Despondent, Akon Mathiong points to two small mounds of dirt where she buried her grandsons, 4 and 5 years old, last month. They died after contracting measles in one of the worst-hit areas of South Sudan’s latest outbreak.

“Every time I see the graves I feel like crying,” Mathiong said.

The family said the boys had been vaccinated against the highly infectious disease. Similar infections are prompting questions about whether some vaccines have been compromised in a country largely devastated by conflict.

As South Sudan emerges from a five-year civil war, more than 750 measles cases, including seven deaths, have been reported since January. That’s almost six times the number of cases for all of 2018, according to World Health Organization data.

The increase in measles cases is part of a global one, in part because of misinformation that makes some parents balk at receiving a vaccine. WHO noted a 300% increase in reported measles cases worldwide in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year.

Many in developing countries don’t dispute the vaccine but instead are held back by lack of access. Measles, spread by coughing, sneezing, close contact or infected surfaces, has no specific treatment. Malnourished children and those with weak immune systems can develop severe complications that can lead to death — and malnourishment can reduce how well the vaccine protects them.

Though an emergency vaccination campaign is underway in South Sudan’s 12 affected counties the outbreak is spreading, leading some health officials and residents to doubt the vaccine’s viability in some cases.

“Those kids were vaccinated but they died. It makes me wonder if the vaccine is working,” the boys’ uncle, John Garang Ajak, told The Associated Press during a visit to Kuajok town earlier this month. At least two other vaccinated children in his family contracted measles, he said.

While the AP could not independently verify that the children had been vaccinated, medical workers at Kuajok hospital are seeing some vaccinated children contract measles, said Dr. Garang Nyuol. He has seen more than 10 such cases since January.

To ensure the integrity of the highly effective measles vaccine it must be kept at between 2 degrees Celsius (35 Fahrenheit) and 8 degrees Celsius (46 Fahrenheit). Kuajok hospital, Gogrial state’s main medical facility, administers measles vaccines year-round, yet several staffers said its two generators often shut down for hours, even days, at a time.

“I’m worried about the effectiveness of the vaccine,” Chok Deng, the director general for the state’s ministry of health, told the AP. He said he reached out to the United Nations children’s agency and WHO for help and was told it was being “followed up.”

UNICEF, which provides the majority of vaccines in South Sudan as well as freezers and generators, said the system is designed to be self-sufficient for 16 hours in case of a power failure. The organization conducts regular maintenance and has not “received any messages about generators in Kuajok not running properly,” said Penelope Campbell, chief of health for UNICEF in South Sudan.

Dr. Ujjiga Thomas, WHO’s Kuajok hub coordinator, said that “at no time has the cold chain been compromised when it comes to fuel or spare parts” at the hospital.

During power outages, medical workers at the hospital move the vaccines to small mobile refrigerators, but experts say a constant shift in temperature reduces the vaccines’ strength.

“If we do not respect the storage temperatures, that can compromise the vaccine’s effectiveness,” said Dr. Alhassane Toure, a vaccination expert with WHO.

Maintaining the cold chain is a challenge across South Sudan, especially in remote areas. An internal document in April from the country’s health cluster, comprised of various aid groups, seen by the AP cited a shortage of “qualified cold chain technicians” to address maintenance issues.

A visit to the Kuajok hospital showed the challenges in containing South Sudan’s measles outbreak. Just one nurse is available for 50 patients. The isolation tent is so hot that patients lie on the ground throughout the compound instead, at risk of infecting others.

“It’s concerning, outbreaks are popping up all over the place,” said Natalie Page, health adviser for Medair South Sudan, which recently vaccinated more than 190,000 children in Gogrial state.

Low vaccination rates allow measles to spread quickly, she said. Just 59% of children under 5 in South Sudan have received the measles vaccine, according to the health ministry. Overall immunization rates need to be 90% to 95% or higher to prevent outbreaks. In order for the vaccine to have maximum efficacy, children need to receive two doses.

With the rainy season starting in May, there is concern that reaching remote communities will become more difficult. Meanwhile three to 10 new cases arrive at Kuajok’s hospital daily.

Cradling her weakened 1-year-old, Amel Makir unsuccessfully tried to get him to nurse from her breast. Their village is a three-hour walk from the hospital and has not been reached with vaccinations. Now the boy has measles.

“It’s been six days and he’s not improving,” Makir said. “I’m worried he’ll only get worse.”
…

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Despondent, Akon Mathiong points to two small mounds of dirt where she buried her grandsons, 4 and 5 years old, last month. They died after contracting measles in one of the worst-hit areas of South Sudan’s latest outbreak.

“Every time I see the graves I feel like crying,” Mathiong said.

The family said the boys had been vaccinated against the highly infectious disease. Similar infections are prompting questions about whether some vaccines have been compromised in a country largely devastated by conflict.

As South Sudan emerges from a five-year civil war, more than 750 measles cases, including seven deaths, have been reported since January. That’s almost six times the number of cases for all of 2018, according to World Health Organization data.

The increase in measles cases is part of a global one, in part because of misinformation that makes some parents balk at receiving a vaccine. WHO noted a 300% increase in reported measles cases worldwide in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year.

Many in developing countries don’t dispute the vaccine but instead are held back by lack of access. Measles, spread by coughing, sneezing, close contact or infected surfaces, has no specific treatment. Malnourished children and those with weak immune systems can develop severe complications that can lead to death — and malnourishment can reduce how well the vaccine protects them.

Though an emergency vaccination campaign is underway in South Sudan’s 12 affected counties the outbreak is spreading, leading some health officials and residents to doubt the vaccine’s viability in some cases.

“Those kids were vaccinated but they died. It makes me wonder if the vaccine is working,” the boys’ uncle, John Garang Ajak, told The Associated Press during a visit to Kuajok town earlier this month. At least two other vaccinated children in his family contracted measles, he said.

While the AP could not independently verify that the children had been vaccinated, medical workers at Kuajok hospital are seeing some vaccinated children contract measles, said Dr. Garang Nyuol. He has seen more than 10 such cases since January.

To ensure the integrity of the highly effective measles vaccine it must be kept at between 2 degrees Celsius (35 Fahrenheit) and 8 degrees Celsius (46 Fahrenheit). Kuajok hospital, Gogrial state’s main medical facility, administers measles vaccines year-round, yet several staffers said its two generators often shut down for hours, even days, at a time.

“I’m worried about the effectiveness of the vaccine,” Chok Deng, the director general for the state’s ministry of health, told the AP. He said he reached out to the United Nations children’s agency and WHO for help and was told it was being “followed up.”

UNICEF, which provides the majority of vaccines in South Sudan as well as freezers and generators, said the system is designed to be self-sufficient for 16 hours in case of a power failure. The organization conducts regular maintenance and has not “received any messages about generators in Kuajok not running properly,” said Penelope Campbell, chief of health for UNICEF in South Sudan.

Dr. Ujjiga Thomas, WHO’s Kuajok hub coordinator, said that “at no time has the cold chain been compromised when it comes to fuel or spare parts” at the hospital.

During power outages, medical workers at the hospital move the vaccines to small mobile refrigerators, but experts say a constant shift in temperature reduces the vaccines’ strength.

“If we do not respect the storage temperatures, that can compromise the vaccine’s effectiveness,” said Dr. Alhassane Toure, a vaccination expert with WHO.

Maintaining the cold chain is a challenge across South Sudan, especially in remote areas. An internal document in April from the country’s health cluster, comprised of various aid groups, seen by the AP cited a shortage of “qualified cold chain technicians” to address maintenance issues.

A visit to the Kuajok hospital showed the challenges in containing South Sudan’s measles outbreak. Just one nurse is available for 50 patients. The isolation tent is so hot that patients lie on the ground throughout the compound instead, at risk of infecting others.

“It’s concerning, outbreaks are popping up all over the place,” said Natalie Page, health adviser for Medair South Sudan, which recently vaccinated more than 190,000 children in Gogrial state.

Low vaccination rates allow measles to spread quickly, she said. Just 59% of children under 5 in South Sudan have received the measles vaccine, according to the health ministry. Overall immunization rates need to be 90% to 95% or higher to prevent outbreaks. In order for the vaccine to have maximum efficacy, children need to receive two doses.

With the rainy season starting in May, there is concern that reaching remote communities will become more difficult. Meanwhile three to 10 new cases arrive at Kuajok’s hospital daily.

Cradling her weakened 1-year-old, Amel Makir unsuccessfully tried to get him to nurse from her breast. Their village is a three-hour walk from the hospital and has not been reached with vaccinations. Now the boy has measles.

“It’s been six days and he’s not improving,” Makir said. “I’m worried he’ll only get worse.”
…

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The awesome power of nature remains undefeated. According to researchers in Britain, even moderate storms can move large boulders weighing as much as 10 (metric) tons. As a major storm follows one that recently hit the African country of Mozambique, researchers warn that even large natural barriers may not offer much defense. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The awesome power of nature remains undefeated. According to researchers in Britain, even moderate storms can move large boulders weighing as much as 10 (metric) tons. As a major storm follows one that recently hit the African country of Mozambique, researchers warn that even large natural barriers may not offer much defense. Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

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NASA’s robotic probe InSight has detected and measured what scientists believe to be a “marsquake,” marking the first time a likely seismological tremor has been recorded on another planet, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California reported on Tuesday.

The breakthrough came nearly five months after InSight, the first spacecraft designed specifically to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down on the surface of Mars to begin its two-year seismological mission on the red planet.

The faint rumble characterized by JPL scientists as a likely marsquake, roughly equal to a 2.5 magnitude earthquake, was recorded on April 6 – the lander’s 128th Martian day, or sol.

It was detected by InSight’s French-built seismometer, an instrument sensitive enough to measure a seismic wave just one-half the radius of a hydrogen atom.

“We’ve been collecting background noise up until now, but this first event officially kicks off a new field: Martian seismology,” InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt said in a news release.

Scientists are still examining the data to conclusively determine the precise cause of the signal, but the trembling appeared to have originated from inside the planet, as opposed to being caused by forces above the surface, such as wind.

“The high frequency level and broad band is very similar to what we get from a rupture process. So we are very confident that this is a marsquake,” Philippe Lognonné, a geophysics and planetary science professor at University Paris Diderot in France and lead researcher for InSight’s seismometer, said in an email.

Still, a tremor so faint in Southern California would be virtually lost among the dozens of small seismic crackles that occur there every day.

“Our informed guesswork is that this a very small event that’s relatively close, maybe from 50 to 100 kilometers away” from the lander, Banerdt told Reuters by telephone.

A more distant quake would yield greater information about Mars’ interior because seismic waves would “penetrate deeper into the planet before they come back up to the seismometer,” he said.

No Tectonic Plates

The size and duration of the marsquake also fit the profile of some of the thousands of moonquakes detected on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1977 by seismometers installed there by NASA’s Apollo missions, said Lori Glaze, planetary science division director at NASA headquarters in Washington.

The lunar and Martian surfaces are extremely quiet compared with Earth, which experiences constant low-level seismic noise from oceans and weather as well as quakes that occur along subterranean fault lines created by shifting tectonic plates in the planet’s crust.

Mars and the moon lack tectonic plates. Their seismic activity is instead driven by a cooling and contracting process that causes stress to build up and become strong enough to rupture the crust.

Three other apparent seismic signals were picked up by InSight on March 14, April 10 and April 11 but were even smaller and more ambiguous in origin, leaving scientists less certain

they were actual marsquakes.

Lognonné said he expected InSight to eventually detect quakes 50 to 100 times larger than the April 6 tremor.
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NASA’s robotic probe InSight has detected and measured what scientists believe to be a “marsquake,” marking the first time a likely seismological tremor has been recorded on another planet, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California reported on Tuesday.

The breakthrough came nearly five months after InSight, the first spacecraft designed specifically to study the deep interior of a distant world, touched down on the surface of Mars to begin its two-year seismological mission on the red planet.

The faint rumble characterized by JPL scientists as a likely marsquake, roughly equal to a 2.5 magnitude earthquake, was recorded on April 6 – the lander’s 128th Martian day, or sol.

It was detected by InSight’s French-built seismometer, an instrument sensitive enough to measure a seismic wave just one-half the radius of a hydrogen atom.

“We’ve been collecting background noise up until now, but this first event officially kicks off a new field: Martian seismology,” InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt said in a news release.

Scientists are still examining the data to conclusively determine the precise cause of the signal, but the trembling appeared to have originated from inside the planet, as opposed to being caused by forces above the surface, such as wind.

“The high frequency level and broad band is very similar to what we get from a rupture process. So we are very confident that this is a marsquake,” Philippe Lognonné, a geophysics and planetary science professor at University Paris Diderot in France and lead researcher for InSight’s seismometer, said in an email.

Still, a tremor so faint in Southern California would be virtually lost among the dozens of small seismic crackles that occur there every day.

“Our informed guesswork is that this a very small event that’s relatively close, maybe from 50 to 100 kilometers away” from the lander, Banerdt told Reuters by telephone.

A more distant quake would yield greater information about Mars’ interior because seismic waves would “penetrate deeper into the planet before they come back up to the seismometer,” he said.

No Tectonic Plates

The size and duration of the marsquake also fit the profile of some of the thousands of moonquakes detected on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1977 by seismometers installed there by NASA’s Apollo missions, said Lori Glaze, planetary science division director at NASA headquarters in Washington.

The lunar and Martian surfaces are extremely quiet compared with Earth, which experiences constant low-level seismic noise from oceans and weather as well as quakes that occur along subterranean fault lines created by shifting tectonic plates in the planet’s crust.

Mars and the moon lack tectonic plates. Their seismic activity is instead driven by a cooling and contracting process that causes stress to build up and become strong enough to rupture the crust.

Three other apparent seismic signals were picked up by InSight on March 14, April 10 and April 11 but were even smaller and more ambiguous in origin, leaving scientists less certain

they were actual marsquakes.

Lognonné said he expected InSight to eventually detect quakes 50 to 100 times larger than the April 6 tremor.
…

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Americans are becoming increasingly sedentary, spending almost a third of their waking hours sitting down, and computer use is partly to blame, a new study found.

 

Over almost a decade, average daily sitting time increased by roughly an hour, to about eight hours for U.S. teens and almost 6 1/2 hours for adults, according to the researchers. That includes school and work hours, but leisure-time computer use among all ages increased too.

 

By 2016, at least half of American kids and adults spent an hour or more of leisure time daily using computers. The biggest increase was among the oldest adults: 15 percent of retirement-aged adults reported using computers that often in 2003-04, soaring to more than half in 2015-16.

 

Most Americans of all ages watched TV or videos for at least two hours daily and that was mostly unchanged throughout the study, ranging from about 60 percent of kids aged 5 to 11, up to 84 percent of seniors.

 

“Everything we found is concerning,” said lead author Yin Cao, a researcher at Washington University’s medical school in St. Louis. “The overall message is prolonged sitting is highly prevalent,” despite prominent health warnings about the dangers of being too sedentary.

 

The researchers analyzed U.S. government health surveys from almost 52,000 Americans, starting at age 5, from 2001-2016. Total sitting time was assessed for teens and adults starting in 2007. The results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

 

Studies have shown that prolonged periods of sitting can increase risks for obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers. U.S. activity guidelines released last fall say adults need at least 150 minutes to 300 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity each week, things like brisk walking, jogging, biking or tennis. Muscle strengthening two days weekly is also advised. Immediate benefits include reduced blood pressure and anxiety and better sleep. Long-term benefits include improved brain health and lower risks for falls.

 

Kids aged 6 through 17 need 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily. Regular activity is even recommended for kids as young as 3. But only about 1 in 4 U.S. adults and 1 in 5 teens get recommended amounts.

 

College student Daisy Lawing spends a lot of time sitting, but says she doesn’t have much choice. Classes and homework on the computer take up much of her day.

 

“I always feel bad” about being inactive, she said Tuesday at an Asheville, North Carolina, cafe, explaining that she did a school paper about the benefits of physical activity.

 

“I try to walk a lot, try to work out twice a week. But sometimes I can’t because I’m too busy with school,” Lawing, 21, a junior at Appalachian State University in Boone.

 

Peter T. Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said people who sit all day need to do more than the minimum recommended amount of physical activity to counteract the harms of being sedentary.

 

“We’ve just got to really work on the population to get the message out there. Physical activity is good for everyone,” he said.

 
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The World Health Organization says Malawi has become the first country to begin immunizing children against malaria, using the only licensed vaccine to protect against the mosquito-spread disease.

Although the vaccine only protects about one-third of children who are immunized, those who get the shots are likely to have less severe cases of malaria. The parasitic disease kills about 435,000 people every year, the majority of them children under 5 in Africa.

“It’s an imperfect vaccine but it still has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives,” said Alister Craig, dean of biological sciences at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who was not linked to WHO or to the vaccine. Craig said immunizing the most vulnerable children during peak malaria seasons could spare many thousands of children from falling ill with malaria or even dying.

The vaccine, known as Mosquirix, was developed by GlaxoSmithKline and was approved by the European Medicines Agency in 2015. A previous trial showed the vaccine was about 30% effective in children who got four doses, but that protection waned over time. Reported side effects include pain, fever and convulsions.

WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the new program, noting progress has “stalled and even reversed” in the ongoing fight against malaria. In the coming weeks, WHO said similar vaccination programs would begin in Kenya and Ghana together with other partners and that they aimed to reach about 360,000 children across the three countries. GSK is donating up to 10 million vaccine doses.

Other experts warned the vaccination programs should not divert limited public health funds from inexpensive and proven tools to curb malaria, like bednets and insecticides.

“This is a bold thing to do, but it’s not a silver bullet,” said Thomas Churcher, a malaria expert at Imperial College London. “As long as using the vaccine doesn’t interfere with other efforts, like the urgent new for new insecticides, it is a good thing to do.”

Craig noted one of health officials’ biggest challenges could be convincing parents to bring their children for repeated doses of a vaccine that only protects about a third of children for a limited amount of time.

More commonly used vaccines, like those for polio and measles, work more than 90 percent of the time.

“This malaria vaccine is going to save many lives, even if it is not as good as we would like,” Craig said. “But I hope this will kick-start other research efforts so that the story doesn’t end here.”
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Communist Vietnam is moving to privatize some parts of its health care system, raising questions about the state’s duty to guarantee care for all as a basic right, and about its budget to do so. 

A publicly funded medical school in Ho Chi Minh City said this month it is looking for a private investor to help it build a new training and outpatient center on its campus. The Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine said the idea is for it to handle the clinical operations and training, while a private company would handle the actual construction.

Tapping private funding

“Ho Chi Minh City’s health care needs are critical due to rapid urbanization and a growing population,” said Dr. Ngo Minh Xuan, who is the rector of the Pham Ngoc Thach University of Medicine. “However, we cannot cater to these needs effectively and timely by relying solely on public budget.”

The shift to partially privatize these health services is an ongoing trend as the country of 100 million people turns ever closer to capitalism. More and more international hospitals are popping up and expanding, like Hanh Phuc and the Vietnam Germany Hospital, as the government increasingly opens up the sector to private parties, such as through a trade deal with the European Union that permits higher foreign investment.

A record of health care for all

Since its establishment as a communist nation at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the country has provided universal health care, with most citizens having access to subsidized insurance but also paying out of pocket for some expenses. As public opinion generally supports the idea that all people are entitled to health care, doctors treat their roles as a public service, doing regular rotations from their home base to hospitals in rural areas and other underserved communities. The government also works to improve access in the countryside, through a network of commune health centers that are the first point of contact for patients when they can’t make it to bigger city hospitals. 

Vietnam’s record on health services is part of the reason it ranks relatively well on the Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA), which takes a look at not just how rich a country is, but also how well it translates its riches into creating a good quality of life for the public. Vietnam outperforms the Southeast Asian average on health care in the SEDA index. Between 2009 and 2018, its life expectancy rose from 74.8 years to 75.9 years, while rates of infant mortality, tuberculosis, and undernourishment fell and measles immunization rose.

There are financial strains on the current system 

“Over the last decade, Vietnam made significant improvements, placing it in the first quartile of SEDA score change,” the Boston Consulting Group, which created the index, said in a statement. “In 2018, Vietnam’s wealth to well-being coefficient of 1.28 highlights the country’s well above average ability of converting wealth to well-being.”

Still there are shortcomings in the health care system that are prompting calls for more private sector involvement. It is not uncommon for a patient to pay a bribe to a doctor to request better care, nor for patients to share hospital beds or wait outside buildings on bamboo mats.

There are concerns about affordability for a state that has gotten close to its public debt ceiling of 65 percent of gross domestic product. Amid the strained public budget, Vietnam has undergone a drop in the rate of physicians per 1,000 people and in the relative number of hospital beds available in the past decade, according to the BCG. That is a particular burden for Ho Chi Minh City, the southern business center of as many as 13 million residents, accounting for about a quarter of Vietnam’s overall demand for health care. There are more than 100 hospitals in the city, according to the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

At the same time the country is expected to transition from a lower middle income nation to an upper middle income nation in the next decade or so. 

“This [transition] will make Vietnam a fast-growing market for a wide range of goods and services” — including health care — said Asia Pacific chief economist Rajiv Biswas and principal economist Bernard Aw in a joint report for investment research firm IHS Markit in February.

With medical needs on the rise, Vietnam’s debate about public versus private health care will only deepen in the coming years.
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An animal orphanage in Zimbabwe is one of the organizations leading efforts to ensure poaching and development do not wipe out the wildlife of the southern African nation. 

About half an hour drive southeast of Bulawayo is a special orphanage caring for abandoned and injured animals.

The Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage is home to 25 animal species, some endangered, some rescued from poachers.

Vivian and Paddy Wilson established the orphanage in 1973 and a second generation now runs it. 

Chipangali’s co-director Nicky Wilson explains what motivated her in-laws to begin rescuing wildlife.

​“(When) Chipangali was formed there was only CROW (Centre for Rehabilitation of Wildlife), which was in Durban (South Africa) and Daphne Sheldrick Orphanage in Kenya. There was no other places where you would put animals that wouldn’t survive in the wild,” Wilson said.

Animals are brought to Chipangali after being injured, seized, or orphaned, says Wilson. Some are later released into the wild, and some are not.

“Some birds might have flown into power lines and are missing part of their wings, they won’t be able to be released. We also have baby animals, sometimes if they are reared, they become too tame and assume that every human is friendly, unfortunately that is not the case in our world. So, they will stay here permanently and utilize them for our education,” Wilson said.

​The oldest resident of the orphanage is a crocodile rescued four decades ago from a community angry it was eating their goats and cattle. 

The locals wanted to kill the crocodile, believed to be in its 90s, but at Chipangali it was made part of the education program for visitors.

Wilson shows visiting journalists a display of animal fetuses, removed from mothers that died in poacher’s snares. 

“We are obviously trying to educate mainly locals and anyone who comes visit us here at Chipangali into the importance of Zimbabwe wildlife heritage. Tourists would not come and visit Zimbabwe if it weren’t for the big five: elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard and then rhino. Because without our wildlife, they wouldn’t come to Zimbabwe. So we are trying to tell people to look after our animals,” Wilson said.

Since its creation, Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage has rescued and released numerous animals into the nearby Matobo National Park. 

They include several troops of vervet monkeys and baboons, more than 30 pangolins, five leopards, 20 cheetahs, and various antelopes, small carnivores, and birds of prey.
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The world’s recyclable plastic is being shipped to Asia where it is illegally dumped, buried or burned in the country with the lightest regulations, environmentalists warned on Tuesday calling for greater transparency in the global waste trade.

A report by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Greenpeace East Asia analyzed the top 21 exporters and importers of plastic recyclable waste from 2016 until 2018 – before and after China stopped taking such waste last year.

It found that plastic waste imports into Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam jumped from mid-2017 to early 2018, leading to illegal operations dumping and open-burning, contaminating water supplies, killing crops and causing respiratory illnesses.

“For the first world, it makes them feel good about their waste supposedly being recycled but in reality it ends up in countries that cannot deal with the waste,” said Beau Baconguis, a plastics campaigner at GAIA in Manila.

“So the pollution is heading south to countries that do not have that capacity,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

As pollution and environmental damage linked to the rise in plastic waste became known in countries like Malaysia and Thailand during 2018, protests led to tighter waste regulations and import restrictions by authorities, the study found.

Large volumes of plastic waste then diverted to other countries in the region, like Indonesia and India, where regulations on the waste trade are more lenient, the study said.

“Once one country regulates plastic waste imports, it floods into the next un-regulated destination,” said Kate Lin, a Hong Kong based campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia.

“It’s a predatory system, but it’s also increasingly inefficient,” she said. “Each new iteration shows more and more plastic going off grid – where we can’t see what’s done with it – and that’s unacceptable.”

​​China was the leading importer of plastic waste until it banned imports at the start of 2018 after a string of scandals.

This disrupted the flow of more than 7 million tons of plastic scrap a year, valued at about $3.7 billion.

The top exporters of plastic waste analyzed for the report included the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan.

Members of the Basel Convention, the main global pact regulating the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste, will meet in Geneva from April 29 and decide on a proposal from Norway to create greater transparency in plastic waste trade.

If adopted, any plastic waste exporters would be required to obtain prior approval from an importing country, and give more detailed information on the volume and type of waste.

Greenpeace’s Lin welcomed the proposal but urged consumer goods companies to reduce the single-use plastics they produce.

“It is a good step but definitely not a final solution,” Lin said.
…

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The world’s recyclable plastic is being shipped to Asia where it is illegally dumped, buried or burned in the country with the lightest regulations, environmentalists warned on Tuesday calling for greater transparency in the global waste trade.

A report by Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Greenpeace East Asia analyzed the top 21 exporters and importers of plastic recyclable waste from 2016 until 2018 – before and after China stopped taking such waste last year.

It found that plastic waste imports into Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam jumped from mid-2017 to early 2018, leading to illegal operations dumping and open-burning, contaminating water supplies, killing crops and causing respiratory illnesses.

“For the first world, it makes them feel good about their waste supposedly being recycled but in reality it ends up in countries that cannot deal with the waste,” said Beau Baconguis, a plastics campaigner at GAIA in Manila.

“So the pollution is heading south to countries that do not have that capacity,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

As pollution and environmental damage linked to the rise in plastic waste became known in countries like Malaysia and Thailand during 2018, protests led to tighter waste regulations and import restrictions by authorities, the study found.

Large volumes of plastic waste then diverted to other countries in the region, like Indonesia and India, where regulations on the waste trade are more lenient, the study said.

“Once one country regulates plastic waste imports, it floods into the next un-regulated destination,” said Kate Lin, a Hong Kong based campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia.

“It’s a predatory system, but it’s also increasingly inefficient,” she said. “Each new iteration shows more and more plastic going off grid – where we can’t see what’s done with it – and that’s unacceptable.”

​​China was the leading importer of plastic waste until it banned imports at the start of 2018 after a string of scandals.

This disrupted the flow of more than 7 million tons of plastic scrap a year, valued at about $3.7 billion.

The top exporters of plastic waste analyzed for the report included the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan.

Members of the Basel Convention, the main global pact regulating the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste, will meet in Geneva from April 29 and decide on a proposal from Norway to create greater transparency in plastic waste trade.

If adopted, any plastic waste exporters would be required to obtain prior approval from an importing country, and give more detailed information on the volume and type of waste.

Greenpeace’s Lin welcomed the proposal but urged consumer goods companies to reduce the single-use plastics they produce.

“It is a good step but definitely not a final solution,” Lin said.
…

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A new study shows that many teenagers who use e-cigarettes do not understand the amount of addictive nicotine they are inhaling. 

The study, published in the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40 percent of adolescents who believed they were only using nicotine-free products were actually vaping significant amounts of the substance. 

The research involved 517 adolescents, aged 12 to 21, who were questioned about their use of e-cigarettes, traditional cigarettes and marijuana. 

Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York state compared adolescents’ responses about their use of such substances against urine samples taken from the teenagers. They found that almost all of the respondents were honest about their substance use, however, they discovered the biggest discrepancy in the study came from teens who thought they were using nicotine-free e-cigarettes. 

“Many of our participants were unaware of the nicotine content of the e-cigarette products they were using,” the researchers concluded. 

Pros and cons

The study comes at a time when the popularity of e-cigarettes is on the rise and their use has become a divisive topic in the public health community. 

Advocates for e-cigarettes say the products have the potential to shift lifelong smokers of traditional cigarettes onto less-harmful nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, while critics say that vaping risks bringing a new generation into nicotine addiction. Critics also point out that the health effects from the chemicals in e-cigarettes are not fully known.

E-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is addictive, but they do not contain tar or many of the other substances in traditional cigarettes, which make them deadly. Battery-powered e-cigarettes turn liquid nicotine into an inhalable vapor.

Use among teens

Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a plan to restrict sales of most flavored e-cigarettes at drug stores and gasoline stations in an attempt to keep them out of the hands of young people.

U.S. federal law bans the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18 years of age. But a study published last year found that 1 in 5 high school students report using the devices — an activity known as vaping. 
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A new study shows that many teenagers who use e-cigarettes do not understand the amount of addictive nicotine they are inhaling. 

The study, published in the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40 percent of adolescents who believed they were only using nicotine-free products were actually vaping significant amounts of the substance. 

The research involved 517 adolescents, aged 12 to 21, who were questioned about their use of e-cigarettes, traditional cigarettes and marijuana. 

Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York state compared adolescents’ responses about their use of such substances against urine samples taken from the teenagers. They found that almost all of the respondents were honest about their substance use, however, they discovered the biggest discrepancy in the study came from teens who thought they were using nicotine-free e-cigarettes. 

“Many of our participants were unaware of the nicotine content of the e-cigarette products they were using,” the researchers concluded. 

Pros and cons

The study comes at a time when the popularity of e-cigarettes is on the rise and their use has become a divisive topic in the public health community. 

Advocates for e-cigarettes say the products have the potential to shift lifelong smokers of traditional cigarettes onto less-harmful nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, while critics say that vaping risks bringing a new generation into nicotine addiction. Critics also point out that the health effects from the chemicals in e-cigarettes are not fully known.

E-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is addictive, but they do not contain tar or many of the other substances in traditional cigarettes, which make them deadly. Battery-powered e-cigarettes turn liquid nicotine into an inhalable vapor.

Use among teens

Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a plan to restrict sales of most flavored e-cigarettes at drug stores and gasoline stations in an attempt to keep them out of the hands of young people.

U.S. federal law bans the sale of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18 years of age. But a study published last year found that 1 in 5 high school students report using the devices — an activity known as vaping. 
…

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The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity.

They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers.

But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest.

SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas and Florida, has recently published data from thousands of routine blood tests of its killer whales over two decades, revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of what a healthy whale looks like. The information could guide how and whether scientists intervene to help sick or stranded whales in the wild.

“For us, collecting blood from free-ranging killer whales is exceedingly difficult, so it’s something we would rarely ever do,” said Deborah Fauquier, a veterinary medical officer at the National Marine Fisheries Service. “Having partners that are in the managed-care community that can provide us with blood values from those animals is very useful. It’s giving us a very robust baseline data set that we haven’t had previously for these whales.”

The round-up of killer whales for theme-park display in the 1960s and ’70s was devastating for the Pacific Northwest’s resident orcas: At least 13 were killed and 45 kept to awe and entertain paying crowds around the world, according to the Center for Whale Research on Washington’s San Juan Island. Only one of those orcas survives: Lolita, at the Miami Seaquarium.

​Protecting orcas

Washington state eventually sued SeaWorld to stop the hunts. Today, 17 of SeaWorld’s 20 whales were born in captivity, including some descended from orcas captured near Iceland; the company hasn’t collected a wild orca in more than 40 years. Under public pressure, it ended its captive breeding program and is replacing trained orca shows with what it describes as “more educational experiences where guests can still enjoy and marvel at the majesty and power of the whales.”

It took decades for the so-called southern resident killer whales, which spend several months every summer and fall in the marine waters between Washington state and Canada, to recover from the hunts. By the mid-1990s, their population reached 98. 

Half a century later, the orcas are struggling against different threats: pollution, vessel noise and, most seriously, starvation from a dearth of Chinook salmon, their preferred prey. There are just 75 left, and researchers say they’re on the verge of extinction.

Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed $1.1 billion in spending to help the whales, with much of the money going toward protecting and restoring salmon habitat. The National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, is planning to propose expanded habitat protections this year for the whales’ foraging areas off the Washington, Oregon and California coasts.

SeaWorld has also boosted its efforts to help the southern resident orcas, pledging $10 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Killer Whale Research and Conservation Program.

​SeaWorld research

“Our stance is to do research with our animals to try to help this population now, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Todd Robeck, SeaWorld’s vice president of conservation research. “That’s why I got into what I do — to try to help animals in the wild.”

Robeck is one of the lead authors on the review of SeaWorld’s data, which included results of more than 2,800 blood tests on 32 whales from 1993 to 2013. Data from sick and pregnant whales were excluded to obtain a standard range for blood values, including cholesterol, platelet count, triglycerides and many other metrics. The whales were trained to present the underside of their tails for the blood draws, which were taken once or twice a month.

The results show that most of the values don’t differ much between male and female whales, but they do differ considerably with age and season, Robeck said. The study suggests that orcas lose some immune function as they age.

While there will be some difference between the values for captive and wild whales due to differences in climate, diet and other factors, the research provides a template for understanding the whales, Robeck said. Further, the values may be compared to data from blow samples or fecal samples to provide even greater insight, he said. Among the ongoing research projects at SeaWorld is studying the extent to which toxins that build up in the whales due to pollution are transferred to calves from their mothers.

“It’s something that could only be done with our animals,” Robeck said. “It’s an example of how we are dedicated to participating in the well-being of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest and around the world, and how research with our animals is vital in answering some of these questions about how to address the needs of the animals in the wild.” 
…

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The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity.

They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers.

But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest.

SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas and Florida, has recently published data from thousands of routine blood tests of its killer whales over two decades, revealing the most comprehensive picture yet of what a healthy whale looks like. The information could guide how and whether scientists intervene to help sick or stranded whales in the wild.

“For us, collecting blood from free-ranging killer whales is exceedingly difficult, so it’s something we would rarely ever do,” said Deborah Fauquier, a veterinary medical officer at the National Marine Fisheries Service. “Having partners that are in the managed-care community that can provide us with blood values from those animals is very useful. It’s giving us a very robust baseline data set that we haven’t had previously for these whales.”

The round-up of killer whales for theme-park display in the 1960s and ’70s was devastating for the Pacific Northwest’s resident orcas: At least 13 were killed and 45 kept to awe and entertain paying crowds around the world, according to the Center for Whale Research on Washington’s San Juan Island. Only one of those orcas survives: Lolita, at the Miami Seaquarium.

​Protecting orcas

Washington state eventually sued SeaWorld to stop the hunts. Today, 17 of SeaWorld’s 20 whales were born in captivity, including some descended from orcas captured near Iceland; the company hasn’t collected a wild orca in more than 40 years. Under public pressure, it ended its captive breeding program and is replacing trained orca shows with what it describes as “more educational experiences where guests can still enjoy and marvel at the majesty and power of the whales.”

It took decades for the so-called southern resident killer whales, which spend several months every summer and fall in the marine waters between Washington state and Canada, to recover from the hunts. By the mid-1990s, their population reached 98. 

Half a century later, the orcas are struggling against different threats: pollution, vessel noise and, most seriously, starvation from a dearth of Chinook salmon, their preferred prey. There are just 75 left, and researchers say they’re on the verge of extinction.

Gov. Jay Inslee has proposed $1.1 billion in spending to help the whales, with much of the money going toward protecting and restoring salmon habitat. The National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, is planning to propose expanded habitat protections this year for the whales’ foraging areas off the Washington, Oregon and California coasts.

SeaWorld has also boosted its efforts to help the southern resident orcas, pledging $10 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Killer Whale Research and Conservation Program.

​SeaWorld research

“Our stance is to do research with our animals to try to help this population now, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Todd Robeck, SeaWorld’s vice president of conservation research. “That’s why I got into what I do — to try to help animals in the wild.”

Robeck is one of the lead authors on the review of SeaWorld’s data, which included results of more than 2,800 blood tests on 32 whales from 1993 to 2013. Data from sick and pregnant whales were excluded to obtain a standard range for blood values, including cholesterol, platelet count, triglycerides and many other metrics. The whales were trained to present the underside of their tails for the blood draws, which were taken once or twice a month.

The results show that most of the values don’t differ much between male and female whales, but they do differ considerably with age and season, Robeck said. The study suggests that orcas lose some immune function as they age.

While there will be some difference between the values for captive and wild whales due to differences in climate, diet and other factors, the research provides a template for understanding the whales, Robeck said. Further, the values may be compared to data from blow samples or fecal samples to provide even greater insight, he said. Among the ongoing research projects at SeaWorld is studying the extent to which toxins that build up in the whales due to pollution are transferred to calves from their mothers.

“It’s something that could only be done with our animals,” Robeck said. “It’s an example of how we are dedicated to participating in the well-being of killer whales in the Pacific Northwest and around the world, and how research with our animals is vital in answering some of these questions about how to address the needs of the animals in the wild.” 
…

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Denis Hayes, the man credited with founding Earth Day, predicted 2020 will be a turning point in the global climate change movement.

“I’m confident that the end is in sight. When conditions are right, people are ready to demand change, and America can turn on a dime,” Hayes told reporters Monday during a news conference on Earth Day, which he helped established in 1970.

Hayes said people around the world are demanding change, especially the young, and that makes him optimistic. 

“It recently happened in the United States on gay marriage. It more recently happened in New Zealand on gun control. It happened globally on the ozone hole,” Hayes said.

Tens of thousands of students around the world skipped school for one day last month to protest inaction on climate change. There were protests in South Africa, India, New Zealand and South Korea. In Europe, students packed streets in London, Lisbon, Vienna, Rome and Copenhagen, among other cities. 

Mass climate change protests have been taking place in London for the past week. On Monday, police said they have arrested 1,065 people since Extinction Rebellion began, aimed at paralyzing parts of central London to emphasize the need for sharp reductions in carbon use. 

“Most social movements are powered by youth,” he told reporters.

Hayes said even though U.S. President Donald Trump has “taken a wrecking ball to international climate treaties, appointed the two worst EPA administrators in history, and pledged to resuscitate the dead coal industry, I’m confident that the end is in sight.”
…

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Denis Hayes, the man credited with founding Earth Day, predicted 2020 will be a turning point in the global climate change movement.

“I’m confident that the end is in sight. When conditions are right, people are ready to demand change, and America can turn on a dime,” Hayes told reporters Monday during a news conference on Earth Day, which he helped established in 1970.

Hayes said people around the world are demanding change, especially the young, and that makes him optimistic. 

“It recently happened in the United States on gay marriage. It more recently happened in New Zealand on gun control. It happened globally on the ozone hole,” Hayes said.

Tens of thousands of students around the world skipped school for one day last month to protest inaction on climate change. There were protests in South Africa, India, New Zealand and South Korea. In Europe, students packed streets in London, Lisbon, Vienna, Rome and Copenhagen, among other cities. 

Mass climate change protests have been taking place in London for the past week. On Monday, police said they have arrested 1,065 people since Extinction Rebellion began, aimed at paralyzing parts of central London to emphasize the need for sharp reductions in carbon use. 

“Most social movements are powered by youth,” he told reporters.

Hayes said even though U.S. President Donald Trump has “taken a wrecking ball to international climate treaties, appointed the two worst EPA administrators in history, and pledged to resuscitate the dead coal industry, I’m confident that the end is in sight.”
…

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Fighting to immunize the world has always been a challenging line of work, but in some cases it is becoming increasingly deadly.

As the world marks World Immunization Week humans have much to celebrate. Smallpox has been effectively eradicated from the world, and according to the World Health Organization, more children than ever are getting routine vaccinations every year. And aid workers scouring the globe have come very close to eradicating diseases like diphtheria and polio saving countless lives in the process.

But health workers are also fighting a disturbing trend of misinformation urging people to ignore the science of vaccination. The result has been fear and even violence in some rural areas and lesser developed countries where aid workers are attempting to immunize those most vulnerable, and eradicate the last holdouts of diseases like polio.

Ignorance, fear and violence

In early April a worker in Pakistan was shot outside a family home as he attempted to talk the family into vaccinating their child against polio. And late last year, two aid workers were gunned down as they were on a vaccine drive.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a doctor administering what looks to be a highly effective vaccine against Ebola was attacked and killed last week. Local health centers have become targets of violence because of rumors being spread that the Ebola crisis in the region was concocted by government officials in the capital, Kinshasa.

In the United States, some people oppose vaccinations for religious reasons, while others believe vaccines cause autism or carry debilitating chemicals, which the medical community has said is untrue.

But those who decline to have their children vaccinated are part of the reason for a resurgence of measles cases in the United States. A near-record 626 cases of easily preventable measles have been reported this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this is the second-highest number of measles cases in the U.S. since the disease was effectively eliminated in the country in 2000.

The number of people who refuse to vaccinate their children is growing thanks to an anti-vaccine grassroots movement that shares information on social media platforms.

Rebecca Martin, director of the Center for Global Health (CGH) at the CDC, said she is seeing a rising level of mistrust between government leaders pushing for vaccinations and local populations.

“Ukraine has had an issue with immunization program since about — I want to say 2008,” Martin told VOA. “And in that period again we see that the trust between the government and the population has been questioning the value of the measles vaccine and sometimes other vaccines as well.”

She said trust is one of the most valuable elements in the fight to get vaccination programs back on track in places from Pakistan to the United States.

“… the importance of health care providers working in the community with their constituents with their mothers and fathers to make sure that they talk about the importance of vaccination is critical,” Martin said. “… and that needs to continue every day because it’s not a one time event in order to make sure that vaccines are delivered and save lives.

Information is key

Information is the other key ingredient, she said.

Health care workers need to be armed with “data and information and can be able to talk to their to the mothers and to the fathers or guardians of the children about the importance of vaccination is very critical.”

But Martin remains optimistic despite recent setbacks. She points out that polio is almost gone, “We only have wild polio virus in three countries, Nigeria Afghanistan and Pakistan” and world health workers are in what they call the final push to completely eradicate polio in the wild.

Part of the reason she is so optimistic, she said, is that the solution is so simple, “We will only end these outbreaks if we vaccinate, vaccinate and vaccinate.”
…

your ads here!

Fighting to immunize the world has always been a challenging line of work, but in some cases it is becoming increasingly deadly.

As the world marks World Immunization Week humans have much to celebrate. Smallpox has been effectively eradicated from the world, and according to the World Health Organization, more children than ever are getting routine vaccinations every year. And aid workers scouring the globe have come very close to eradicating diseases like diphtheria and polio saving countless lives in the process.

But health workers are also fighting a disturbing trend of misinformation urging people to ignore the science of vaccination. The result has been fear and even violence in some rural areas and lesser developed countries where aid workers are attempting to immunize those most vulnerable, and eradicate the last holdouts of diseases like polio.

Ignorance, fear and violence

In early April a worker in Pakistan was shot outside a family home as he attempted to talk the family into vaccinating their child against polio. And late last year, two aid workers were gunned down as they were on a vaccine drive.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a doctor administering what looks to be a highly effective vaccine against Ebola was attacked and killed last week. Local health centers have become targets of violence because of rumors being spread that the Ebola crisis in the region was concocted by government officials in the capital, Kinshasa.

In the United States, some people oppose vaccinations for religious reasons, while others believe vaccines cause autism or carry debilitating chemicals, which the medical community has said is untrue.

But those who decline to have their children vaccinated are part of the reason for a resurgence of measles cases in the United States. A near-record 626 cases of easily preventable measles have been reported this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this is the second-highest number of measles cases in the U.S. since the disease was effectively eliminated in the country in 2000.

The number of people who refuse to vaccinate their children is growing thanks to an anti-vaccine grassroots movement that shares information on social media platforms.

Rebecca Martin, director of the Center for Global Health (CGH) at the CDC, said she is seeing a rising level of mistrust between government leaders pushing for vaccinations and local populations.

“Ukraine has had an issue with immunization program since about — I want to say 2008,” Martin told VOA. “And in that period again we see that the trust between the government and the population has been questioning the value of the measles vaccine and sometimes other vaccines as well.”

She said trust is one of the most valuable elements in the fight to get vaccination programs back on track in places from Pakistan to the United States.

“… the importance of health care providers working in the community with their constituents with their mothers and fathers to make sure that they talk about the importance of vaccination is critical,” Martin said. “… and that needs to continue every day because it’s not a one time event in order to make sure that vaccines are delivered and save lives.

Information is key

Information is the other key ingredient, she said.

Health care workers need to be armed with “data and information and can be able to talk to their to the mothers and to the fathers or guardians of the children about the importance of vaccination is very critical.”

But Martin remains optimistic despite recent setbacks. She points out that polio is almost gone, “We only have wild polio virus in three countries, Nigeria Afghanistan and Pakistan” and world health workers are in what they call the final push to completely eradicate polio in the wild.

Part of the reason she is so optimistic, she said, is that the solution is so simple, “We will only end these outbreaks if we vaccinate, vaccinate and vaccinate.”
…

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Measles is a disease that is only found in humans so it could be completely wiped off the face of the earth. But despite a highly effective and safe vaccine, measles is making a comeback. 

In the first three months of this year, the World Health Organization reports that the number of measles cases has tripled over what it was last year.

In Africa, the situation is worse. Africa saw a 700-percent increase compared to last year.

Dr. Anthony Fauci heads the research on infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health. He says in Madagascar, the case is dire.

“Madagascar has almost 1,000 deaths and has tens of thousands of infections,” Fauci said.

The National Institutes of Health warns that a decline in measles vaccination is causing a preventable global resurgence of this often deadly disease, including in the U.S. 

“One in ten children who get infected with measles will get an ear infection that could cause deafness. One-and-twenty would get pneumonia. One in a thousand would get brain swelling, what we call encephalitis, and one to three per thousand would die.To say that measles is a trivial disease is completely incorrect,” Fauci said.

Dr. Walter Orenstein at the Emory University Vaccine Center has spent his life working to end measles. He says the complications are worse in poor countries. 

“You start off with children who are already at greater risk. They may be malnourished. They may have compromised immune systems. They may be underweight and may have no access to health care so measles is a big killer,” Orenstein said.

You have a 90 percent chance of getting measles if you haven’t been vaccinated and you come in contact with someone who has it. Dr. Rebecca Martin, heads the CDC’s center for global health. She is working to rid Africa of measles. 

“It is very infectious. It will find everybody who is not protected against measles,” Martin said.

The solution is to get two doses of the measles vaccine. That may mean educating parents about both the disease and the vaccine. 

Equally important is making vaccination a priority of health systems worldwide.
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Today as we observe World Immunization Week, we’re going to focus on a disease that could be eradicated from the earth, just like smallpox was, and as just as international programs are doing with polio. But instead, as we hear from Carol Pearson, this deadly disease is making a comeback.
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