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The United Nations warned Friday that an old, neglected oil tanker carrying more than a million barrels of oil is a ticking “time bomb” at “imminent risk” of a major spill off the coast of Yemen that could cost $20 billion to clean up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mitigation plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minority drug overdoses soar

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

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

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

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

Causes of the drug crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More government funding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Airports to arms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The study was published in the medical journal The Lancet on Thursday and will be presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases later this month.
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