Daily Archives

More than 170 people have died from yellow fever outbreaks in Nigeria this year, despite vaccines being available since 2004.  A preference among some Nigerians for traditional, herbal medicine is part of the problem. But experts said apathy to vaccines in rural areas is the biggest challenge.Nigerian car washer Jonathan Sale caught yellow fever from mosquito bites while in secondary school, 23 years ago, before a vaccine was available to treat the viral disease.“When I had that sickness, my lips turned yellow, and my tongue, my eyeball became yellowish. And I was vomiting yellow, yellow, yellow,” Sale said. “I was thinking I was going to die, and God saved me. I went to the hospital and they gave me drips and some drugs.” Nigeria has had the yellow fever vaccine since 2004 and offers it free for children.But since 2017, outbreaks of yellow fever have left scores dead and many others suffering.Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, the executive chairman of the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency, said many parents fail to get their children vaccinated.“We now did a small survey and found out that out of the people we sampled, half had not taken the vaccination,” Rilwanu Mohammed said. “The children sampled were under the age of five, and half had not taken the vaccination.”Traditional medicineWhile apathy among parents is the main challenge to vaccines, some Nigerians also opt for traditional medicine instead, like Ahmadu Mohammad, who claims he was cured from yellow fever by visiting the community traditional healer.Mohammad said that people use with herbal medicine and don’t often go to a hospital. He said the treatment is a syringe placed in fire, and once the needle turns red, the herbal doctor prays on the syringe before piercing it into the chest. He said that is the gift God has given the herbal doctor.Aisha Rufai is an immunologist in the city of Jos. He believes more Nigerians are willing to get the yellow fever vaccine, which lasts a lifetime.“There is great awareness now, almost everybody is aware of immunization now, so that of traditional, you’ll find out that it is a very minute number of people that go for traditional,” Rufai said. The Nigerian federal government plans to carry out a massive yellow fever immunization campaign across five high-risk yellow fever states starting mid-January.
…

Major climate and clean energy measures are tucked inside the package of $1.4 trillion in annual spending to fund the government and $900 billion to provide COVID-19 relief approved by Congress late Monday.  It’s a rare bit of bipartisan agreement on an issue that has been mostly stalled in Congress while global temperatures rise and climate change-driven disasters pile up. Environmental groups said the initiative is a start, but much more needs to be done. FILE – A worker installs solar panels on a roof at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles, California, Aug. 8, 2019.The measure provides short-term tax breaks for solar and wind power and for technology to remove planet-warming carbon dioxide from power plant and industrial emissions, known as carbon capture and sequestration.  It phases down the use of extremely powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)  in cooling systems. Clean-energy research and development get a funding boost as well.  In all there is roughly $35 billion of new funding for renewable technology and energy efficiency in the legislation, according to advocate groups. “Over the last few years, we found a great deal of cynicism that a bill like this could actually get done,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president of policy Marty Durbin said in a statement. “But passage of this bill will prove that there is common ground on which all sides of the debate can come together.” Durbin described the bill as “truly historic — setting up the biggest action Congress has ever taken to address climate change, and the first energy bill in 13 years.” Greenpeace USA Democracy Campaign Director Folabi Olagbaju called it “a step in the right direction but simply not good enough to meet the magnitude of the moment.” Bruce McDougal prepares to defend his home as the Bond Fire burns though the Silverado community in Orange County, California, Dec. 3, 2020.2020 is on track to be the warmest or second-warmest year on record. Scientists say dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions need to happen worldwide, and soon, to avoid catastrophic global warming. Congress has done little to address the problem since 2010, when a bill aiming to charge polluters for emissions failed in the Senate.  The new spending bill extends an existing tax credit that benefits solar power by two years. It extends a tax credit for land-based wind power by one year and creates a new credit for offshore wind. A credit for carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that is only deployed on commercial scale at a handful of facilities, gets a two-year extension.  The hydrofluorcarbon chemical phase-down brings the United States in line with a United Nations treaty signed by 197 other countries. Business groups supported it, but the measure faced opposition from a few key Republicans concerned about stricter state and local measures creating a patchwork of regulations. The new measure bars them from regulating HFCs for five years. The wide-ranging spending bill includes a potluck of other measures environmentalists back, including programs to reduce diesel pollution, transition to electric school buses and weatherize low-income homes.  It also reverses Trump administration cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and climate change programs at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.   
…

An organization run by women in Senegal, ElleSolaire, was supplying solar panels to light up country homes that are off the power grid. But with the outbreak of the coronavirus, and health care stretched, ElleSolaire has switched to providing the panels to underequipped, remote health clinics, where women are often forced to give birth in the dark.   Senegalese women adorned in colorful wax fabric clothes laugh and dance around in the village of Tiamene Diogo. They are celebrating because the local clinic that provides prenatal care will soon have electric lights and fans.    Head nurse Issaka Dia says with more than 2,500 people from six villages, there are about eight births each month, many of which he attends to at night using only the light from his mobile phone. He says he’s so happy. He feels like they can now work day and night, even in the heat.  The remote region in western Senegal is off the electric grid, so the clinic will be powered by the sun.      Since 2018, the woman-run ElleSolaire has been installing solar power in rural households.   With the coronavirus pandemic stretching health care, the company began equipping remote clinics.    Kelly Lavelle is the founder and executive director. “We’ve been just amazed at the reception,” said Lavelle. “The reception we’ve seen today is a point in case. It’s sad in a way that we’ve had to wait for COVID to hit for us to stop and think about the health clinics. But I’m really pleased that we’ve managed to pivot this into an opportunity.”  The organization also provides new skills for women like Jeanne Thiaw, ElleSolaire’s women’s coordinator. She used to scrape by with child care and cleaning jobs.   She says that although she could pay the rent before, she could not feed her family because she didn’t have the means.   Since the onset of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, Thiaw and her co-workers have installed solar-powered lights, fans, and mobile phone chargers at 23 remote clinics.    More than one million Senegalese lack access to power, according to USAID, and the World Health Organization says rates of maternal mortality are high.    Oumar Samb is a project evaluator with Senegal’s Ministry of Women, Family and Child Protection.   He says when women arrive to give birth in the night or in the day and all the machines are down, it’s obviously a danger for the woman in labor and for the newborn. Access to solar energy for these rural women can be lifesaving, he says.   And that, say the women, is progress worth celebrating.     
…

South African scientists say new variant of COVID-19 virus is causing resurgence of cases
…

U.S. officials are considering a requirement for all travelers from Britain to offer proof they have tested negative for COVID-19.News outlets say the White House coronavirus task force met Monday and discussed crafting a rule that passengers prove they have taken a negative test within 48 or 72 hours before leaving Britain.The proposed rule comes as more than 40 countries have suspended travelers from Britain in response to a dramatic rise of infections because of a new strain of COVID-19 sweeping across southern Britain.Britain Blockaded: Dozens of Countries Impose Travel Ban Over Coronavirus Mutation France bans all passenger and accompanied freight from Britain, raising fears of supply shortages ahead of Brexit The U.S. has not restricted flights from Britain, however, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he has asked airlines flying into the state from Britain to make all passengers take a COVID-19 test before they get on the plane. Three airlines, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Delta Airlines, have agreed to Gov. Cuomo’s request.In the western U.S., Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state Monday ordered a 14-day quarantine for all travelers entering the state from Britain and South Africa, where a similar mutation of COVID-19 has been identified.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday it is possible the new variant of the novel coronavirus is already in the United States.The head of German-based pharmaceutical company BioNTech says the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with U.S.-based counterpart Pfizer is “highly likely” to work against the new strain.  But Ugur Sahin told reporters in Berlin if necessary, the vaccine could be modified and distributed within six weeks.  The European Union authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech cross the 27-nation bloc vaccine on Monday, with the first inoculations to begin on December 27. Hans Kluge, the European chief of the World Health Organization, says the agency will convene a meeting of members to discuss strategies to counter the new COVID-19 variant, but did not give a date.  WHO cautioned Monday against raising a major alarm over the new strain, saying there is no evidence it is more lethal than any known existing strains, and that such mutations are a normal part of a pandemic’s evolution.  Meanwhile, the world’s longest streak without a local coronavirus infection has been broken.  Taiwanese health authorities say a woman in her thirties has tested positive after coming into contact earlier this month with a New Zealand-born pilot who was infected while traveling overseas.   The woman is Taiwan’s first locally transmitted COVID-19 case since April 12 — a stretch of 253 days.  Taiwan has been pointed to as a success story in how to respond to the pandemic, with just 766 total cases and just seven deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  The island began checking on passengers on flights from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic began, in the early days of the outbreak for fever and pneumonia symptoms. And Antarctica has lost its designation as the last continent on Earth without a COVID-19 infection.  At least 36 people stationed at a Chilean research base in the icy continent recently tested positive for the novel coronavirus, including 26 members of the Chilean army and 10 civilian contractors.   The Vatican says it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive vaccines developed using tissue from aborted fetuses.      The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church’s doctrinal oversight office, issued a statement Monday granting permission for Catholics to take such vaccines because it does not “constitute formal cooperation” with the means in which the tissue was obtained.  The office also said it is not always possible to obtain vaccines that do not pose an ethical dilemma.           
…