A new mass spectroscopy machine is helping forensic scientists who are looking for a much better view of fingerprints on objects used in a crime. The current methods of making a copy of a fingerprint may not be good enough and DNA swabbing can damage evidence. VOAs Deborah Block reports.
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Month: May 2019
South Africa, which has the largest population of rhinos in the world, has been the country hit hardest by poaching. Between 2007 and 2015, there was a 9,000% increase in poaching there, reaching a high of 1,215 animals in 2014. While numbers have been declining since then, poaching remains a problem. But as Faith Lapidus reports, technology is helping turn one game reserve into a high-tech fortress.
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Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey say the second largest Antarctic breeding site for the Emperor Penguin is now simply empty. What happened to all those penguins? VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The U.S. said Sunday it expects that China will retaliate with increased tariffs on U.S. exports after President Donald Trump sharply boosted levies on Chinese products headed to the United States.
Chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told “Fox News Sunday” that “both sides will suffer” from the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest economies.
In the U.S., he said that “maybe the toughest burdens” are on farmers who sell soybeans, corn and wheat to China. But he said the Trump administration has “helped them before on lost exports” with $12 billion in subsidies and that “we’ll do it again if we have to and if the numbers show that out.”
Trump on Friday more than doubled tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, boosting the rate from 10 percent to 25 percent, while also moving to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese products, although Kudlow said it could take months for the full effect of the tariffs to be felt. China had previously imposed taxes on $110 billion of American products, but has not said how it might retaliate against Trump’s latest increase in tariffs.
Trade talks between the two economic super powers have been going on in Beijing and Washington for months, but they recessed again in the U.S. capital on Friday without a deal being reached.
“We were moving well, constructive talks and I still think that’s the case,” Kudlow said. “We’re going to continue the talks as the president suggested.”
Kudlow said Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to discuss trade issues at the G-20 summit in Japan at the end of June.
The economic adviser renewed U.S. claims that China had backtracked from earlier agreements reached in the talks, forcing negotiators to cover “the same ground this past week.”
“You can’t forget this: This is a huge deal, the broadest scope and scale…. two countries have ever had before,” Kudlow said. “But we have to get through a lot of issues. For many years, China trade was unfair, non-reciprocal, unbalanced in many cases, unlawful.”
The U.S. has claimed that China steals technology and forces U.S. companies to divulge trade secrets it uses in its own production of advanced technology products.
On Saturday, Trump suggested that China could be waiting to see if he wins reelection next year, but said Beijing would be “much worse” off during a second term of his in the White House.
“I think that China felt they were being beaten so badly in the recent negotiation that they may as well wait around for the next election, 2020, to see if they could get lucky & have a Democrat win,” he said, “in which case they would continue to rip-off the USA for $500 Billion a year.”
“Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs?” the U.S. leader said, “Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!”
Every year on May 4 – which echoes the Jedi blessing from “Star Wars,” May the Force be with you – fans celebrate the unofficial holiday dedicated to their favorite movie. Observances include binge watching the legendary films. But some people think one day a year is not enough. Maxim Moskalkov met with volunteers at Garrison Tyranus, which contributes to the local community through costumed charity and volunteer work.
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order this month designed to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity workforce, the front line against hackers, domestic and foreign. With 7 billion internet-connected devices in the world, and numbers expected to rise, the threat is growing. Faith Lapidus reports, web-connected devices, from smart homes to drones, are vulnerable.
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A cat who lost his back legs when he was hit by a train got a new lease on life by getting new prosthetic limbs. They were designed by engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison using a 3D printer. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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“Laughter is the best medicine” is a common phrase often found printed on plaques and sewn onto pillows at your grandma’s house. But the practice of yoga has taken it in a whole new direction over the years. We found a laughter yoga class in Richmond, Virginia. Ali Orokzai was there and has the story. Bezhan Hamdard narrates.
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Peggy Lipton, a star of the groundbreaking late 1960s TV show “The Mod Squad” and the 1990s show “Twin Peaks,” died of cancer Saturday. She was 72.
Lipton died surrounded by her family, her daughters, Rashida and Kidada Jones, said in a statement.
“We are heartbroken that our beloved mother passed away from cancer today,” they said. “She made her journey peacefully with her daughters and nieces by her side. We feel so lucky for every moment we spent with her. We can’t put all of our feelings into words right now but we will say: Peggy was, and will always be our beacon of light, both in this world and beyond. She will always be a part of us.”
Lipton played one of a trio of Los Angeles undercover “hippie cops” on “The Mod Squad,” which aired on ABC.
The Los Angeles Times says it was one of pop culture’s first efforts to reckon seriously with the counterculture and one of the first TV shows to feature an interracial cast. Lipton was nominated for Emmys and won a Golden Globe in 1971 for her performance. The show addressed issues such as the Vietnam War, drugs and domestic violence.
Lipton married music producer Quincy Jones in 1974, and they had two daughters. The couple divorced in 1989.
In the 1990s, she played the role of Norma Jennings in the TV series “Twin Peaks.”
“It was very scary,” Lipton told The Times in a 1993 interview. “I had a push-pull thing inside me that I wanted to do it. I had become so insulated in my world as a mother, that I didn’t know how to pick up the phone and call anybody to put myself out there.”
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President Donald Trump’s combative approach to trade has been one of the constants among his often-shifting political views. And he’s showing no signs of backing off now, even as the stakes intensify with the threat of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
The president went after China on Day 1 of his presidential bid, promising to “bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.”
Trump’s views on trade helped forge his path to victory in states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, where he linked the loss of manufacturing jobs to the North America Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals. He warned the worst was yet to come with President Barack Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.
His trashing of existing and proposed trade agreements grabbed the headlines, but he also made clear his view that globalization had been bad for America and that he would use tariffs to protect national security and domestic producers. He cited the nation’s Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan as leaders whose footsteps he was following when it came to trade and tariffs.
Our original Constitution did not even have an income tax,'' Trump told voters in Monessen, Pa., four months before the 2016 presidential election.Instead, it had tariffs, emphasizing taxation of foreign, not domestic production.”
Taking on China
No. 7 on his list of trade promises in that speech: taking on China for “its theft of American trade secrets.”
“This is so easy. I love saying this. I will use every lawful presidential power to remedy trade disputes, including the application of tariffs consistent” with existing trade laws, Trump said.
Those laws include Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which Trump cited to enact tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China, Canada, Mexico and elsewhere.
They also include Section 301 of the Trade Act, which Trump used last year to apply 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods and 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of goods. That 10 percent was increased to 25 percent on Friday. Trump is laying the groundwork to extend the 25 percent tariff to all of China’s exports to the U.S.
“Such an easy way to avoid Tariffs? Make or produce your goods and products in the good old USA. It’s very simple!” Trump tweeted on Saturday.
Of course, America’s trading partners haven’t let Trump’s tariffs stand without taking similar action themselves. Farmers, boat makers, and whiskey and wine producers are just some of the U.S. industries caught in the middle.
Farming is a very small-margin, small-profit business. We rely on lots of volume and lots of sales to generate a profit,'' said Brent Bible, a soybean and corn farmer in Lafayette, Ind., who has seen prices for both commodities drop in the past year.We are operating at a loss now.”
Trump’s philosophy on some issues has evolved over the years.
He once described himself regarding the abortion issue as very pro-choice.'' Now, his administration promotes him as the mostpro-life president in American history.”
Complaint about Japan
On trade, not so much. In Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump complained of the Japanese that “what’s unfortunate is that for decades now they have become wealthier in large measure by screwing the United States with a self-serving trade policy that our political leaders have never been able to fully understand or counteract.”
Fast-forward nearly three decades, and Trump declared in his 2015 announcement for the presidency that other nations were prospering at America’s expense. “When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time,” Trump said.
Trump’s approach on trade is a dramatic departure for the Republican Party, but GOP lawmakers have declined to take action that would block his tariffs. They credit his tactics for getting improvements to a trade deal with Canada and Mexico to replace NAFTA, and for getting China to the negotiating table.
President Trump is the first president to take China head-on,'' said Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. He saideveryone knows I’m not a fan of tariffs, but I think everyone knows as well that China has been cheating for far too long.”
Trump has received some encouragement from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted to Trump: “Don’t back down. Strength is the only way to win with China.”
Current and former officials in the administration believe that voters will give the president credit for standing up to China, and not blame him for any pain that may result from the tariffs war.
Overall, AP VoteCast found Americans critical in their assessments of Trump on trade. But that’s not the case with his supporters. According to the survey of more than 115,000 midterm voters nationwide, 45% approved of Trump on trade, while 53% disapproved. Among voters who approved of Trump’s job overall, fully 88% approved of his handling of trade.
Who pays?
While Trump casts his tariffs as being paid for by China, they actually are paid by the American companies that bring a product into the U.S. This can help some U.S. producers, though, because it makes their goods more competitive pricewise. Still, the burden of Trump’s tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University.
Republican-leaning business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have warned that the tariffs threaten to derail the economy raise unemployment, but with economic growth at 3.2 percent last quarter and the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent, Trump isn’t changing strategy now.
“Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch!” Trump tweeted on Friday.
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Officials in Pakistan and the United Nations are investigating causes of a new outbreak of HIV infections in a southern district where nearly 400 people have been diagnosed in less than two weeks. Officials confirmed Saturday that nearly 80% of those infected are children, with nearly half of them under age 5.
Local media began reporting about the epidemic two weeks ago from Larkana, a district of Sindh province, which has already experienced three outbreaks in recent years. A local doctor who treated several patients with a single needle and syringe was blamed for spreading the virus, which causes AIDS.
The provincial government rushed teams of public health workers to the district, with an estimated population of 1.5 million, to quickly assess the situation and mobilize resources to curtail further spread of HIV. More than 9,000 people have since been subjected to screening in the affected district, and the process is continuing, Sikandar Memon, the provincial head of the AIDS Control Program, told reporters.
A UNAIDS spokeswoman told VOA that international partners had joined local teams to help quickly carry out an outbreak investigation and address the acute needs of the people infected with HIV, including immediately linking them to treatment, care and support services.
The spokeswoman, Fahmida Khan, said efforts were being made to ensure that unsafe injection and blood transfusion practices were being stopped. She also noted that there were unconfirmed reports of similar HIV outbreaks in surrounding districts.
Focus of problem
Sindh, with a population of nearly 48 million, accounts for 43% of an estimated 150,000 people living with HIV in Pakistan.
U.N. officials say since 2010, there has been a 57% increase in new HIV/AIDS infections in Pakistan. They noted that among all identified HIV cases in Pakistan, 43,000 are females.
Last year, an estimated 20,000 people were newly identified with HIV in Pakistan and 6,200 people died of AIDS, according to local and U.N. officials.
Khan would not comment on the reasons for the high number of HIV infections among children and the potential causes of the latest outbreak in Larkana, saying “further investigations and epidemiological review is yet required and suggested.”
Provincial authorities also have launched a high-level investigation to ascertain the veracity of the allegations against the local doctor, who already has been taken into police custody.
Some also blame unsafe injection practices by quack doctors for contributing to the spread of HIV. Government officials estimate about 600,000 unqualified doctors are unlawfully operating in Pakistan and 270,000 of them are practicing in Sindh.
Critics also blame lapses in Pakistan’s national health system, the low priority given to the problem, corruption, the recent abolition of the federal health ministry and the delegation of its functions to the provinces for the worsening health sector situation and the increase in HIV infections.
Pakistani and U.N. officials say the HIV epidemic in Pakistan remains largely concentrated among key populations, including people who inject drugs, the transgender community, sex workers and their clients, and men who have sex with men.
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Nearly every country in the world has agreed upon a legally binding framework to reduce the pollution from plastic waste except for the United States, U.N. environmental officials say.
An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged Friday at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals.
Discarded plastic clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and rivers and entangles wildlife, sometimes with deadly results.
Rolph Payet of the United Nations Environment Program said the “historic” agreement linked to the 186-country, U.N.-supported Basel Convention means that countries will have to monitor and track the movements of plastic waste outside their borders.
The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as health care, technology, aerospace, fashion, food and beverages.
“It’s sending a very strong political signal to the rest of the world — to the private sector, to the consumer market — that we need to do something,” Payet said. “Countries have decided to do something which will translate into real action on the ground.”
Countries will have to figure out their own ways of adhering to the accord, Payet said. Even the few countries that did not sign it, like the United States, could be affected by the accord when they ship plastic waste to countries that are on board with the deal.
Payet credited Norway for leading the initiative, which first was presented in September. The time from that proposal to the approval of a deal set a blistering pace by traditional U.N. standards for such an accord.
The framework “is historic in the sense that it is legally binding,” Payet said. “They (the countries) have managed to use an existing international instrument to put in place those measures.”
The agreement is likely to lead to customs agents being on the lookout for electronic waste or other types of potentially hazardous waste more than before.
“There is going to be a transparent and traceable system for the export and import of plastic waste,” Payet said.
Dementia is a rapidly growing public health problem around the world. Fifty million people suffer from dementia, and in the next 30 years, that number is expected to triple.
Researchers are looking for ways to treat or prevent dementia, and a promising clinical trial is underway in the U.S.
Dementia is not a normal part of aging, but age is a huge risk factor. Regular exercise, a healthy diet, maintaining healthy blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels help stave off dementia as we grow older
As people around the world live longer, health agencies and researchers are looking for ways to prevent, stop or treat dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, one of the most common types of dementia.
Promising clinical trial
David Shorr was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 56.He is about to undergo a new procedure that could treat early stage Alzheimer’s. He is with his doctor, Vibhor Krishna, a neurosurgeon at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.
The procedure Shorr is about to have involves sound waves. Ultrasound waves target and open the blood-brain barrier — a protective layer that shields the brain from infections. But Krishna says the barrier also makes it hard to treat neurodegerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.
“Opening the blood-brain barrier allows us to access more of the brain tissue and be able to increase the effectiveness or bioavailability of the therapeutics,” Krishna said.
Shorr and his wife, Kim, were willing to try any new treatment that might help with his dementia. Kim describes the couple’s reaction when they received a phone call inviting Shorr to participate in a clinical trial.
“There’s this trial. Would you be interested?” she said, describing the call. “And without really knowing what it was, we said, Sure.’”
Ultrasound targets protein buildup
Shorr became one of 10 patients enrolled in the study. The trial tests MRI-guided imaging to target the part of the brain responsible for memory and cognition. Krishna explains that’s where Alzheimer’s patients have a buildup of toxic proteins called amyloid.
“Higher deposition of amyloid goes hand in hand with loss of function in Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.
Krishna says this procedure might allow a patient’s own immune system to clear some of the amyloid.
In this procedure, ultrasound wave pulses cause microscopic bubbles to expand and contract in the brain.
“The increase and decrease in size of these microbubbles mechanically opens the blood-brain barrier,” Krishna said.
The patient is awake during the procedure.
Study could help others
Opening the barrier may one day allow doctors to deliver medication straight to the site of the disease.
Kim Shorr realizes her husband might not benefit from this treatment.
“We’re hopeful it can help him, but we also know maybe it will help somebody else,” she said.
Shorr is glad to be part of a study that could help others who are in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, even if it doesn’t help him.
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Dementia is a rapidly growing public health problem throughout the world. Fifty million people suffer from dementia, and in the next 30 years, that number is expected to triple. Researchers are looking for ways to treat or prevent dementia, and VOA’s Carol Pearson reports some of the work being done is promising.
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It’s 9 o’clock in the morning, time for 3-year-old Lucas’ weekly music therapy session.
“Lucas is autistic,” his mother Katey Hernandez explained. “He has a lot of sensory processing sensitivities, which means he’s really sensitive to loud noises, bright lights and a lot of [activity] around his body, and he really likes to jump and swing and climb and anything active.”
Music therapist Dixie Mazur brings to Lucas’ home session a bag full of instruments. During the session she plays music and sings.
“I like to bring in a wide variety of instruments because, especially with younger kids, the attention spans naturally are very short and I like to be able to give them the freedom and ownership to kind of move our session in the direction they want to go,” Mazur said.
She brings in a piano, a couple of drums, rain stick and egg shakers, “things that provide a lot of sensory feedback as well.”
Hernandez is happy with the results so far.
“It’s been very helpful,” she said. “Ms. Dixie has come up with a few songs to help him with social dialogue. So, it helps him communicate with us a lot more, when we can’t figure out what he needs.”
Healing soul and body
Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have shown that music has many health benefits, too. Those range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients.
So, music has become a part of the therapists’ toolbox, used either in one-on-one sessions or group settings. It can be passive, where patients listen to music, or active, where they participate in playing instruments and singing.
Zoe Gleason Volz brings music therapy to a group of people with a range of cognitive disabilities.
“As a group, they don’t really engage with each other,” she said. “So, a lot of my work is trying to slowly get them to positively engage with their fellow group members and actively engage with me.”
The instruments stimulate patients’ senses and muscles. She says the impact is obvious on brain scans of people listening to music.
“When you’re listening to music the entire brain is lit up because it’s having the music and the intellectual sides both kind of firing all at once. Whereas when you’re talking with somebody, you’re probably more into one hemisphere of the brain rather than both.”
Becoming a music therapist
There are more than 6,000 board-certified music therapists in the United States. They’ve gone through 1,000 hours of training, including getting an undergraduate degree and completing a six-month internship, and passing a certification exam.
But music therapist Kelsi Yingling, who founded NeuroSound Music Therapy, where Gleason Volz and Mazur work, looks for more than a certificate.
“The type of skills we wanted to see in a music therapist are strong musical skills, interpersonal skills and the ability to relate to our clients,” she said.
Music therapists should be patient and able to adapt to various situations, she says, adding that the work is easier when therapists have passion for music and for helping people.
“The fact that I get to use music to help other individuals achieve their goals and their highest potential is really one of the most rewarding things I can be doing in my life,” she added.
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Music has long helped people express their emotions and connect with one another. Over the years, medical studies have proved that music has many health benefits, too. They range from facilitating regular breathing and lifting mood to improving emotional function and motor control in patients. Faiza Elmasry tells us more about music therapy. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Contributors include Erikas Mwisi reporting from Beni, North Kivu; Margaret Basheer from the United Nations; and Eddy Isango, James Butty and Carol Guensburg from Washington.
Armed attacks, misinformation and a growing funding gap continue to impede the response to the Ebola outbreak in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with the World Health Organization warning that the situation could spiral out of control.
Insecurity leaves response teams “unable to perform robust surveillance nor deliver much needed treatment and immunizations,” the WHO reported Friday in its latest update on the outbreak confirmed last August. The health organization warned that “without commitment from all groups to cease these attacks, it is unlikely that this EVD [Ebola virus disease] outbreak can remain successfully contained in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.”
The disease could spill into other parts of the country and across the borders of neighboring Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan, the health organization suggested.
This month alone has brought setbacks such as a violent assault on a burial team in the town of Katwa and a gunfight between at least 50 armed militia and security forces in the city of Butembo, WHO reported. Mourners also buried Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, a 41-year-old Cameroonian doctor killed April 19 while working for WHO and meeting with other front-line workers at Butembo University Hospital.
The threats continue.
On Thursday, a VOA correspondent in Butembo saw a series of letters scattered on a street, each weighted down with pebbles. Written in Swahili and attributed to Mai-Mai fighters, the letters warned police, soldiers and the general public against showing any support for Ebola responders or treatment centers.
Anderson Djumah, whose 10-year-old son is being treated for Ebola at the general hospital in the North Kivu town of Beni, complained that “the lack of security has just added more suffering.”
“Even Ebola treatment centers are targeted by the assailants. We’re afraid. Ebola is killing so many people. We’re still expecting that the government would be able to protect us,” he said. “… [But] some people who are sick with Ebola are fleeing to other places for their lives and are meanwhile spreading the sickness.”
Complications for care
Violence sends people into hiding and disrupts response operations such as contact tracing, vaccination and safe burials, giving “time and space to the virus to spread within the community and make more victims,” Jessica Ilunga, spokeswoman for the DRC’s health ministry, told VOA.
“Every time we have a security incident, the number of cases and deaths obviously increases,” Ilunga said.
The health ministry, leading the response with WHO’s help, reported 1,600 total cases as of Wednesday, with 1,534 confirmed and 66 likely. This second-worst Ebola outbreak already has claimed 1,069 lives. The 2014-15 West African outbreak killed more than 11,000.
Many of the victims have died at home, potentially exposing others to the disease and leaving gaps in how — and to whom — the virus may have been transmitted.
“You don’t know who those contacts are,” said epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and principal investigator for the Outbreak Observatory, a project of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “… Chances are you can’t offer them vaccines or treatment.”
Funding for the Ebola response has fallen far short of need, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email to VOA Wednesday. As of May 2, WHO had received $32.5 million of the $87 million it estimated needing for six months ending in July.
“If the funds are not received,” Jasarevic wrote, “WHO will be unable to sustain the response at the current scale.”
New challenges in 10th DRC outbreak
This is the DRC’s 10th reported outbreak since the virus’ discovery near the Ebola River in 1976. The country has proved adept at snuffing out past outbreaks of Ebola, which has been found in bats, monkeys and other animals sometimes consumed as “bush meat.” The virus spreads through contact with an infected person’s body fluids.
Ebola was unfamiliar in the northeast, a region already destabilized by at least two decades of conflict. More than 100 armed groups roam the area, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
High mobility and population density also raise the potential that the virus could cross into Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been providing technical guidance to the DRC and its neighbors, for instance, helping them ramp up surveillance and vaccination tracking.)
Wary public
Skepticism also factors into the Ebola equation. The northeast is an opposition stronghold, and its residents were angered to be kept from voting in December’s general elections, as former U.S. diplomat John Campbell pointed out in a Council on Foreign Relations blog post.
A study published in The Lancet medical journal in March found low public trust in local authorities and broad acceptance of misinformation about Ebola. Just a third of the 961 respondents — adults surveyed in North Kivu’s Beni and Butembo last fall — said they had confidence that local authorities acted in the public interest. A fourth indicated they didn’t believe Ebola exists.
Mistrust and misinformation make it less likely that individuals will heed public safety directives, such as accepting Ebola vaccines, seeking formal medical care or supporting safe burial practices, the researchers noted.
That mistrust can be weaponized, as Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders experienced. Two of the international aid group’s Ebola treatment centers, in Katwa and Butembo, were attacked in February. MSF suspended services there, saying its ability to respond in the outbreak’s epicenter had been “crippled.”
Anne-Marie Pegg, MSF’s clinical lead for epidemic response, said some Congolese look critically at the disparity between local clinics, which, if they exist, might lack basics such as running water and electricity, and the better-equipped Ebola treatment centers set up by international aid groups.
“Very little investment has gone into the existing health structures and the existing health system, and people notice this,” Pegg said. She said MSF, in “numerous interactions,” has heard complaints that international groups are involved “‘only because we [locals] are contagious and we’re a threat to you.’
“It’s not surprising that something like Ebola can be manipulated for any variety of reasons,” Pegg added. “… Absolutely, there are interest groups from all sides that are trying to use this.”
MSF continues to work in the region while pressing for “better integration of Ebola treatment into the health care system,” Pegg said. The virus’ early symptoms, such as headaches and muscle pain, are indistinguishable from those of malaria or other more common ailments, so “it’s difficult for someone who’s sick to think, ‘I have Ebola.’ So the capacity to isolate someone who may have an Ebola infection and test for that … needs to happen at a local level” rather than sending patients to a treatment center. “It would be nice if those people could be treated closer to home” and started on treatment while awaiting test results. If the virus is confirmed, then transfer the patient to an Ebola treatment center, “which is the best place.”
But, she said, MSF’s goal is to treat whatever ailment a patient might have.
Vaccine plans revised
As Ebola infections rise, a WHO advisory group this week recommended that an approved vaccine be distributed more widely in smaller doses and that an experimental vaccine, developed by Johnson & Johnson, also be offered. More than 100,000 doses of the approved Merck vaccine have been distributed since August, but supplies are running low. The dosage would be halved from the current 1 milliliter for the primary and secondary “ring vaccination,” which prescribes inoculation for anyone in contact with an infected person. Eligibility would be expanded through “pop-up and targeted geographic approaches” in high-risk areas.
“We know that vaccination is saving lives in this outbreak,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
The advisory group also recommended more training for local health workers.
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Billionaire Richard Branson is moving Virgin Galactic’s winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space tourism dream a step closer to reality.
Branson said Friday at a news conference that Virgin Galactic’s development and testing program has advanced enough to make the move to the custom-tailored hangar and runway at the taxpayer-financed Spaceport America facility near the town of Truth or Consequences.
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said a small number of flight tests are pending. He declined to set a specific deadline for the first commercial flight.
An interior cabin for the company’s space rocket is being tested, and pilots and engineers are among the employees relocating from California to New Mexico. The move to New Mexico puts the company in the “home stretch,” Whitesides said.
The manufacturing of the space vehicles by a sister enterprise, The Spaceship Company, will remain based in the community of Mojave, California.
Taxpayer backing
Taxpayers invested more than $200 million in Spaceport America after Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, pitched the plan for the facility, with Virgin Galactic as the anchor tenant.
Virgin Galactic’s spaceship development has taken far longer than expected and had a major setback when the company’s first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.
Branson thanked New Mexico politicians and residents for their patience over the past decade. He said he believes space tourism — once aloft — is likely to bring about profound change.
“Our future success as a species rests on the planetary perspective,” Branson said. “The perspective that we know comes sharply into focus when that planet is viewed from the black sky of space.”
Branson described a vision of hotels in space and a network of spaceports allowing supersonic, transcontinental travel anywhere on earth within a few hours. He indicated, however, that building financial viability comes first.
“We need the financial impetus to be able to do all that,” he said. “If the space program is successful as I think … then the sky is the limit.”
Gushing passenger
In February, a new version of Virgin Galactic’s winged craft SpaceShipTwo soared at three times the speed of sound to an altitude of nearly 56 miles (99 kilometers) in a test flight over Southern California, as a crew member soaked in the experience.
On Friday, that crew member, Beth Moses, recounted her voyage into weightlessness and the visual spectacle of pitch-black space and the earth below.
“Everything is silent and still and you can unstrap and float about the cabin,” she said. “Pictures do not do the view from space justice. … I will be able to see it forever.”
The company’s current spaceship doesn’t launch from the ground. It is carried under a special plane to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before detaching and igniting its rocket engine.
“Release is like freefall at an amusement park, except it keeps going,” Moses said. “And then the rocket motor lights. Before you know it, you’re supersonic.”
First commercial flight may be this year
The craft coasts to the top of its climb before gradually descending to earth, stabilized by “feathering” technology in which twin tails rotate upward to increase drag on the way to a runway landing.
Branson previously has said he would like to make his first suborbital flight this year as one of the venture’s first passengers on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20. But he made no mention of timelines on Friday.
Pressed on the timeframe, Whitesides said he anticipates the first commercial flight within a year.
Three people with future space-flight reservations were in the audience.
“They’ve been patient, too,” Branson said. “Space is hard.”
Hundreds of potential customers have committed as much as $250,000 up front for rides in Virgin’s six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet.
Virgin not alone
Other Branson’s plans have gradually advanced amid a broader surge in private investment in space technology with cost-saving innovations in reusable rockets and microsatellite technology.
Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos announced Thursday that his space company, Blue Origin, will send a robotic spaceship to the moon with aspirations for another ship that could bring people there along the same timeframe as NASA’s proposed 2024 return. Bezos has provided no details about launch dates.
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