The COVID-19 vaccine rollout to date has been far from equitable. The vast majority of doses have gone to high-income countries, but a World Health Organization program aiming to change that delivered its first shots Wednesday, in Ghana. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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At a dog training center in Myakka City, Florida, Heather Junqueira, founder of BioScent, brings a four-year-old beagle, Noel, into a room with stainless-steel canisters, several containing samples of COVID-19.   Noel springs into action as she tries to find the ones with a smell that she knows will earn her praise and dog treats. It only takes Noel only a few seconds to figure out which ones contain gauze pads wiped with sweat or surgical masks worn by people infected with COVID.  Heather Junqueira, founder of BioScent in Myakka City, Florida, gives a reward treat to Noel, a beagle, after she successfully detects a sample of COVID-19 in a canister. (Courtesy of BioScent)BioScent, which trains medical detection dogs, was focusing on research with canines sniffing out certain cancers. But Junqueira switched gears last April after the coronavirus pandemic hit. “I realized the importance of this research,” she told VOA, “and how we might save a lot of lives.” Junqueira discovered it is easier for her dogs to detect COVID-19 than cancer.  “The virus must have a much stronger odor, which is really the body’s response to the virus,” she said, which humans cannot smell.  Dogs have up to 300 million scent receptors as compared to about 6 million in humans. Hounds, including beagles like Noel, have famously sensitive snouts. The results of her study have been “incredibly successful,” Junqueira said, with the dogs recognizing the COVID samples about 95 percent of the time.  This is in line with the high success rates of other studies worldwide that have been released so far, explained Tommy Dickey, professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He collaborated with Junquiera on an article that focused on using medical scent dogs to detect COVID-19 that was published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association in February.   Dickey pointed out “the most striking result is that studies have already demonstrated that dogs can identify people who are COVID-19 positive.” And “they can do it non-intrusively, more rapidly and with comparable or possibly better accuracy than our conventional detection tests,” he added.The National Veterinary School of Alfort in France is among the global institutions doing research on dogs’ ability to detect COVID-19. (Courtesy of veterinary professor Dominique Grandjean)For example, experiments by French and Lebanese researchers concluded that dogs could determine COVID on human sweat samples with high accuracy. And the same was true in Colombia, where trained scent dogs could detect the virus from respiratory secretions. Most of the research dogs are doing a better job than the COVID rapid test by “hitting above 90 percent right now,” Junquiera said.  And that is true at some airports, where the dogs are being used in pilot projects to detect COVID.  At the Dubai airport in the United Arab Emirates, a police dog trained to detect COVID-19 smells a sweat sample from a passenger to determine if the virus is on it. (Courtesy of Emirates News Agency)In the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai airport is using specially trained police dogs to sniff COVID. A sweat sample is taken from arriving passengers, which is placed in a metal funnel for the dog to smell. If the virus is detected, then the passengers must take a nasal test.   In a pilot program at Sweden’s Helsinki airport, trained dogs could determine if arriving passengers were infected with COVID-19. The volunteer passengers wiped their skin with a cloth for the dogs to smell. (Courtesy photo)At an airport in Helsinki, Norway, some arriving passengers volunteered to wipe their skin with cloth that was placed in a canister for the canines to smell. The dogs indicated the test was positive by yelping, pawing or lying down.  Aside from airports, collaborators Dickey and Janquiera said COVID scent-trained dogs could be useful in places like train stations, schools and hospitals, as well as at large public gatherings, including concerts and sporting events. Janquiera said she has already been approached by a sports team and casino in Florida about the possibility of utilizing her dogs in the future.   
 
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The huge parachute used by NASA’s Perseverance rover to land on Mars contained a secret message, thanks to a puzzle lover on the spacecraft team.  
Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out “Dare Mighty Things” in the orange and white strips of the 70-foot (21-meter) parachute. He also included the GPS coordinates for the mission’s headquarters at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Clark, a crossword hobbyist, came up with the idea two years ago. Engineers wanted an unusual pattern in the nylon fabric to know how the parachute was oriented during descent. Turning it into a secret message was “super fun,” he said Tuesday.
Only about six people knew about the encoded message before Thursday’s landing, according to Clark. They waited until the parachute images came back before putting out a teaser during a televised news conference Monday.
It took just a few hours for space fans to figure it out, Clark said. Next time, he noted, “I’ll have to be a little bit more creative.”
“Dare Mighty Things” — a line from President Theodore Roosevelt — is a mantra at JPL and adorns many of the center’s walls. The trick was “trying to come up with a way of encoding it but not making it too obvious,” Clark said.  
As for the GPS coordinates, the spot is 10 feet (3 meters) from the entrance to JPL’s visitor center.
Another added touch not widely known until touchdown: Perseverance bears a plaque depicting all five of NASA’s Mars rovers in increasing size over the years — similar to the family car decals seen on Earth.
Deputy project manager Matt Wallace promises more so-called hidden Easter eggs. They should be visible once Perseverance’s 7-foot (2-meter) arm is deployed in a few days and starts photographing under the vehicle, and again when the rover is driving in a couple weeks.
“Definitely, definitely should keep a good lookout,” he urged. 
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A study suggests a key environmental system that affects how water circulates in the Atlantic Ocean and effects the climate could be on the verge of collapse due to the rapid melting of glaciers and sea ice.
The study, published Tuesday in the scientific journal Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) used a global ocean model to study the effects of melting ice on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a large system of ocean currents that carry warm water from the tropics northward into the North Atlantic.  
The system includes the Gulf Stream, of the eastern U.S. coast, which carries warm tropical water north and helps moderate temperatures in much of Europe, considering its high latitude.  The current has been under intense scrutiny in recent years because cold, fresh water from melting Greenland glaciers has essentially been causing the current to slow down, though not stop completely.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen – who conducted the study – said their model indicates the AMOC could reach a “tipping point” or, crucial threshold, sooner than earlier predicted because of the speed at which glacial ice is melting.  
In an interview, one of the study’s authors, Johannes Lohmann, said it has been predicted, based on previous climate models, the AMOC could reach its tipping point when a certain level of freshwater flowed into the North Atlantic from ice melt in Greenland. He said those models were based on a very slow melting of ice.
Lohmann said, “In reality, increases in meltwater from Greenland are accelerating and cannot be considered slow.” He said that faster rate could mean the circulation system could be reached much sooner than earlier predictions.
Lohmann and other researchers say the study’s findings are not conclusive and more study is needed. But he said the possibility of a rapid AMOC collapse should be a warning to policymakers.
He said, “Due to the potentially increased risk of abrupt climate change in parts of the Earth system that we show in our research, it is important that policymakers keep pushing for ambitious short- and mid-term climate targets to slow down the pace of climate change, especially in vulnerable places like the Arctic.”
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 Solar energy is a natural fit for sun-drenched Southern Africa, its proponents say. The only problem: Not enough panels to meet soaring demand. VOA’s Anita Powell looks at one company spinning sunshine into energy. Camera:  Zaheer Cassim    
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Ghana has received the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines through the World Health Organization’s global vaccine-sharing program. A flight carrying 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine arrived Wednesday in the capital, Accra, according to a joint statement from WHO and UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. The vaccines were manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.  The vaccines sent to Ghana were purchased through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, an initiative launched by WHO in cooperation with  Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, an organization founded by philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries. The project purchases vaccines with the help of wealthier countries and distributes them equitably to all countries. U.S. President Joe Biden pledged $4 billion to the COVAX program last week.  WHO announced in December that COVAX has secured agreements for nearly two billion doses of several “promising” vaccine candidates.A pack of AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines is seen as the country receives its first batch of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines under COVAX scheme, in Accra, Feb. 24, 2021.A new variant of the novel coronavirus recently discovered in the western U.S. state of California is more contagious than other versions, according to two new preliminary studies. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco discovered the new variant, called B.1.427/B.1.429, as they were tracking the possible spread of the B.1.1.7 variant, which was first detected in Britain last year.  The team found B.1.427/B.1.429  had become the predominant variant in the state after testing virus samples collected from across the state between September of last year and January.  The UCSF team says people infected with the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant produced a viral load twice as large as that of other variants, which may make them more contagious to others. The new variant is also more likely to cause severe illness, “including increased risk of high oxygen requirement,” and is at least partially resistant to antibodies that could combat and neutralize it.   In the other study, researchers found the variant has spread rapidly throughout San Francisco’s historic Mission District neighborhood, increasing from 16% of all confirmed COVID-19 infections tracked in November to 53% of infections by January.   Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist who led the UCSF study, said the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant should be designated “a variant of concern” that merited further investigation.   As more Americans are vaccinated, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says new guidelines for vaccinated people will be coming “soon” from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci addresses the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan.21, 2021.“I believe you’re going to be hearing more of the recommendations of how you can relax the stringency of some of the things, particularly when you’re dealing with something like your own personal family when people have been vaccinated,” Fauci told CNN.    Some changes for those vaccinated have already been published. For example, people who have been vaccinated do not need to quarantine if they come in contact with an infected person.  The supply of vaccines is expected to grow as manufacturers say they will increase production, the U.S. based cable news network CNBC reported.    In written congressional testimony, Pfizer’s Chief Business Officer John Young said the company plans to double its output to 13 million doses per week by mid-March.  Moderna hopes to deliver 40 million doses per month by April.  The supply could be further bolstered by Johnson & Johnson’s new one-shot vaccine, which is expected to be reviewed Thursday.  
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The number of people going hungry in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua has nearly quadrupled in the last two years, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as Central America has been battered by an economic crisis. New data released by the U.N.’s World Food Program showed nearly 8 million people across the four countries are experiencing hunger this year, up from 2.2 million in 2018. “The COVID-19-induced economic crisis had already put food on the market shelves out of reach for the most vulnerable people when the twin hurricanes Eta and Iota battered them further,” Miguel Barreto, WFP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement.   He was referring to two hurricanes that hit Central America in November. “We’re eating the little food that people give to us,” said Marina Rosado, 70, who along with her son and grandchildren live along a boulevard in the Honduran city of Lima that was inundated by flooding last year. The storms that destroyed their home were the latest blow pushing the family further into hunger, Rosado said, after pandemic-related restrictions limited their ability to collect bottles and cans in the streets to sell to recycling companies.   The WFP also noted that 15% of those surveyed by the organization in January 2021 said that they were making concrete plans to migrate — nearly double the percentage in 2018. 
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The European Union and the World Health Organization teamed with the international advocacy organization Global Citizen on Tuesday to host a virtual panel discussion on global recovery of the COVID-19 pandemic.The webcast included leaders from the United States and the African Union, as well as actors and musicians seeking to solicit donations from organizations and individuals. The effort aims to set the stage for the world to bounce back from the pandemic, addressing issues such as vaccine equity, world hunger, the climate crisis and international aid.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a news conference on COVID-19 vaccination plan at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Jan. 8, 2021.In her comments, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed a call by French President Emmanuel Macron’s to donate vaccines to health care workers in Africa.”Vaccines must reach all corners of the planet as soon as possible,” she said.The EU has contributed an additional $606.3 million to the WHO-backed COVAX vaccine cooperative program to supply COVID-19 shots to emerging economies, doubling the bloc’s contribution. Last week, the Biden administration pledged $4 billion to the program.U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry made comments from his office in Washington, saying the recovery discussion represents a “bold plan of action” to get the world through and beyond the pandemic. He said protecting the planet should be part of that plan.South African President Cyril Ramaphosa receives the Johnson and Johnson coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination at the Khayelitsha Hospital near Cape Town, South Africa, Feb. 17, 2021.South African President and African Union chairman Cyril Ramaphosa urged wealthy countries to donate 5% of their vaccine supplies to needy countries, particularly on the African continent.Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish said the pandemic forced her to cancel a world tour after just three shows last year. But she said the pandemic has demonstrated how quickly people adapt. She threw her support behind vaccine equity and urged others to do the same.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also talked about vaccine equity, saying that just two countries account for half of the 210 million doses administered so far in the world. 
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U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry urged the U.N. Security Council Tuesday to start treating the climate crisis like the “urgent security threat” that it is.“The climate threat is so massive, so multifaceted, that it is impossible to disentangle it from other challenges that the Security Council faces,” Kerry told a virtual summit on climate and conflict.“We bury our heads in the sand at our peril,” he cautioned.His participation at the summit comes just days after the United States officially rejoined the Paris Agreement, reversing a Trump administration decision to leave the landmark pact. Kerry said that was “an inexcusable absence by our country from this debate.”The main international instrument for mitigating climate change is the 2015 Paris Agreement. Signed by virtually every country in the world, it aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and limit the planet’s temperature increase during this century to 2 degrees Celsius, while working to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees. Most of the international climate debate focuses on the environmental impact of global warming, but Tuesday’s meeting was intended to highlight the ripple effect that it has on peace and security.UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech during a meeting of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Dec. 18, 2020.“Climate disruption is a crisis amplifier and multiplier,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the 15-nation council. “Where climate change dries up rivers, reduces harvests, destroys critical infrastructure and displaces communities, it exacerbates the risks of instability and conflict.”A Swedish study found in 2018 that eight of the 10 countries hosting the largest U.N. peacekeeping operations were in areas highly exposed to climate change.  “Whether you like it or not, it is a matter of when, not if, your country and your people will have to deal with the security impacts of climate change,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who chaired the meeting.French President Emmanuel Macron suggested the council name a special envoy for climate security to coordinate its work in this area.“I can only see advantages in having a report from the secretary-general every year to the Security Council on the impact of international security and climate change in order to plan ahead, to warn us, and to make recommendations so we can play our role,” Macron said.But not every member agreed that the council is the right forum for considering climate change.“We agree that climatic changes and environmental problems can exacerbate conflicts,” said Moscow’s Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia. “But are they the root cause? This is rather doubtful.”He said Russia agrees that there is an “urgent need” to respond to climate change, but believes it should be done within specific mechanisms, including the Paris Agreement.
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Orangutans are a critically endangered species and the coronavirus pandemic halted efforts to protect and increase their population. But as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, rescue efforts in Indonesia are back under way.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi 
 
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Malian linguists and braille experts have translated the most widely spoken African language in Mali, Bambara, to braille for the country’s blind.  Bambara is spoken and understood by about 15 million Malians, even more than the colonial language, French, making it an important step for blind people. Annie Risemberg profiles a teacher of the new braille translation in this report from Bamako.
Camera: Annie Risemberg 
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Linguists and Braille experts in Mali have translated the country’s most widely spoken African language, Bambara, into Braille for the country’s blind. Bambara is spoken and understood by about 15 million Malians, even more than the colonial French, making it an important step for blind people.     Moussa Keita has been at the Malian Union of the Blind (UMAV) since childhood — first, as a student, and now, as a teacher.     He is one of six instructors who will soon teach Braille in Bambara, the country’s most widely spoken language. Before now, students learned Braille in Mali’s colonial language, French.    In the shade of a tree by his classroom on the UMAV campus, Keita explains his pride in Bambara Braille.    “When I think of this project, that thought not just of the visually handicapped, but moreover, that thought of Africans, particularly of Malians, to write Braille in their own language … to try and adapt Braille to Bambara, which isn’t even the official language … really, it’s a feeling of pride and joy for us,” he said.   Keita’s student, 15-year-old Abdoulaye Kané, explains the usefulness of Bambara Braille to him in the classroom.  “Now, if you don’t understand how to write something in French, you can write and read the word in Bambara. Then, you can understand how to write it in French,” he says.   Abdoulaye Diallo is a blind physical therapist and a Braille specialist.     Diallo writes prescriptions and patient information on paper with a tool called a slate and stylus. The Braille is then translated into written French by clinic staff.   Taking a pause from treating patients, Diallo sits behind his clinic and talks about how teaching Braille in Bambara is a breakthrough for students and for blind adults who never had the chance to go to school.    “If I’m an adult, illiterate, and I’m going to learn Bambara, but I can see, I learn Bambara, and I can do whatever I want,” he said. “If I’m an adult, but I’m blind, and I don’t know Bambara, I’m in the margins. So, it’s this Bambara [Braille], he says, which will save, which will give autonomy, to all these people who were in the margins.   Issiaka Ballo, a linguist expert at the University of Bamako, was contacted in 2019 by a nonprofit group called Sightsavers to spearhead the project to adapt Braille to Bambara.    Bambara has more letters than the French alphabet and more intonation, so new letters had to be created — but only within the six points available in the Braille cell.     Speaking from the Braille printing room at UMAV, Ballo says blind students in Mali will now have more access to education.   “If they can learn these subjects in their language, I think that will only strengthen the knowledge and mastery of science, the knowledge and mastery of literature, the knowledge about the world around us,” he said.   In many schools, instruction is done in the local language rather than in French. Ballo says the next step is to translate Mali’s other national languages like Fulani and Songhay into Braille. 
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Is it better to give more people partial protection from COVID-19, or maximum protection to fewer people? As limited supplies of vaccines begin rolling out in parts of the world, some experts are suggesting authorities go against the recommended vaccine schedule. Rather than giving two shots spaced three or four weeks apart, they say it would be better to delay the second shot and instead focus on giving as many people their first shots as possible. With an out-of-control pandemic, they say, some protection is better than nothing.  And new data suggest that the vaccines work pretty well after one shot.  Many experts don’t like the idea, however. Big questions remain about how long protection lasts after the first shot and whether one shot is enough to protect against emerging variants.  Experts agree that everyone needs a second shot to get the highest level and longest-lasting protection. The question is how soon after the first. The longer the second shot can wait, the more people can potentially get the first.  First shot promising Some new data suggest that the first dose of vaccine provides pretty good protection. The British government Monday released figures showing that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 72% effective against infection after one dose. It reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 75%. In those older than 80, the shot cut the risk of death by more than half.  Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks with a woman waiting to receive an Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, during his visit at a vaccination center at Cwmbran Stadium in Cwmbran, south Wales, Britain, Feb. 17, 2021.The report follows an Israeli study published last Thursday that showed similar results for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It is welcome news for the British government, which decided to postpone second shots for up to 12 weeks when a new, highly contagious variant drove up COVID-19 cases late last year.  “[P]rioritizing the first doses of vaccine for as many people as possible on the priority list will protect the greatest number of at-risk people overall in the shortest possible time,” Britain’s chief medical officers said in a statement announcing the policy December 30.This approach “will have the greatest impact on reducing mortality, severe disease and hospitalizations, and in protecting the NHS (National Health Service) and equivalent health services,” they said. A pharmacist prepares a syringe with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a COVID-19 vaccination site at NYC Health + Hospitals Metropolitan, in New York, Feb. 18, 2021.The British Society for Immunology backed the government’s decision, saying that a longer wait between shots would not make the second one less effective. “Most immunologists would agree that delaying a second ‘booster’ dose of a protein antigen vaccine … by eight weeks would be unlikely to have a negative effect,” the group said in a statement. Durability One big concern, however, is how long protection from one dose lasts.  FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prepares to receive his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Md., Dec. 22, 2020.”Although the numbers [from] a single dose do look interesting, the one thing we don’t know is how durable it is,” chief U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said in a briefing Friday. Since the virus is so new and the vaccines are even newer, scientists just don’t have much evidence to go on.  But some researchers say they know enough, based on what they have learned from other vaccines.  “Once you get good protection, it doesn’t suddenly disappear. It gradually wanes over time,” said Danuta Skowronski, epidemiology lead for influenza and respiratory diseases at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control. “You have the time to make those decisions about the second dose.” “What you don’t have time for is waffling on giving the first dose of vaccine while so many people are dying,” she added. The second shot not only generates a longer-lasting immune response, however. It also ratchets up the strength of the response.  That may be especially important with new variants circulating.  All the current vaccines are less effective against these variants. But they still seem to prevent the most serious COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and death.  “You want enough of a … response that even if you diminish it, you don’t diminish it so much to get out of the realm of protection,” Fauci said. But scientists do not know what that level is.  It is also possible that people with less-than-complete protection can help breed tougher variants that undermine the vaccines.  However, some note, the virus mutates the more it spreads, and even partial protection will slow that spread.  FILE – A South African woman is briefed before taking a COVID-19 test at the Ndlovu clinic in Groblersdal , 200 kms north-east of Johannesburg, Feb. 11, 2021.The variants that have emerged already “arose before any vaccine was there at all,” noted Harvard University epidemiologist William Hanage.  Biologists who study viral evolution are “generally comparatively relaxed” about the threat of undervaccinated people breeding variants, Hanage said. “I don’t think that there’s any particular reason to think that a delay is going to produce more vaccine escape variants.”  
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