COVID-19 was first discovered in China, which became the first country to produce a vaccine. Sinovac and Sinopharm are China’s leading vaccine makers, and both manufacture World Health Organization-approved COVID-19 vaccines.  

What’s the difference between the two companies?  

Sinovac is a privately owned company, while Sinopharm is government-run. Scientists at both companies use the same method to make both vaccines.  

How are the vaccines made? 

Dr. Andrea Cox, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with a special interest in immunization, has provided expert advice to VOA about COVID-19 vaccines. Cox told VOA that scientists take a type of bacteria — or in this case, a virus — and inactivate or kill it. They then inject it into people. Because the virus is dead, it can’t infect anyone. Then, if a vaccinated person is exposed to the live virus, that person’s body recognizes it and fights it off.  

Are these vaccines effective?  

According to Cox, the Chinese vaccines are not as effective as the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, so they aren’t the preferred jabs in countries that have access to the others. The  hnsays the Sinovac vaccine is about 50% effective, while Sinopharm’s effectiveness is higher, at 78%, WHO reported. Two doses are needed for both vaccines. 

Vaccines are often mixed with an adjuvant, a harmless ingredient such as aluminum salts or a bubble of fat, to make them more effective. On its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “aluminum is one of the most common metals found in nature and is present in air, food, and water,” so it’s not a foreign or dangerous ingredient, although anti-vax groups claim it is. For example, Sinovac uses aluminum hydroxide, an ingredient also used to treat an upset stomach. Sinopharm also uses an adjuvant in its vaccine. 

Do the vaccines have advantages?  

The Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have a major advantage over other COVID-19 vaccines: They are easy to store and need only normal refrigeration. That’s a huge plus in getting a COVID-19 vaccine to people in areas where there is little or no refrigeration. 

“In an ideal world,” Cox said, “we wouldn’t need them. But at this point, we need a way to get the world vaccinated as rapidly and effectively as possible, and it may require a use of vaccines that we know are not as good but are better than not being vaccinated.” 

What will end the pandemic? 

WHO says safe and effective vaccines are a game-changing tool, but for now and the foreseeable future, it recommends continued mask wearing, frequent hand-washing, good indoor ventilation, physical distancing, avoiding crowds and, above all, getting vaccinated when you can with whatever vaccine is available.  

“Having the world’s best scientists — and I do really mean the world’s best scientists — thinking about how to make effective vaccines and deliver them to a global population is critical,” Cox said. “And the more data we get on these vaccines, the more we will be able to select out vaccines that do protect the largest number of the world’s population.” 

As WHO says: “It’s not vaccines that will stop the pandemic, it’s vaccination.”
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The disfiguring disease noma, found mainly in poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa that lack health care, kills 90% of victims, most of them children, when left untreated. Noma is preventable, and to that end, aid groups are urging the World Health Organization to add Noma to its list of neglected tropical diseases.

Eight-year-old Amadou Compaore recently recovered from noma, a little-known tropical disease.

Although noma has scarred his face, Compaore, relatively speaking, is one of the lucky ones. If noma is diagnosed within the first few weeks of infection, it is easily treatable with a course of antibiotics.

His father, Sibiri Compaore, told VOA, he noticed the disease in the run-up to Christmas. To begin with, Amadou said his mouth ached to the point where he couldn’t eat anymore. He even had great difficulty drinking sachets of water.

Compaore senior took his son to the nearest city, Kaya, about 25 kilometers away, where medical staff were able to identify the disease thanks to awareness building by the Swiss non-governmental organization Sentinelles.

Sidi Omar Boena is a nurse at a Sentinelles medical center in Ouagadougou, specializing in the treatment of noma.

He says most health workers in Burkina Faso have not heard of the disease noma and that diagnosing it in people 400 to 500 kilometers from Ouagadougou is very difficult.

He says that he is sometimes forced to diagnose noma with photos sent to him via WhatsApp.

Odette Serene, who also suffered from noma, now receives regular follow-up treatment at the Sentinelles clinic, including support in finding a job.

She now works as a tailor, but she says people still laugh at her, which makes her sad. She says Boena has done a lot to take care of her, however.

Noma is just one of many illnesses currently missing from the World Health Organization’s list of neglected tropical diseases.

Doctors Without Borders, a medical NGO, is running a campaign to have noma added to the WHO list, which already includes diseases like rabies and dengue fever.

“Of course, at the community level, there is discrimination affecting the patients, and so every time there is a case, we might not even be aware because patients are hidden by the communities or they are dying. More than 90% of people are estimated to die,” Jeantet said.

The WHO says when it adds diseases to the list, factors like social stigma and death rates are taken into consideration. The WHO says resources are limited, so some diseases have to be left off.

WHO press officer Ashok Moloo explains the effect of adding a disease to the list.

“It really brings the disease or the condition to another level … It also adds to the advocacy part of the disease, awareness creation and also resources,” Moloo points out.

As for Amadou Compaore, he says what the doctors have done to help him has been an inspiration. He told VOA he wants to become a doctor, to treat people so that they can be cured, like him.

The WHO plans to make possible new additions to its neglected tropical disease list in 2023. It remains to be seen if noma will be among them. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday he is encouraged by data released by Pfizer Inc on its COVID-19 anti-viral medicine and his administration has ordered enough of the pills to treat 10 million Americans.

“Getting vaccinated and getting your booster shot remain the most important tools we have to save lives. But if this treatment is indeed authorized “and once the pills are widely available” it will mark a significant step forward in our path out of the pandemic,” Biden said in a statement.
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A new study out of South Africa shows that Pfizer’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine provides a high degree of protection against hospitalization from the fast-spreading omicron variant.

The real-world study, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council and Discovery Health, the country’s largest private health insurance administrator, was based on more than 211,000 positive COVID-19 test results between November 15 to December 7, with about 78,000 believed to be caused by omicron.

The study concluded that while the vaccine offered only a 33% rate of protection against an overall infection, it provided 70% protection against hospitalization. It also concludes that while there was a higher risk of reinfection during this current surge, the risk of hospitalization among adults was 29% lower than during the initial wave. Pfizer developed the vaccine in collaboration with German-based BioNTech.

South Africa is experiencing a dramatic surge in new daily COVID-19 cases driven by omicron, which was first announced by the country in November.

In a related development, Pfizer announced Tuesday that a new study of its experimental COVID-19 antiviral pill confirms it is highly effective in preventing severe disease among high-risk adults that could lead to hospitalizations and deaths, even against the omicron variant.

The company says it found that the drug, dubbed Paxlovid, reduced the risk of hospitalization and death by 89% if given within three days of the onset of COVID-19 symptoms, and as much 88% if administered within five days.

Pfizer has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize use of Paxlovid based on results from a preliminary study.

The FDA is expected to announce soon whether to grant permission for doctors to use Paxlovid and a competing drug, molnupiravir, developed by Merck. Merck said last month a clinical trial revealed molnupiravir reduced hospitalizations and deaths by only 30% among high-risk adults.

The new developments come as health authorities around the world are warning that omicron could soon surpass delta as the most dominant variant of the coronavirus.

Denmark says omicron will trigger 10,000 new infections by the end of the week, compared to the current rate of 6,000 cases driven entirely by delta. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health also warned Monday that omicron “will soon dominate,” with new infections rising from 4,700 daily cases to a record 90,000 to 300,000 daily cases.

The new warnings come just days after the World Health Organization warned that omicron poses a “very high” global risk because its mutations may lead to higher transmission. The U.N. health agency said while the current vaccines are less effective against omicron, early data shows it causes less severe symptoms than other variants.

Meanwhile, China is reporting its second case of omicron infection on its mainland. A 67-year-old man tested positive Monday, two weeks after arriving in Shanghai from overseas. Authorities say the man repeatedly tested negative during his mandatory two-week hotel quarantine before flying to the southern city of Guangzhou, where he was spending another week in self-isolation at his residence. He tested positive for the new variant after researchers conducted genome sequencing.

The first case of omicron on mainland China was a person in the northern port city of Tianjin who tested positive for the new variant after arriving from overseas on December 9. The individual, who was shown to be asymptomatic, is now quarantined and undergoing treatment in a hospital.

The first cases of omicron on mainland China come two years after COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, was first detected in the central city of Wuhan. China has since imposed a “zero-tolerance” strategy, including mass testing, snap lockdowns and extensive quarantines, as a means to prevent any further outbreaks.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Benin has adopted a new law legalizing abortion in most cases, one of the few African countries to do so. A conservative country, the law was passed by parliament to prevent a wave of clandestine abortions that have resulted in deaths. Kouam Joel Honoré has this report from Cotonou.
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In a major victory for sexual minority advocates, Canada last week banned conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The law makes it a crime to subject anyone in Canada to conversion therapy, profit from the practice or take a Canadian outside the country to undergo conversion therapy elsewhere.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to hail the ban of what he called “a despicable and degrading practice.”

University of Ottawa student Jonathan Di Carlo calls himself a conversion therapy survivor, having undergone sessions “primarily in religious settings” for more than a decade starting at age 13.

“They included attempted demon exorcisms in front of people, forced one-on-one counseling where a pastor with no formal psychotherapy training convinced me that homosexuality was caused by an absentee father or that it was caused by being raped at a young age by someone of the same sex such as a father or uncle,” Di Carlo told VOA. “Then I was told to ‘fast,’ a biblical practice where a person doesn’t eat or drink except for water. … I did 40 days [of consuming] only water, twice.”

Conversion therapy has been rejected by an array of Western medical groups, including the American Medical Association, which linked the practice to “significant long-term harm” including depression, anxiety and possibly suicidal behaviors.

Last year, a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council found that conversion therapy is practiced in 68 countries and that victims may be subjected to “heinous physical and psychological violence.” The report added, “Attempts to pathologize and erase the identity of individuals, negate their existence as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse and provoke self-loathing have profound consequences on their physical and psychological integrity and well-being.”

Di Carlo says he knows the consequences firsthand.

“The torture of conversion therapy only made me more depressed with a lot of thoughts of suicide,” Di Carlo told VOA. “I self-medicated with alcohol for several years under the pressure of wanting to be straight but God not making me straight.”

Today, the student wells with a different emotion: pride.

“I think the fact that Canada made this move makes the nation stand out,” Di Carlo said. “It says that we have an approach to human rights that few other longstanding democracies have. It says that Canada acknowledges that this practice has no basis in science. It is criminal and it is torture.”

Canada is already seen as a popular destination for LGTBQ individuals persecuted around the world, hosting a charity aimed at encouraging this migration named the Rainbow Railroad.

LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, questioning. In Canada, “2” is often added to the end of the initials, recognizing some Indigenous people who identify as having both a masculine and feminine spirit.

Some Canadian faith-based groups argued against the ban on the basis of religious freedom. Additionally, an opinion piece appearing in The Globe and Mail newspaper framed the issue as a matter of personal liberty, asking, “should consenting adults be allowed to access services that are harmful to them?”

Canada joins four countries that have legally banned conversion therapy on a national level: Brazil, Ecuador, Germany and Malta. Germany bans the practice for minors or the coerced. It is banned in some U.S. states but not others.

Some worry that, even where it is banned, conversion therapy will continue.

Sexual minority rights advocate Fae Johnstone of Halifax-based Wisdom2Action worries that Canada’s ban won’t “fully eradicate the practice.”

Johnstone noted, “A lot of practitioners don’t describe themselves as conversion therapists.” She added that conversion therapy likely will continue as an underground practice.

For now, however, ban supporters are taking a victory lap.

“Survivors have been fighting for this day for decades, so seeing that advocacy, that struggle and that resilience finally payoff is overwhelming in the best way,” Nicholas Schiavo, founder of No Conversion Canada, told VOA. “This legislation sends a clear message to LGBTQ2 people both here in Canada and around the world that Canada remains a human rights leader and will step up to protect the most vulnerable in our communities.” 

 
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The World Health Organization and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a leading cancer center in the United States, are planning to provide cancer medication free-of-charge to children in developing countries.

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, killing about 10 million people a year.  The World Health Organization estimates 400,000 children globally develop cancer every year, with nearly 100,000 dying.

The most common types of childhood cancers include leukemias, brain cancers, lymphomas, and solid tumors.  WHO reports nearly nine in 10 children with cancer live in low-and-middle income countries.

Andre Ilbawi, who heads WHO’s cancer division in the department of noncommunicable diseases,  said about 80 percent of children who have cancer in high-income countries survive  — a major achievement and improvement over the past decades.

“But that progress has not been achieved for children who are living in low-and middle-income countries, where 30 percent or less will survive a cancer diagnosis,” he said.  “One of the primary reasons is because of care that is simply not available or accessible, and medicines are a core part of the treatment of childhood cancer.”

WHO and St. Jude’s hospital have formed a partnership to change this situation, establishing a platform that will dramatically increase access to childhood cancer medicines around the world.

To kickstart this program, St. Jude is making a six-year investment by contributing $200 million.  Ilbawi said the money initially will provide medicines at no cost to 12 countries that will take part in a two-year pilot program, with governments involved in the care of the children and in selecting the medicines that are needed.

“From there we will work with country partners to make sure those medicines are delivered safely and effectively to the children in need,” Ilbawi said.  Over time, this will increase to 50 countries or more within six years.  This means that almost every child around the world, particularly those in low-and middle-income countries, will benefit from this platform.”

The new platform aims to provide safe and effective cancer medicines to approximately 120,000 children between 2022 and 2027.  The health partners say the program will be scaled up to include many more beneficiaries in future years.
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The Western U.S. is bracing for the brunt of a major winter storm expected to hit Monday, bringing travel headaches, the threat of localized flooding and some relief in an abnormally warm fall. 

Light rain and snow fell in Northern California on Sunday, giving residents a taste of what’s to come. The multi-day storm could drop more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) of snow on the highest peaks and drench other parts of California as it pushes south and east before moving out midweek. 

“This is a pretty widespread event,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Anna Wanless in Sacramento. “Most of California, if not all, will see some sort of rain and snow.” 

The precipitation will bring at least temporary relief to the broader region that’s been gripped by drought caused by climate change. The latest U.S. drought monitor shows parts of Montana, Oregon, California, Nevada and Utah in exceptional drought, which is the worst category. 

Most reservoirs that deliver water to states, cities, tribes, farmers and utilities rely on melted snow in the springtime. 

The storm this week is typical for this time of the year but notable because it’s the first big snow that is expected to significantly affect travel with ice and snow on the roads, strong wind and limited visibility, Wanless said. Drivers on some mountainous passes on Sunday had to wrap their tires in chains. 

Officials urged people to delay travel and stay indoors. Rain could cause minor flooding and rockslides, especially in areas that have been scarred by wildfires, according to the forecast. The San Bernardino County sheriff’s department issued evacuation warnings for several areas, citing the potential for flooding. Los Angeles County fire officials urged residents to be aware of the potential for mud flows. 

Forecasters also said strong winds accompanying the storm could lead to power outages. Karly Hernandez, a spokesperson for Pacific Gas & Electric, said the utility that covers much of California didn’t have any major outages on Sunday. Crews and equipment are staged across the state to respond quickly if the power goes out, Hernandez said. 

Rain fell intermittently across California on Sunday. Andy Naja-Riese, chief executive of the Agricultural Institute of Marin, said farmers markets carried on as usual in San Rafael and San Francisco amid light wind. 

The markets are especially busy this time of year with farmers making jellies, jams and sauces for the holidays, he said. And, he said, rain always is needed in a parched state. 

“In many ways, it really is a blessing,” Naja-Riese said. 

Lichen Crommett, manager of the San Lorenzo Garden Center in Santa Cruz, California, said customers weren’t deterred by a light sprinkling of rain Sunday morning. 

“It’s not like raincoat worthy just yet, but any second it could change,” she said. 

A second storm predicted to hit California midweek could deliver almost continuous snow, said Edan Weishahn of the weather service in Reno, which monitors an area straddling the Nevada state line. Donner Summit, one of the highest points on Interstate 80 and a major commerce commuter route, could have major travel disruptions or road closures, Weishahn said. 

The weather follows a calm November that was unseasonably warm. 

“With this storm coming in, it’s going to be a wakeup call to a lot of folks,” Weishahn said. 

Vail Resorts’ three Tahoe-area ski resorts opened with limited offerings over the weekend after crews worked to produce artificial snow. Spokeswoman Sara Roston said the resorts are looking forward to more of the real thing. 

“We will assess once the storm comes in, but we do expect to open additional terrain following,” she wrote in an email. 

Meanwhile, the Sierra Avalanche Center warned heavy snow and strong winds on top of a weak snowpack could cause large and destructive avalanches. One man died Saturday at a ski resort in the Pacific Northwest when he was caught in an avalanche that temporarily buried five others. 
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The top U.S. infectious disease expert on Sunday urged eligible Americans to get booster coronavirus vaccinations to give them the best protection against the new omicron variant.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told ABC’s “This Week” show that omicron can evade the protection provided by the three vaccines available in the United States. Nearly 202 million Americans are considered fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but only 53.8 million of them have received booster shots.

“If you want to be optimally protected, absolutely get a booster,” he said.

“The somewhat encouraging news is that preliminary data show that when you get a booster… it raises the level of protection high enough that it then does do well against the omicron,” Fauci said.

Health experts say that early anecdotal evidence shows that those who contract the omicron variant experience a mild illness, but its long-term effects are unknown. 

Omicron is highly transmissible, but the delta variant is still driving a sharp increase in the number of new cases in the U.S. The U.S. is now adding another 118,000 cases a day, a 42% increase in the last two weeks, but so far there are only 140 reported omicron cases. 

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus now stands at nearly 794,000, more than in any other country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

Fauci said 60 million eligible Americans have not been vaccinated and that about 100 million are eligible for boosters.
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More than 400 million South Asian children have been affected by school closures extending into a second year in some countries during the COVID-19 pandemic according to a new UNICEF report.

The United Nations agency has urged the region’s countries to fully reopen schools, warning that the consequences of lost learning are huge and will be long-lasting in a region where access to remote learning is limited.

“The remarkable achievements our region has made in advancing child rights over recent decades are now at risk,” said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF regional director for South Asia.

“If we fail to act, the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be felt for decades to come,” he said.

School closures in South Asia have lasted longer than in many other parts of the world with schools remaining fully closed on an average for nearly 32 weeks between March 2020 and August this year, according to the report.

In Bangladesh, schools were shut for 18 months, until September, one of the longest closures in the world. In countries such as India and Nepal they have only partially reopened.

The transition to remote learning has been difficult in a region where many houses do not have internet connectivity and where access to smartphones is limited – an earlier study showed that in India for example nearly half of the students between ages 6 and 13 reported not using any type of remote learning during school closures.

Many teachers also found they lacked the training to make remote learning work effectively, according to UNICEF.

The loss of learning happened in a region where many children were already lagging.

Citing examples, the report said that one study in India showed that the proportion of third grade children who could read a first grade level text fell from around 42% in 2018 to 24% in 2020.

It said girls were at a particular disadvantage because they had more limited access to mobile devices and were under increased pressure to perform domestic work.

There have been some successes – in Sri Lanka and Bhutan the distribution of published material to continue out-of-school learning helped children keep up with their studies.

UNICEF has called on countries to prioritize helping students catch up on the learning they have missed, pointing out that South Asia is home to more adolescents than any other part of the world and will need 21st century skills to gain a foothold in a region where jobs remain scarce.

The report also flagged concerns about the disruption of health services such as regular immunization drives due to the pandemic. It said that key actions are needed to “reverse the alarming rollback in child health and nutrition.”

The report said that the picture in South Asia remains bleak compared to developed countries, where more people are immunized, and economies are recovering.

Only 30% of South Asians are fully vaccinated, the report said, “and as the region braces itself for future waves of the virus, more children and families are slipping into poverty.” 
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Six years ago today, nearly 200 nations signed the Paris Climate Accord, where they agreed to keep the rise in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Scientists say that threshold is an absolute minimum to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“Our fragile planet is hanging by a thread,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe.”

As he wound up the recent COP26 in Glasgow, Guterres had that harsh warning for the 200 countries who had gathered to talk climate change — and how to slow it down.

Hanging over the summit was the deadline of 2030 for a drastic reduction of greenhouse emissions that was set six years ago at COP21 in Paris.

Former executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Convention, Christiana Figueres, remembers it as a historic event.

“It was a real breakthrough for the United Nations to have a completely unanimous, legally binding pathway for decarbonizing the global economy,” Figueres said.

Secretary of state at the time, John Kerry signed that agreement for the U.S.

“It really was an exciting moment when 195,196 countries come together simultaneously, all wanting to move in the same direction, understanding the stakes,” Kerry said. 

2015 was the hottest year on record. Scientists pointed to that as sure proof that global warming was real and serious.

But that record keeps on getting broken as the planet gets hotter year by year.

The World Meteorological Organization says the planet has been propelled into uncharted territory, with rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and “relentless” extreme weather events.

The WMO warns that “extreme” weather is the new normal.

Nonetheless, both Figueres and Kerry remain optimistic.

“We are moving in the right direction,” Figueres said. “The question is the timing, and I do feel that everyone came out of Glasgow with a renewed sense of timing.”

Kerry is now President Biden’s special envoy for climate.

He was back in Paris this week as part of a whistle stop tour of Europe to reassure leaders the U.S. is back in the game, after former President Donald Trump shut the door on climate issues.

“No one country can save this. Everybody has to act,” said Kerry.

That was also perhaps the main takeaway from the Glasgow summit — as developing nations pleaded with their richer neighbors not to be complacent with what has been achieved, but to keep pushing hard to meet that 2030 deadline, to save the planet.
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