A man in Africa who developed Ebola despite receiving a vaccine recovered but suffered a relapse nearly six months later that led to 91 new cases before he died. The report adds to evidence that the deadly virus can lurk in the body long after symptoms end, and that survivors need monitoring for their own welfare and to prevent spread.Relapses like this one from the 2018-20 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo are thought to be rare. This is the first one clearly shown to have spawned a large cluster of new cases. The New England Journal of Medicine published details on Wednesday.Earlier this month, scientists said a separate outbreak that’s going on now in Guinea seems related to one in West Africa that ended five years ago. A survivor may have silently harbored the virus for years before spreading it.”The most important message is, someone can get the disease, Ebola, twice and the second illness can sometimes be worse than the first one,” said Dr. Placide Mbala-Kingebeni of the University of Kinshasha, who helped research the Congo cases.As more Ebola outbreaks occur, “we are getting more and more survivors” and the risk posed by relapses is growing, he said.Ebola outbreaks usually start when someone gets the virus from wildlife and it then spreads person to person through contact with bodily fluids or contaminated materials. Symptoms can include sudden fever, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash and bleeding. Fatality rates range from 25% to 90%.Relapse, not new infectionThe case in the medical journal involved a 25-year-old motorcycle taxi driver vaccinated in December 2018 because he’d been in contact with someone with Ebola. In June 2019, he developed symptoms and was diagnosed with the disease.For some reason, the man never developed immunity or lost it within six months, said Michael Wiley, a virus expert at Nebraska Medical Center who helped investigate the case.The man was treated and discharged after twice testing negative for Ebola in his blood. However, semen can harbor the virus for more than a year, so men are advised to be tested periodically after recovery. The man had a negative semen test in August but did not return after that.In late November, he again developed symptoms and sought care at a health center and from a traditional healer. After worsening, he was sent to a specialized Ebola treatment unit but died the next day.Gene tests showed the virus from his new illness was nearly identical to his original one, meaning this was a relapse, not a new infection from another person or an animal, Wiley said. Tests showed the man had spread the virus to 29 others and they spread it to 62 more.Previously, two health workers who got Ebola while treating patients in Africa were found to have the virus long after they recovered — a Scottish nurse in her spinal fluid and American physician Ian Crozier in his eyes. But those relapses were discovered quickly and did not spawn new outbreaks.They and the man in Africa all were treated with antibodies during their initial infections. Antibodies are substances the body makes to fight the virus but it can take weeks for the most effective ones to form. Giving them to Ebola patients is thought to boost the immune system, and studies suggest they improve survival. But the relapses have doctors concerned that such patients might not develop a strong enough immune response on their own and might be vulnerable to recurrences once antibodies fade. It’s just a theory at this point, the researchers stressed.Better monitoring for survivorsA few other viruses can lurk for long periods and cause problems later, such as the one responsible for chickenpox, which can reactivate and cause shingles decades after initial infection.The news about latent Ebola tells us “absolutely nothing” about the chance of something similar happening with the bug that causes COVID-19 because “they’re totally different viruses,” Wiley said.Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, a World Health Organization scientist, agreed.”We haven’t seen yet this kind of latency from people who survived coronavirus,” he said. Even with Ebola, “after six months, most of the patients completely clear the virus.”The biggest concern is better monitoring for survivors — there are more than 1,100 in the Congo alone, and the WHO recommends monitoring for at least two years.”We need to make sure that survivors are not stigmatized” and get the help they need so any relapses are treated quickly, Fall said.
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A joint report by the World Health Organization and China this week concluded it is “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese laboratory, despite the theory receiving renewed attention following the comments of a former top U.S. health official.The long-awaited WHO report released Tuesday said the lab leak theory was the least likely of four scenarios considered by a team of international experts who traveled to Wuhan, China earlier this year to investigate the origin of the coronavirus. The researchers determined that the virus most likely jumped from bats to humans, probably via a third animal that remains unidentified.That conclusion stands in contrast to the comments of Robert Redfield, who headed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Donald Trump. Redfield told CNN last week he believes COVID-19 emerged from a Wuhan lab, though he stressed it was “only an opinion.”Critics — most prominently senior members of the Trump administration but also others — suggest a lab accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have infected an employee, who then spread the virus to the public.No evidence of such an accident has been presented. But the lab leak theory persists, in part because of the absence of a definitive explanation for the emergence of a pandemic that has killed nearly 3 million people worldwide.Investigative prioritiesRedfield’s comments, along with Sunday’s episode of the 60 Minutes television newsmagazine, sparked fresh debate over whether the WHO team should have spent more time investigating the lab, located just a handful of kilometers from the site of the first reported coronavirus outbreak.The WHO team spent only about three hours at the institute, which studies bat coronaviruses. The team had limited access to records, samples, and employees, thanks to restrictions imposed by China. Instead, WHO researchers focused on a Wuhan market that sold wild and other animals, which the report says is the likeliest source of the coronavirus outbreak.Georgetown University virologist Angela Rasmussen, who was on the WHO team, challenges the notion that the group should have focused more on the lab leak theory. That kind of investigation, she insists, was outside the expertise of the WHO team, which was composed of virus experts, epidemiologists, and animal science researchers.“I mean, if the issue is getting to the bottom of a sequence of human events, then you need someone who investigates that,” Rasmussen tells VOA. “People who study viruses aren’t experienced at interviewing people or auditing freezer inventories or lab notebooks, or doing forensic investigations of any sort.”China responseChina, which helped pick the members of the WHO team, has strongly denounced the lab leak hypothesis. Instead, Chinese officials have at times suggested looking outside the country for the origin of the pandemic.But as he unveiled the report this week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged the lab leak theory requires further investigation, “potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy.”Tedros, who was accused by Trump of being too close to China, also expressed relatively blunt criticism of Beijing. He accused China of failing to provide the WHO team full access to raw data on the earliest known COVID-19 cases.Rasmussen agrees with Tedros about the team’s lack of access. “I mean that’s clear,” she says. “I don’t think anyone has said they feel that they had unfettered access to everything they asked for. At the same time, there’s only so much you can do in two weeks.”A follow-up mission seems unlikely anytime soon. China’s top representative on the WHO team, Liang Wannian, said Wednesday that additional probes would only happen “as needed” and are currently “premature.”A tough diplomatic taskBut those conversations belong in the diplomatic, not scientific, realm, insists Rasmussen. She says the WHO trip was always meant to establish the groundwork for further investigations, which must involve working with China.“This will take years in any case,” she says. “And it will take a lot of diplomacy and high-level negotiation to get the kind of access that is needed.”Rapidly deteriorating Chinese ties with the West will likely complicate that mission. Another barrier: anger in some member nations, including the United States, toward the WHO itself.Trump, who called the WHO a “puppet” of China, pulled out of the world body in 2020. Biden rejoined the organization on his first day in office. Polls suggest U.S. voters now view the WHO along partisan lines.That could complicate future global health cooperation, including on the coronavirus pandemic, says Matthew Kavanagh, director for Global Health Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute.“We may not know the true source of the virus for years, if ever,” he says. “In the meantime, we need a stronger, more capable WHO, not one disabled by being caught in great power conflict.”
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The famous pink cherry blossoms of Kyoto reached full bloom this year on March 26, the earliest date in the 12 centuries since records began, according to a Japanese university.The earlier flowering indicates climate change, said Yasuyuki Aono, a professor of environmental science at Osaka Prefectural University, who has compiled a database of records of the full blooms over the centuries.Global temperatures in 2020 were among the highest on record and rivaled 2016 as the hottest year ever, according to international data compiled by the World Meteorological Organization and released in January this year.”As the temperatures rise, the onset of flowering is earlier,” Aono told Reuters in a Zoom interview.Osaka University records include court documents from Imperial Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, as well as medieval diaries.Cherry blossoms have long historical and cultural roots in Japan, heralding spring and inspiring artists and poets through the centuries.In modern times, people gather under the cherry blooms every spring for hanami (blossom-viewing) parties that are often well-lubricated with sake and can last for days.With a state of emergency to curb coronavirus infections lifted across all areas of the country, many people flocked to popular viewing locations last weekend, although the numbers were lower than in normal years.Kyoto, no longer the Japanese capital but a beacon of Japanese culture and manners, has long been famous for its temples and blossoms, which has been a valuable tool for observing long-term changes in mean temperatures.Scientists have often pointed to the earlier flowering times of species such as cherry blossoms as indicators of global warming. The Kyoto record is described in one study as “probably the longest annual record” of biological life cycles from anywhere in the world.
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A team of nine South African students and young professionals won a Cape Town competition to create a zero-carbon home, just ahead of Earth Day on April 22.Experts say the house design, which incorporates solar power, passive cooling, rainwater harvesting and a food garden, could help reduce the nation’s carbon footprint.The first My Clean Green Home — a local building and design competition — challenged designers to build a house that produces no carbon emissions, with a budget of $12,000.Sharne Bloem is the architect for the winning team, Mahali, which means “place” in Swahili.”It’s a good way to bring what we believe, what we studied, to the general public,” Bloem said. ”And actually, to share this with the city of Cape Town and the festival and to educate people more about net-zero carbon buildings.”  The team built the house from recycled steel containers and pallets. Despite the small size — just 70 square meters — the house’s quality surprised members of the public like Louis Farrow, who were invited to view the winning entry.  “Being green is always expensive. So, it can’t be rolled out to everybody. But if this is sustainably, economically viable … [it makes] lots of sense,” Farrow said. Cape Town authorities say buildings consume 38% of the city’s energy and generate 58% of its carbon emissions. They aim to have all new city buildings carbon neutral by 2030.  Mary Haw of Cape Town Sustainable Energy Markets Department says the idea is to inspire people. “People can take elements from this home and bring to their own houses if they can think about what a house might be,” Haw said.  Net zero means emissions are balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.   Georgina Smit of the Green Building Council of South Africa says the concept should not be limited to Cape Town.  “My Clean Green Home project could definitely be applied nationally. It is an example about a project that is net zero. You can go and see it; it’s been built with materials that we already have available and actually it’s possible,” Smit said.  For years, South Africa has suffered rolling power cuts that leave people without electricity for hours at a time. Green building experts say the country’s power problems could, ironically, help drive more South Africans to net-zero buildings. 
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