the investigation.

Osterholm said “mystery illnesses” do sometimes happen, and most often they can be explained by some local outbreak that does not have pandemic implications.

Osterholm said he expects more definitive information from Argentine health officials in the next five to seven days.
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A new hormone treatment improved the cognitive function of six men with Down syndrome by 10% to 30%, scientists said this week, adding the “promising” results may raise hopes of improving patients’ quality of life.

However, the scientists emphasized the small study did not point toward a cure for the cognitive disorders of people with Down syndrome and that far more research is needed.

“The experiment is very satisfactory, even if we remain cautious,” Nelly Pitteloud of Switzerland’s Lausanne University Hospital, co-author of a new study in the journal Science, said Thursday.

Down syndrome is the most common genetic form of intellectual disability, occurring in about one in 1,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.

Yet previous research has failed to significantly improve cognition when applied to people with the condition, which is why the latest findings are “particularly important,” the study said.

Recent discoveries have suggested that how the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is produced in the brain can affect cognitive functioning such as memory, language and learning.

GnRH hormones regulate how much testosterone and estrogen are produced, and increased levels of it help spur puberty.

“We wondered if this hormone could play any role in establishing the symptoms of people with Down syndrome,” said Vincent Prevot, study co-author and head of neuroscience research at France’s INSERM institute.

Research on mice

The team first established that five strands of microRNA regulating the production of GnRH were dysfunctional in mice specifically engineered for Down syndrome research.

They then demonstrated that cognitive deficiencies — as well as loss of smell, a common symptom of Down syndrome — were linked to dysfunctioning GnRH secretion in the mice.

The team then gave the mice a GnRH medication used to treat low testosterone and delayed puberty in humans, finding that it restored some cognitive function and sense of smell.

A pilot study was conducted in Switzerland involving seven men with Down syndrome aged 20 to 50.

They each received the treatment through their arm every two hours over a period of six months, with the drug delivered in pulses to mimic the hormone’s frequency in people without Down syndrome.

Cognition and smell tests were carried out during the treatment, as were MRI scans.

Six of the seven men showed improvement in cognition with no significant side effects, and none showed a change in sense of smell.

“We have seen an improvement of between 10% to 30% in cognitive functions, in particular with visuospatial function, three-dimensional representation, understanding of instructions as well as attention,” Pitteloud said.

The patients were asked to draw a simple 3D bed at several stages throughout the therapy. Many struggled at the beginning but by the end the efforts were noticeably better.

‘Improve quality of life’

The authors acknowledged some limitations of the study, including its size and that the choice of patients was “pushed by their parents.”

“The clinical trial only focused on seven male patients — we still have a lot of work to do to prove the effectiveness of GnRH treatment for Down syndrome,” Pitteloud said.

A larger study involving a placebo and 50 to 60 patients, a third of them women, is expected to begin in the coming months.

“We are not going to cure the cognitive disorders of people with Down syndrome, but the improvement seen in our results already seems fundamental enough to hope to improve their quality of life,” Pitteloud said.

Fabian Fernandez, an expert in cognition and Down syndrome at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the research, hailed the “tour de force study.”

He told AFP that while it is “difficult to envision” how such an intensive treatment could be used for young people, it might be better suited to delay the Alzheimer’s disease-related dementia suffered by many adults with Down syndrome.

It was also difficult to predict how such an improvement could impact the lives of people with the condition, he said.

“For some, it could be significant, however, as it would enable them to be more independent with daily living activities such as maintaining and enjoying hobbies, finding belongings, using appliances in the home and traveling alone.”
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The Serum Institute of India signed a deal this week with South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare to make four vaccines used in Africa.

The deal has been hailed as saving local vaccine production, which was at risk of shutting down after receiving no orders for a COVID vaccine. But medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says more efforts are needed for vaccines to be fully produced in Africa for Africans.

Four routine pediatric vaccines — pneumococcal vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, polyvalent meningococcal vaccine and hexavalent vaccine — will be made in South Africa with products from bulk drug substances supplied by India’s Serum Institute.

In addition to the 10-year agreement, South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare also anticipates receiving grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI.

“The partnership represents an important step for preventing the kinds of gross inequities of access to life-saving vaccines that emerged during the COVID pandemic,” said CEPI’s chief executive officer, Richard Hatchett. “We are proud to be part of an effort that will secure critically needed vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa, for Africa so that it can be ready when it faces future epidemic or pandemic threats.”

But Candice Sehoma with Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign in South Africa is calling for more than just fill-and-finish deals.

“I think it’s a great step towards realizing the improvements in the African continent’s manufacturing capacity, particularly looking at vaccines. And actually looking into routine vaccines. I think that, for me, is a great step,” Sehoma said. “But I think, definitely, we could do with a lot more and even a full sharing of technology, so that we don’t find ourselves waiting in line for vaccines that are coming from high-income countries.”

Petro Terblanche, managing director of the South African company Afrigen, which reproduced Moderna’s MRNA COVID vaccine, says Aspen’s deal with the Serum Institute may not be healthy for other companies on the continent, as it could drown out local competition.

“So, the manufacturing capacity and the technology capabilities and the reach of the Serum Institute is very dominant, it is very, very powerful. However, if Serum Institute is prepared to do partnerships with Africa and South Africa for end-to-end manufacturing and technology transfer to Africa, it’s a positive development,” Terblanche said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, deputy director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, says the agreement is an important step for African vaccine manufacturing.

“It has responded to African Union heads of state and government calls that 30 percent of our continent’s requirements for human vaccines be procured from Africa manufacturers. And we look forward to this being motivation for more expanded manufacturing of vaccines here on the continent of Africa,” Ouma said.

According to the Africa CDC, less than 1% of vaccines currently used on the continent are locally manufactured.

Aspen’s Group Communications Consultant Shauneen Beukes says they cannot comment on calls for the full African production of vaccines at this stage.
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Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is the largest lake in South America and one of the world’s oldest. It is coming under increasing threat from oil spills, plastic pollution, and an alga popularly known locally as “verdín,” which can suffocate fish. For VOA News, Adriana Nunez Rabascall has the report.
Produced by: Cristina Caicedo Smit
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Australia has had some of the world’s strictest disease-control measures. Some of those last remaining COVID-19 restrictions now are being eased.

At the height of the pandemic, millions of people were forced into protracted lockdowns, masks were mandatory and many front-line workers, including medical staff and teachers, were told be vaccinated or face losing their jobs.

Australia banned most foreign nationals after closing its borders in March 2020, and Australians needed government permission to leave the country.

Tens of thousands of Australian citizens were trapped overseas, some unable to return home for months because of border restrictions and a lack of flights.

Australia’s COVID fortress has been dismantled and its borders have reopened with few, if any, restrictions. Other pandemic measures have persisted, but they are now being wound back.

Apart from workers in hospitals and nursing homes, the mandatory isolation period for people infected with the virus will be cut from seven to five days, if they do not have any symptoms.

Masks will no longer be required on domestic flights. The measures will come into effect Sept. 9.

However, public health experts warn the restrictions could trigger another wave of infections. They believe about a third of COVID-19 patients are still potentially infectious on day six and seven after they contract the virus.

“We will be watching very closely at how this plays out in terms of pressure on hospitals, and we will be calling on the government to revise that if we find that things are getting worse,” said Steve Robson, president of the Australian Medical Association, which represents many doctors and other health care professionals. “I think a lot of what we have seen from overseas is literally catastrophic.”

The United Kingdom abandoned its legal requirement for COVID patients to self-isolate several months ago. In England, adults with symptoms are advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people until they recover.

Germany recently shortened its isolation period to five days. France lowered its requirement from 10 days to seven, with COVID-positive patients allowed to leave isolation on day five if they return a negative test. Japan’s isolation period remains at 10 days for those with symptoms.

Australia has recorded more than 10 million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic. Almost 14,000 people have died, according to government data.

Nearly 12,000 new infections were reported Friday.
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U.S. health advisers on Thursday endorsed new COVID-19 boosters that target today’s most common omicron strains, saying if enough people roll up their sleeves, the updated shots could blunt a winter surge. 

The tweaked shots made by Pfizer and Moderna promise Americans a chance at their most up-to-date protection at yet another critical period in the pandemic. They’re combination or “bivalent” shots, half the original vaccine and half protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions now causing nearly all COVID-19 infections. 

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention struggled with who should get the new booster and when, because only a similarly tweaked vaccine, not the exact recipe, has been studied in people so far. 

But ultimately, the panel deemed it the best option considering the U.S. still is experiencing tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases and about 500 deaths every day — even before an expected new winter wave. 

“I think they’re going to be an effective tool for disease prevention this fall and into the winter,” said CDC adviser Dr. Matthew Daley of Kaiser Permanente Colorado. 

Comparing the tweak that has been studied in people and the one the U.S. actually will use, “it is the same scaffolding, part of the same roof. We’re just putting in some dormers and windows,” said Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University. 

The CDC is expected to adopt that recommendation soon, the last step before shots can begin. Millions of doses are expected to reach vaccination sites nationwide by Labor Day, CDC officials said. 

Protection continues

The original COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against severe illness and death, especially among younger and healthier people who’ve gotten at least one booster. 

But those vaccines were designed to target the virus strain that circulated in early 2020. Effectiveness drops as new mutants emerge and the longer it’s been since someone’s last shot. Since April, hospitalization rates in people over age 65 have jumped, the CDC said. 

The new, updated shots are only for use as a booster, not for someone’s first COVID vaccinations. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s bivalent option for people 12 and older, while Moderna’s is for adults only. 

A big unknown: exactly how much benefit people will get from one of those extra shots. 

The CDC said more than 1,400 people have been included in studies of a prior tweak to the vaccine recipe — targeting an earlier omicron strain named BA.1. That omicron-targeting combo shot proved safe and able to rev up virus-fighting antibodies — and European regulators on Thursday recommended using that type of booster. 

In the U.S., the FDA wanted fall boosters to target the currently circulating omicron strains — and rather than waiting until possibly November for more human studies to be finished, the agency accepted mouse testing that showed the newer tweak sparked a similarly good immune response. 

That’s how flu vaccines are updated every year, the CDC noted. 

Still, several CDC advisers said that to get the maximum benefit, people will need to wait longer between their last vaccination and getting the new booster than the two months that the FDA set as the minimum. Waiting at least three months would be better, from the last shot or if someone had recently recovered from COVID-19, they said. 

Before this new COVID-19 booster update, people 50 and older already were urged to get a second booster of the original vaccine — and those who did saw some extra protection, especially the longer it had been since their last shot, said CDC’s Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles. 

The new combination booster “should provide at least similar or better protection against omicron, since it’ll be a better match” to today’s virus strains, she told the panel. 
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NASA’s moon mission suffers another setback. Plus, a look back at a space travel pioneer, and a private spaceflight company continues earning frequent flyer miles. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported Thursday that Tropical Storm Danielle has formed in the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to become the first hurricane of what has been an unusually quiet storm season, but one that is predicted to become busier than average. 

Forecasters at the hurricane center say that as Danielle hovers over an area of warmer-than-average ocean waters in the mid- to north Atlantic, atmospheric conditions are forecast to be favorable for it to strengthen into a hurricane in two days, and peak in intensity in about four days. 

But they also forecast it will stay in the middle of the ocean until it weakens back into a tropical depression. 

What makes the storm noteworthy is its status as the first hurricane of the season, the fourth named storm, and the first named storm since July 3. There were no named storms during the entire month of August.  

The hurricane center reports it’s the first August in 25 years without a named storm. And Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach told The Associated Press it is the first time since 1941 the Atlantic has gone from July 3 until the end of August with no named storm. 

In a separate interview, the head of Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, Professor Gabriel Filippelli, told the AP two factors have contributed to the quiet season up to this point. First, exceptionally dry air masses in the Atlantic have stripped the atmosphere of the moisture needed for hurricanes and tropical storms to form. Second, there has been a fair amount of shear winds — horizontal winds — that break the structure of developing hurricanes so that they are unable to form. 

Last month, even as it revised its seasonal forecast downward, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center said atmospheric and oceanic conditions favor an above-normal 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, with the peak months of September and October still ahead. 

Filippelli told the AP it remains to be seen if September will see the quiet trend continue or if the hurricane season will pick up steam. 

 

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press. 

 
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An instrument on the U.S. space agency NASA’s Mars rover, Perseverance, has been reliably producing oxygen from the planet’s thin atmosphere for more than a year, a finding that bodes well for extended future missions to the planet.

A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances and led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the work of the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, known as MOXIE.

The study shows that since it was activated in April 2021 — two months after Perseverance landed on Mars — MOXIE was able to produce oxygen on seven experimental runs, in a variety of atmospheric conditions, including during the day and night, and through different Martian seasons. In each run, the instrument reached its target of producing six grams of oxygen per hour — about the rate of a modest tree on Earth.

The researchers, along with NASA scientists and planners, envision that a scaled-up version of MOXIE could be sent to Mars ahead of a human mission to continuously produce oxygen at the rate equal to several hundred trees. The system should generate enough oxygen to both sustain humans once they arrive and fuel a rocket for returning astronauts back to Earth.

The principal investigator for the study, MIT’s Dr. Michael Hecht, said in a press release the steady output that MOXIE has demonstrated is a promising first step toward those goals.

Hecht said the instrument’s performance producing oxygen on Mars also represents the first demonstration of in-situ, or on-site “resource utilization,” which is the process of using a planet’s existing materials [in this case, carbon dioxide] to make resources [such as oxygen] that would otherwise have to be transported from Earth.

Hect and his MIT co-authors were among researchers from several institutions, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which helped develop and manage MOXIE.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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The flight crews at one of Taiwan’s main airline carriers have voiced frustration about continued COVID-19 policies that require them to adhere to some of the strictest quarantine and testing requirements in the world. 

The policies remain in place even as other parts of the world loosen pandemic restrictions and adapt to a “new normal.” 

Upon arrival at destinations overseas, pilots and cabin crews from China Airlines must be taken directly to their hotel rooms and provided with room key cards that work only once — when they leave and embark on their next flights. 

 

One pilot for China Airlines, who wished to remain anonymous, told VOA he was “frustrated” with the current conditions. 

 

“It’s really affected [me]. Whenever I went to work, I felt so frustrated … it means I can’t go home for a period of time, and [I’m] also very tired, because I need to continuously [go] back and forth to Taipei and the U.S. or Europe. So, I have to adjust myself, try to sleep more and be more positive. [Being] stuck in a tiny room for long is really uncomfortable, but I still have to get used to it,” he said. 

 

The first officer has worked for the airline for nearly eight years, and he flies both long- and short-haul trips each month. He said the restrictions were worse in the beginning of the pandemic, as pilots were forced to wear goggles, gloves and face masks while on duty, as well as facing quarantine for seven days. And because of the quick turnaround of a pilot flying both domestically and internationally, the pilot described how he was in a constant loop of being quarantined. 

 

“There [was] a period of time we couldn’t quarantine at home, only in the hotel, so I’ve been 22 days and [still can’t] go home,” he said.

Today, the rules for vaccinated flight crews have since been relaxed slightly, removing the necessity of home quarantine in Taiwan. But when pilots and crews go abroad, they are still restricted from leaving their hotel rooms.

“At out stations, we still can’t go out. We only [can] stay in the room, until our pickup time for the next flight. It’s really unhealthy, [I] watch TV, read and sleep all day. I’ll do some workouts, too, and order Uber Eats, but that’s it,” the pilot added, referring to the food delivery service provided by Uber. 

 

Rule change

A local pilots union in Taiwan is now seeking the loosening of some restrictions. 

 

The Pilots Union Taoyuan, which represents nearly half of all pilots working for Taiwan’s airlines, has called the measures “outdated” and is requesting that the Taiwan government ease the strict controls. 

 

The head of the union, Lee Hsin-yen, referred to an in-house survey that found most of the member pilots who have had the coronavirus caught it in Taiwan, the news website Focus Taiwan reported.

VOA has requested a comment from the Civil Aeronautics Administration in Taiwan but has not yet received a reply.

Cabin crews 

 

Cabin crews also have vented their discontent about the rules and said following the restrictions is like being in prison. 

 

A woman calling herself Shirley, who didn’t want to be identified, is a cabin crew member at China Airlines and said she has worked there for nearly seven years. 

 

“The rules are: We are not allowed to leave our room; crews got one-time-use key card, or [the] hotel monitors us via [closed-circuit television] to make sure there’s no crew [leaving] their room. And we’re also not allow to have any contact with locals,” she told VOA.

She said that in pre-pandemic times, cabin crew members would often go shopping, have coffee or enjoy the summertime when overseas. 

 

“That’s how crew members [would] release their stress,” she said. 

 

Today, with the prolonged restrictions, she said, the flight crews in Taiwan are being treated unfairly in comparison to those  in the rest of the world. 

 

“In the beginning of the COVID, all these rules seemed to make sense. Nowadays, more and more countries open their borders. It feels like we [are] behind bars when we are in another country, because we can’t go anywhere. When we have [a] layover flight, the only place we can go is on the plane and hotel room. And it seems like the lockdown is endless,” she said. 

 

Taiwan tourism 

 

As the rest of the world is returning to pre-pandemic travel norms, Taiwan is currently closed to overseas tourists. Only residents and business travelers can enter Taiwan, but they must quarantine for three nights, followed by four days in self-health control. This means they are prohibited from visiting public venues or meeting groups of people.  

It is an example of how concerns about the infection still linger in East Asia, with parts of the region slow to reopen travel to the world. The trend seems to be gradually changing, as Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan have all opened their respective borders recently for visitors, each with specific measures in place. 

 

Gary Bowerman, an Asia travel analyst, told VOA that Taiwan’s cautious approach is soon going to affect its goals to boost tourism. 

 

“Taiwan is talking about a phased reopening beginning with tour groups from Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea. This is a cautious strategy, which some Southeast Asian countries tried initially. As Southeast Asian countries discovered over the past year, it is only when full border reopenings are activated, and pre-flight and on-arrival testing and restrictions are removed, that travelers gain the confidence to visit in larger numbers,” he said. 

 

With a population of more than 23 million, despite keeping infections low at the beginning of the pandemic, Taiwan is now reporting upward of 25,000 domestic cases daily. Vaccination numbers are high, with 85% of the population inoculated, according to the website Our World in Data.
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The U.N. weather agency is predicting that the phenomenon known as La Nina is poised to last through the end of this year, a mysterious “triple dip” — the first this century — caused by three straight years of its effect on climate patterns like drought and flooding worldwide.

The World Meteorological Organization on Wednesday said La Nina conditions, which involve a large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures, have strengthened in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific with an increase in trade winds in recent weeks.

The agency’s top official was quick to caution that the “triple dip” doesn’t mean global warming is easing.

“It is exceptional to have three consecutive years with a La Nina event. Its cooling influence is temporarily slowing the rise in global temperatures, but it will not halt or reverse the long-term warming trend,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said.

La Nina is a natural and cyclical cooling of parts of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide, as opposed to warming caused by the better-known El Nino — an opposite phenomenon. La Nina often leads to more Atlantic hurricanes, less rain and more wildfires in the western United States, and agricultural losses in the central U.S.

Studies have shown La Nina is more expensive to the United States than the El Nino.

Together El Nino, La Nina and the neutral condition are called ENSO, which stands for El Nino Southern Oscillation, and they have one of the largest natural effects on climate, at times augmenting and other times dampening the big effects of human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, scientists say.
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A World Health Organization-UNICEF global study of health care facilities finds half lack basic hygiene services, putting around 3.85 billion people at risk of infection and death.

The study is based on data from 40 countries representing 35% of the world’s population. It presents an alarming picture of health facilities that lack water and soap for handwashing, have dirty toilets, and are unable to manage health care waste.

It says the lack of safe water, sanitation, and basic hygiene services, known as WASH, in health care facilities can lead to many preventable deaths. Rick Johnston is WHO lead WHO-UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for WASH. He says sepsis, a major cause of mortality globally, could be prevented by improving WASH services in health care.

“It causes about 11 million avoidable deaths each year. And we know that in health care settings, sepsis mortality is linked to poor quality of care, including inadequate WASH… Still today, 670,000 neo-natal deaths occur due to sepsis. So, there is a huge burden that could be improved right there,” he said.

Data show the situation tends to be better in hospitals than in smaller health care facilities. The WHO reports the 46 least developed countries lag most behind in hygiene services, with only 32% of health care facilities providing WASH services.

Johnston says sub-Saharan Africa is the geographic region with the lowest coverage of basic services, about a third lower than globally.

“I mentioned hand hygiene services at 51% globally. It is only 38% in sub-Saharan Africa… Water services 78% globally, only 52% in sub-Saharan Africa… In sub-Saharan Africa, only 13% of health care facilities met the requirement for a basic health care service. So, lots of work to be done in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

The WHO estimates the cost of achieving universal basic WASH services in the 46 least developed countries at less than $10 billion between now and 2030. While that sounds like a lot, WHO officials say it comes to just under $1 per person per year. Officials say that is a fraction of what currently is being spent on health care services in those countries.
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NASA’s space shuttle program brought Brenda Mulberry and her husband from Tampa to Florida’s Space Coast in the early 1980s. Since then, Mulberry has operated “Space Shirts,” a space-themed clothing shop not far from Kennedy Space Center.

She said business slowed significantly when shuttle launches ended in 2011.

But this year is different.

“Excitement is over the moon,” said Mulberry, in between helping customers pay for armfuls of souvenirs.

People now flock to Mulberry’s store to get anything they can related to NASA’s new Artemis mission.

“On a normal day we might see 60 to 70 people in a day in our store,” she told VOA. “We’re seeing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds an hour. It’s a zoo.”

Artemis — NASA’s ambitious program to return to the moon — has generated renewed interest in space exploration ahead of the launch of the first unmanned test flight of the SLS, or Space Launch System, rocket and the Orion capsule, which will eventually carry astronauts back to the moon more than 50 years after the last Apollo mission visited the lunar surface.

Monday’s first launch date was scrubbed, disappointing throngs of tourists, but added to the anticipation for when the program’s first liftoff occurs. NASA will try again on Saturday.

“I call it the Artemis generation. Apollo had a twin sister — Artemis — and this is our generation,” said Branelle Rodriguez, an integration manager for NASA’s Orion capsule that will house astronauts traveling to the moon and back. “I think it’s a fantastic thing for us to experience, for people to go explore and create a presence on the moon.”

NASA astronaut Stan Love said the Artemis program will feature crews that pave the way for the first woman and person of color to stand on the lunar surface.

“We are going to broaden our demographics, so it won’t just be white guys on the moon,” Love told VOA during a recent interview at Kennedy Space Center.

NASA’s goals for the Artemis program include crewed missions to the moon for decades to come.

And that’s just the beginning.

“We’re going to establish a permanent [lunar] base, but I think long term, we want to go to Mars. NASA has said this is a steppingstone to Mars eventually,” said Doug Hurley, a retired NASA astronaut who now works on Artemis for Northrop Grumman, a government contractor.

NASA projects the budget for Artemis will reach $93 billion by 2025. While critics have pointed out the program is already billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, Hurley says patience and expenditure will be rewarded.

“It takes time to build these complicated machines, but it’s worth it. I mean, when you look at NASA’s budget — one-half of 1% of the federal budget — and SLS is a small part of NASA’s budget. So, to me, it’s all perspective,” Hurley said.

Mulberry said criticism of the program is hard to find on Florida’s Space Coast. She credits Artemis with creating jobs and boosting tourism in a part of the state that suffered when the space shuttle program ended.

“I think everybody in the area underestimated the power this was going to have,” Mulberry told VOA.

Even though it’s an unmanned test flight, when Artemis 1 takes off on a planned six-week mission, it will provide valuable data for NASA and show how new systems function in space.

The first crewed mission back to the moon — to orbit but not to land — is Artemis 2, currently scheduled for 2024, with Artemis 3 scheduled to return astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2025.
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After Monday’s scrubbed Artemis launch, NASA is awaiting liftoff of its first mission back to the moon — an unmanned test flight of its new rocket and capsule system. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports on the excitement surrounding the Artemis program, which aims to one day send humans to Mars.
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VOA’s Kane Farabaugh spoke with NASA Astronaut Victor Glover ahead of Monday’s scheduled Artemis launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. While the launch was postponed, NASA’s quest to return to the moon and eventually send humans to Mars remains a priority for the U.S. space agency. A former military aviator, Glover has taken part in a SpaceX mission, spent time aboard the International Space Station, completed 168 days in orbit and participated in four spacewalks. He is a candidate for future Artemis missions. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: “So Victor, tell me what it’s like to sort of be here right now in this moment?”

NASA ASTRONAUT VICTOR GLOVER: “It’s unreal. I mean it sounds a little cliche but to be at the place where the Apollo missions launched from all those shuttle launches happened from, and I actually launched from that next door neighbor launch pad right there just under two years ago. But it’s still surreal to be here. This is one of my favorite places on the planet, and that’s just any day of the week, but when there’s a big rocket like SLS or Orion sitting over there, it’s just the buzz here, the energy. It’s really special. And my favorite part about this is the excitement of all the NASA employees who have worked hard for years to make this happen.”

VOA: “What is that excitement like? What is it [excitement level] at right now? I mean, you weren’t born when Apollo was happening so I’m sure there’s really nothing to equate this to, is there?”

GLOVER: “Well, I mean you know, growing up and appreciating Apollo and having that being a motivational force in your life, it’s really neat to, like, stand on the precipice of maybe the next thing like that happening knowing it. We call things moonshots when humans do great things, right? And so our generation doesn’t have that, so we look back at Apollo for that inspiration. So now our generation is going to have its own moon shots. And so that’s, I think, a part of it for all of us. And I love the fact that it’s connected. The legacy of Apollo and Apollo–Soyuz and the shuttle and ISS and our partnerships with SpaceX and Boeing. People say this is a marathon not a sprint. I say it’s actually a relay race. And so those programs have all informed what we’re doing now. They’ve handed us the stick, and now it’s time for us to run our best leg. And so this is going to open the door for us to send humans to the moon. And I mean I just, it’s hard to imagine anything more exciting for people all over the world.”

VOA: “But this mission is also not just charting new paths in space, it’s also sort of crossing historic barriers in gender, race, ethnicity, culture. Can you talk about that a bit?”

GLOVER: “Well of course you know you heard the line it originally was we’re going to send the first woman and the next man to the moon. And then it became you know we’re going to send the first woman and the first person of color to the moon. And I’ll say here’s what I think about that. Our office is diverse enough, we represent America. And because of that, we make our bosses’ jobs actually challenging, we make his job hard because he’s got to pick some of us and I think all of us are ready trained and capable of making this mission a success, but then I think the fact that our leadership recognizes the past and how maybe it wasn’t equitable, that we can do something about that now in the astronaut office that we have today looks like America. So it’s easy to do. But the fact that our leadership recognizes that they have a role in it as well to make sure that it happens and to support and encourage the continued dialogue about that I think is really important. So it is encouraging, and I think all people should feel supported by this effort.”

VOA: “Victor, when you sit back and you think about this, does the reality that you may be someone who charts some kind of historic milestone for humanity, is it something that seeps into your mind often while you’re going through training or while you’re talking to the media? Or while you’re doing this or does it have a special place in your mind to prepare for this?”

GLOVER: “You know, there was a lot of talk about that from my mission to ISS and I didn’t focus on that. I kept my head down and just did the work. And so but again, I do think it’s important you know, there are little kids out there that look up to us and say I want to do that. But more important is that inspiration drives decisions, right? It drives behavior. And so some little kid’s going, ‘I want to be like that and I’m going to study this and I’m going to eat my vegetables and I’m going to be a good person.’ And that to me is valuable. No matter what those kids look like, people keep asking me, is it meaningful to you that little Black kids look up to you and say they want to be like you? You know what? Let’s be honest, I represent America. I’m a naval officer and I work for NASA. I represent America and little white kids, little Mexican kids, little Hispanic kids, and little Iranian kids follow what we’re doing because this is maybe one of the most recognizable symbols in the universe. And I think that that’s really important and I take that very seriously.”

VOA: “What is the most challenging part of the job ahead for you?”

GLOVER: “The most challenging part of this job for me is the time away from my family. But you know what? I’m a member of a group that is serving the people, right? This is the people’s stuff. That rocket was built by the American people, literally. … [W]hat we do is meaningful to America and to humanity at large and so I think it’s important for us to explore space, to explore the cosmos for all people, especially now when we can do it by all people.”

VOA: “Is there anything you can do mentally to prepare for a mission to the moon? I mean, nobody in the program right now has ever been there before. There isn’t like relative experience you can go to unless you’re talking to an Apollo astronaut to help prepare you for what it’s going to be like to reach the surface of the moon. How do you get ready and how do you do this because it’s not been done in 50 years?”

GLOVER: “There’s going to be a great training program. We’ve got a great team of people that are thinking about how to train astronauts for this mission. One of the primary things all astronauts have to do though is integrate all of that and then take it into space and know how space is different than what you do on the ground. There’s going to always be that no matter where you go lower earth orbit or beyond, on the moon or on to Mars. But I think personally, I’m a little bit more of a philosophical astronaut I would say and I think it’s important for us also to recognize when you go do something like this, to not just know there are unknowns but to embrace it. You are not prepared, you’re not as prepared as you can be if you don’t expect something to catch you off guard. And so knowing that it’s going to happen, you’re going to be able to process those emotions faster and instead of going, ‘Oh my God is this really happening?’ You’re going to go, ‘Yeah God, thanks for the preparation’ and you’re going to do the next right thing. And so knowing that you’re going to a place not many human beings have been, I think is an important part of preparing for something like flying Artemis II or Artemis III to the moon.”

VOA: “Do you think the general public is invested, educated and excited about this mission as they might have been for Apollo?”

GLOVER: “[H]opefully the public is following that closely to know this is not a walk in the park. There’s a lot about this mission that could go wrong, and that’s going to help us to send people back to the moon. And so I think part of that falls on us to do that advocacy.”

VOA: “You’ll be on this stage on Monday for Artemis I broadcasting for NASA to talk about the mission from an astronaut perspective. But when this rocket goes up, Orion is on its way to the moon and nobody’s here on the stage anymore. What are you watching for as that mission progresses?”

GLOVER: “Oh, everything. How the team works together. That’s a big one. We have not flown a mission like this in complexity, in distance, and also the international component of it in a very long time, in some aspects ever. The International Space Station is very international, but having your astronauts only four or six hours away from the planet is very different than multiple day journey to the moon or back. And so how they work together and how they communicate and how they decide and act to handle problems is something that I’m going to be paying close attention to. If everything goes perfectly on this, actually that to me would not be the best case. I want us to have some challenges that we work together and overcome so that we know we can do that, but then come back. And when that heat shield hits the atmosphere going Mach 32, twenty-five thousand miles [40,000 km] an hour or seven miles [11 km] a second, we’re going to learn all that we need to know. And if we can keep the structure and the avionics and the crew inside safe, then I think we’re well on our way a couple of years from now having a crew going to the moon as well.”

VOA: “You’re a military aviator…”

GLOVER: “Yes, sir.”

VOA: “This will be automated. This is going to be more automated than any other spacecraft in history. You know, in Apollo, they had switches and knobs. Here, people on the ground will be controlling a lot of the flight maneuvers in the path of the spacecraft. As somebody who has that background, how do you feel about that automation?”

GLOVER: “[T]there are regimes of flight where we can have full manual control and there are regimes of flight where we would have a blended, some sharing between manual inputs and automation. And so there’s a scale, a range of sharing of that responsibility. And I think that that’s the state of the practice, right? The state of the art is maybe one day going to be, who knows, it’s controlled by thoughts and folks on the ground but that’s the state of the practice. And so, software has gotten much better. Hardware has gotten a whole lot better, our manufacturing capability, and so I think that’s progress. And yes, as somebody who likes to have a stick and throttle, you know, I want to go up there and do aileron rolls in the thing, but the maneuvers it’s going to do are so complicated that for me to have manual control throughout the entire regime of flight actually adds risk that that we aren’t necessarily trying to buy off on. So we want manual control where it really matters, things like docking, things like landing on the surface, and enduring entry to make sure that we have the ability to steer to a safe location to get us back down to Earth safe.”

VOA: “How do you gauge mission success for Artemis I as you’re watching this mission unfold over the next six weeks?”

GLOVER: “Yeah, it’s been a long road getting here and we have overcome some significant challenges. … It is no small thing that we still have a moon capable rocket and spacecraft through some of the changes that we’ve had in the last decade. And so the fact that we’ve overcome those things makes me the most confident in this group of people. Human hands put that together. Human hands and minds and hearts and ears and eyes are going to be watching it and working it as it goes on this 42-day journey. And so I’m confident in that team and we’ll see how the hardware and software hold up. It’s an unknown, we haven’t done this before. This will be the first time a lot of this hardware is flying, but you noticed there are some legacy out there. If you can see it in the distance, that orange tank is very similar to the shuttle main fuel tanks and those boosters are very similar to shuttle solid rocket boosters. And so there’s some heritage in our space flight hardware. But this is the first time it’s been integrated into this stack-up. And so we’re going to learn, we’re going to learn. But I have full confidence in that team.”

VOA: “Knowing where you’re at now, knowing what you might have the opportunity to do, what would you say to 12-year-old Victor Glover?”

GLOVER: “Oh wow. Oh boy. That’s a great question. Twelve-year-old Victor Glover didn’t even know if college was a reality, you know, and just, no one in my family had graduated from college, and so there’s a lot to this iceberg, and I’ll save you the long story and I’ll just answer your question. What I would say to 12-year-old me is, ‘It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be OK. You’re going to be OK, but it’s going to be OK because you’re going to work so hard.’ And so, that’s what I would say to myself. You know, this will take care of itself. Getting to this point and the amazingness of this, the awe of it all, it will take care of itself. You know, I wouldn’t spoil the surprise.”

VOA: “Victor, man or people have not landed on the moon in our lifetime. That’s about to change. Do you think we will get to Mars in our lifetime?”

GLOVER: “Oh, I think we will get to Mars in our lifetime. I said it a little while ago. This is a relay race. The journey to Mars has been 25 years away since we went to the moon back in the Apollo program. This is the first leg of the race to Mars. And so it’s been 25 years ahead of us because we haven’t started the race. When this is successful, we will have finished the first leg of that race, and we’ll be that much closer. I think it will happen in our lifetime. I think I may be too old to be on that crew, but to all those kids out there, be your best self. Listen to your mom and dad, say please and thank you and eat your vegetables and exercise, because those young kids are going to be the people that have a chance to put feet on Mars.”
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The World Health Organization’s top director in the Western Pacific, Dr. Takeshi Kasai, has been indefinitely removed from his post, according to internal correspondence obtained by The Associated Press.

Kasai’s removal comes months after an AP investigation revealed that dozens of staffers accused him of racist, abusive and unethical behavior that undermined the U.N. agency’s efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic in Asia.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told staff in the Western Pacific in an email on Friday that Kasai was “on leave” without elaborating further. Tedros said Deputy Director-General, Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, would be arriving Tuesday in Manila, WHO’s regional headquarters, to “ensure business continuity.” Two senior WHO officials who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said Kasai had been put on extended administrative leave after internal investigators substantiated some of the misconduct complaints.

In a statement, WHO said it was unknown how long Kasai would be away. The U.N. health agency said the investigation into him was continuing and that it was believed to be the first time a regional director had been relieved of their duties. Kasai did not respond to requests for comment but previously denied he used racist language or acted unprofessionally.

In January, the AP reported that more than 30 unidentified staffers sent a confidential complaint to senior WHO leadership and members of the organization’s Executive Board, alleging that Kasai had created a “toxic atmosphere” in WHO’s offices across the Western Pacific. Documents and recordings showed Kasai made racist remarks to his staff and blamed the rise of COVID-19 in some Pacific countries on their “lack of capacity due to their inferior culture, race and socioeconomics level.” Several WHO staffers working under Kasai said he improperly shared sensitive coronavirus vaccine information to help Japan, his home country, score political points with its donations.

Days after the AP report, WHO chief Tedros announced that an internal probe into Kasai had begun. Several months later, however, WHO staffers alleged that Kasai was manipulating the investigation. In a letter sent to the U.N. agency’s top governing body in April, the Executive Board, the staffers wrote that Kasai had ordered senior managers to destroy any incriminating documents and instructed IT staff “to monitor emails of all the staff members.”

Kasai is a Japanese doctor who began his career in his country’s public health system before moving to WHO, where he has worked for more than 15 years.

The removal of a regional director at WHO, even temporarily, is “unprecedented,” according to Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University. “There have been a lot of bad regional directors at WHO, but I’ve never heard of action like this,” Gostin said.

Any withdrawal of support from Japan for Kasai could hasten his dismissal. A Japanese government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said they hoped WHO had conducted a fair investigation.

Kasai’s removal stands in stark contrast to WHO’s past reluctance to discipline perpetrators of unethical and sometimes illegal behavior, including during the sex abuse uncovered during the Ebola outbreak in Congo from 2018-2020. More than 80 outbreak responders under WHO’s direction sexually abused vulnerable women; an AP investigation found senior WHO management was informed of multiple exploitation claims in 2019 but refused to act and even promoted one of the managers involved. No senior WHO staffers linked to the abuse have been fired. 

“WHO’s reputation was shattered by those allegations,” Gostin said, calling the lack of accountability in Congo “truly outrageous.” He welcomed the disciplinary action taken against Kasai and called for WHO to release its investigation in some form.

Gostin and other public health academics said that if WHO’s Executive Board determines that Kasai violated his contract by engaging in the racist and abusive conduct alleged, his contract could be terminated.

WHO’s own staff association urged Tedros to take action against Kasai at a meeting in June, saying that failing to do so “would be a tragic mistake,” according to a memo from the private briefing.

“If swift action is not taken … the results may be regarded as questionable at best, fixed and farcical at worst,” the staffers warned Tedros. “If (Kasai’s) wrongdoing is proven, the assumption will be that many other items were swept aside to save face.”

Before Kasai was put on leave, WHO’s Western Pacific office had planned a town hall this week to address “workplace culture,” including concerns about racism and abusive conduct. In an email to staff on Saturday, Dr. Angela Pratt, a director in Kasai’s office, announced that the meeting had been postponed. 

 
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