Tobacco farming in Uganda has resulted in the loss of trees key to the diets of chimpanzees and baboons, increasing human-primate interactions — and the risk for disease spillover.
Tag: outbreak
Health officials in Uganda told Global Press Journal to ignore information provided by health workers at the border.
An ongoing outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in southeastern Poland, near the Ukraine border, has prompted interventions from the Polish internal security agency. Over the past four days, authorities have not found any signs of deliberate spread of the disease, but are continuing to investigate.
An outbreak of Hepatitis-A led to the deaths of two children in an isolated village in Kashmir. Some point fingers at the lack of surveillance by trained doctors and poor sanitation, and others, to the faith villagers place in traditional healers.
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Hey People, The Pandemic Is Not Over
Yes, COVID fatigue is real, as are the deep impact of restrictive measures on everything from the economy to mental health to education. But we should remain vigil in making sure we minimize the worst health effects of a still aggressive and deadly virus.
Every time there is a major disease outbreak, one of the first questions scientists and the public ask is: “Where did this come from?” In order to predict and prevent future pandemics like COVID-19, researchers need to find the origin of the viruses that cause them. This is not a trivial task. The origin of HIV was not clear until 20 years after it spread around the world. Scientists still don’t know the origin of Ebola, even though it has caused periodic epidemics since the 1970s. As an expert in viral ecology, I am often asked how scientists trace the […]
The raging COVID-19 epidemic, combined with an acute shortage of oxygen, has created a nightmare scenario in places like Nashik, in the northern part of Maharashtra state.
A century ago, during the Spanish flu pandemic, Americans were eager let down their guard and get on with normal life. The consequences were enormous.
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, no sector in the economy has been hit harder than the travel industry. Following rolling global lockdowns through last spring, and resulting border closures and travel bans, both tourism and business travel was at a virtual standstill, with an estimated 98% drop in the number of international tourists […]
The powers that be responded to the pandemic with an array of life-altering directives that, to an astonishing degree, people quietly accept. So what happens next?
From Bali to Mexico and everywhere in between, countries that have come to rely on a steady stream of tourism revenue are experiencing serious fallout from the pandemic.
Even if researchers’ quest for the coronavirus vaccine concludes quickly — and that’s a big if — the solution would still need to me manufactured, packaged, paid for and distributed.
PARIS — It was only back in May that experts palmed off the 12-month goal post for a COVID-19 vaccine as wishful thinking. Now, with more than 140 candidate vaccines being developed, including three already in the final phase-3 trial, it seems we may be sprinting towards a new speed record in medical development. “The […]
The South American nation has the second highest number of coronavirus fatalities in the world (after the United States), and with ICU beds in short supply, the death toll will continue to rise.
The long lockdown period has only added to the frustrations people feel about their country’s unresolved class disparities, crass politics and history of violence.
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The Vaccine Sprint Accelerates
The global death toll in the COVID-19 pandemic has passed 475,000, and the confirmed cases are now more than nine million worldwide. But there’s another number that looms: fear of the pandemic’s second wave striking countries in the coming weeks and months. Already, clusters of new outbreaks of cases have appeared in countries such as […]
There has been plenty of debate and questions surrounding the use of masks since the coronavirus pandemic started. Should we wear them or not? What type of mask works the best? Should countries make them compulsory? But even as a general scientific consensus has emerged that masks are one of the most effective tools at […]
Building scientific beliefs is a long and arduous path that originates from a contradictory process. But facing a pandemic, it’s the best we’ve got.
Forced to stay home from one day to the next, millions of quarantined people were suddenly faced with a rare luxury in our fast-paced world: time. That, of course, came with a question: What to do with it? Where others may have chosen to Netflix, garden, read, meditate or complete a 51,300 pieces-jigsaw puzzle, the […]
If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that no one is safe until everyone is safe.
By now, our regular readers know that Worldcrunch works hard at being of and for and about no one particular place or people or subject matter. Our beat and our audience are written in our name, and we work with journalists and newspapers everywhere to tell the stories (no matter how big or small) that […]
Life was difficult enough for refugees even before the coronavirus outbreak. But with the lockdown depriving them of even meager earnings, the situation has beyond dire.
Skeptical. Overwhelmed. Disappointed. Exhausted. Helpless. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, healthcare workers have felt it all. But in recent weeks, doctors and nurses around the world have added one adjective to their list of feelings: angry. In Europe, the mood has indeed shifted from the images of people applauding their medical heroes every night, from […]
Today, the European Commission will unveil plans for an unprecedented EU economy recovery package in the face of the coronavirus crisis. The proposed EU rescue fund comes on the heels of last week’s surprise announcement that French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to a 500-billion-euro recovery package set out to […]
As countries around the world scramble to conduct sufficient COVID-19 testing, there is now an urgent need for the design of rapid diagnostics of early symptoms to identify potential carriers to test, and eventually, isolate them. Researchers and the so-called “health tech” and “wearables’ sector are racing to release new devices, and adapt existing ones, […]
Across the globe, the coronavirus crisis has forced people to change not only the ways they work and interact with each other, but also how they travel. And in several countries, one of the unexpected consequences of all this has been a renewed interest in transportation of the pedal-powered, two-wheeled variety. In some places — […]
When we think of modern urban planning, it tends to be focused on improving efficiency in where we live and work, and how we move from place to place. But it should also be about keeping us healthy. The concept is neither a knee-jerk reaction to COVID-19 nor some nod to corporate social responsibility and […]
President López Obrador has failed spectacularly to manage the pandemic and its economic repercussions.
Taiwan’s success in containing the coronavirus is certainly cause for celebration, and to really emphasize the point, farmers in one agricultural region decided this week that it’s high time to break out the… watermelons? After a string of six straight days with no new confirmed coronavirus cases, a group of farmers in Changhua, in central […]
Germany has the resources to weather the storm, but not everyone in Europe is convinced that’s a good thing.
Colombia is a prime example of how overspending and indebtedness leave little room for error, and why it’s important to take a new approach moving forward.
It is, of course, inevitable that governments’ stay-at-home orders and other emergency measures to contain the novel coronavirus would generate differences of opinion. And yet, even a few weeks ago, it was hard to imagine that it would take as ugly a turn as what’s happening right now in the U.S. state of Michigan, where […]
The coronavirus pandemic has been both a boost and a challenge for delivery services like Chowbus, which specialize in Chinese fare.
Humans have been greeting each others with handshakes for thousands of years. Are we witnessing the end to pressing the flesh, and giving some skin? “I don’t think we should shake hands ever again,” declared Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the key members of the US coronavirus task force, in a Wall Street Journal podcast. […]
Whether or not they were looking for it, the COVID-19 crisis has given epidemiologists bonafide public power. “At this point, if Drosten says it is too early, that carries as much weight as Merkel saying it,” quipped German economist Marcel Fratzscher about his country’s top epidemiologist Christian Drosten and top politician Angela Merkel. There is […]
Latin American countries are, for the most part, appreciative of Beijing’s donations of much needed medical supplies. But the goodwill isn’t guaranteed to last forever.
Across the globe, swamped hospitals and shelter-in-place measures have impacted people’s access to healthcare for any number of non-COVID-19 issues. One of them is abortion, a time sensitive procedure that is also — even the best of times — both emotionally and politically charged. Now, in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, some countries have […]
As the new pandemic reality requires radical rethinking about how we live our lives, one hint of where we may be going could appear this summer in a neighborhood near you. The re-opening of bars and restaurants coinciding with warm weather is pushing city officials to reallocate the space that diners and motorists can occupy. […]
The pandemic is prompting changes in politics, culture and personal conduct. Could these shifts be glimpses of a better, post-pandemic society?
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Bracing For A Second Wave Next Winter
PARIS — The rate of transmission and death toll of the coronavirus finally seem to be slowing, and various national and local lockdown measures are beginning to loosen. In a best-case scenario, both commerce and public confidence pick back up and social distancing measures help the virus to fade away by the summer. But even […]