JOHANNESBURG — Thethiwe Mahlangu woke early on a chilly morning and walked through her busy South African township, where minibuses hooted to pick up commuters and smoke from sidewalk breakfast stalls hung in the air.

Her eyes had been troubling her. But instead of going to her nearby health clinic, Mahlangu was headed to the train station for an unusual form of care.

A passenger train known as Phelophepa — or “good, clean, health” in the Sesotho language — had been transformed into a mobile health facility. It circulates throughout South Africa for much of the year, providing medical attention to the sick, young and old who often struggle to receive the care they need at crowded local clinics.

For the past 30 years — ever since South Africa’s break with the former racist system of apartheid — the train has carried doctors, nurses and optometrists on an annual journey that touches even the most rural villages, delivering primary health care to about 375,000 people a year.

The free care it delivers is in contrast to South Africa’s overstretched public health care system on which about 84% of people rely.

Health care reflects the deep inequality of the country at large. Just 16% of South Africans are covered by health insurance plans that are beyond the financial reach of many in a nation with unemployment of over 32%.

Earlier this year, the government began to address that gap. President Cyril Ramaphosa in May signed into law the National Health Insurance Act, which aims to provide funding so that millions of South Africans without health insurance can receive care from the better-provisioned private sector.

But the law has been divisive. The government has not said how much it will cost and where the money will come from. Economists say the government will have to raise taxes. Critics say the country can’t afford it and warn that the system — yet to be implemented — will be open to abuse by corrupt officials and businessmen. They say the government should fix the public health care system instead.

For Mahlangu and others who look to the train for a rare source of free treatment, the situation at local health clinics is one of despair.

Long lines, shortages of medicines and rude nurses are some of the challenges at the clinics that cater for thousands of patients a day in Tembisa, east of Johannesburg.

“There we are not treated well,” Mahlangu said. “We are made to sit in the sun for long periods. You can sit there from 7 a.m. until around 4 p.m. when the clinic closes. When you ask, they say we must go ask the president to build us a bigger hospital.”

The health train has grown from a single three-carriage operation over the years to two 16-carriage trains. They are run by the Transnet Foundation, a social responsibility arm of Transnet, the state-owned railway company.

When the train began in 1994, many Black people in South Africa still lived in rural villages with little access to health facilities. It was a period of change in the country. The train began as an eye clinic, but it soon became clear that needs were greater than that.

Now both trains address the booming population of South Africa’s capital of Pretoria and nearby Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub. One would spend two weeks in Tembisa alone.

“The major metros are really struggling,” said Shemona Kendiah, the train’s manager.

But the traveling clinic is far from the solution to South Africa’s health care problems.

Public health expert Alex van den Heever said there have been substantial increases in the health care budget and the public sector employment of nurses and doctors since the country’s first democratic government in 1994. The health department’s budget in Gauteng province, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg, has grown from 6 billion rand ($336 million) in 2000 to 65 billion ($3.6 billion) rand now.

But van den Heever accused the African National Congress, the ruling party since the end of apartheid, of allowing widespread corruption to undermine the public sector, including the health care system.

“This has led to a rapid deterioration of performance,” he said.

For South Africans who have witnessed the decline firsthand, it can be a relief when the health train pulls into town.

Mahlangu — with her new pair of glasses — was among hundreds who walked away satisfied with its services and already longing for the train’s return next year.

Another patient, Jane Mabuza, got a full health checkup along with dental services. She said she hoped the train would reach many other people.

“Here on the train, you never hear that anything has been finished,” she said.
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Geneva, Switzerland — Limited capacity is keeping mpox testing coverage low in the DR Congo — the epicenter of the international emergency — the World Health Organization said Saturday in its latest situation report. 

“Testing coverage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains low, due to limited testing capacity,” the United Nations health agency said in its update. 

It said the mpox case fatality ratio in the DRC in 2024 was 0.5% among confirmed cases — or 25 deaths from 5,160 cases — and 3.3% among suspected cases, both tested and untested — or 717 deaths among 21,835 cases. 

“Due to limited access to laboratory testing in remote areas, only about 40% of all suspected cases have been tested in 2024 (up from 9% in 2023), and among these, around 55% tested positive,” the WHO said. 

It said the three countries reporting the most suspected cases in the year up to September 8 were the DRC, followed by Burundi (1,489 suspected cases, no deaths), and Nigeria (935 suspected cases, no deaths). 

There are two clades of mpox, each with a and b subclades. 

The WHO said the clades and their subclades were circulating in different geographic areas and were affecting different populations — and therefore needed “tailored and locally adapted outbreak responses.” 

The WHO declared an international emergency over mpox on August 14, concerned by the surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries. 

In the DRC, Clade 1b has been detected chiefly in the eastern South Kivu and North Kivu provinces, with additional cases in the Kinshasa capital province. 

Current sequencing capacity in the DRC “is limited, and clade distribution might be broader than what is currently known” the WHO said. 

Clade 1b has also been detected in the DRC’s eastern neighbors Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, plus Kenya. Additionally, a single case has been detected in Sweden and another in Thailand. 

Looking at global vaccine availability, the WHO said more than 3.6 million doses had been pledged for the global response, including more than 620,000 doses of the MVA-BN vaccine by European countries, the United States and manufacturer Bavarian Nordic. 

Meanwhile Japan has pledged 3 million doses of the LC16 vaccine. 

To date, 265,000 MVA-BN doses have been delivered to Kinshasa, while 10,000 have gone to Nigeria. 
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brasilia — In a visit to see the damage caused by drought and fire in the Amazon, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to pave a road that environmentalists and some in his own government say threatens to vastly increase destruction of the world’s largest tropical forest — and contribute to climate change. 

The BR-319 roadway is a mostly dirt road through the rainforest that connects the states of Amazonas and Roraima to the rest of the country. It ends in Manaus, the Amazon’s largest city with over 2 million people, and runs parallel to the Madeira River, a major tributary of the Amazon River. The Madeira is at its lowest recorded level, disrupting cargo navigation, with most of its riverbed now endless sand dunes under a sky thick with smoke. 

“We are aware that, while the river was navigable and full, the highway didn’t have the importance it has now, while the Madeira River was alive. We can’t leave two capitals isolated. But we will do it with the utmost responsibility,” Lula said Tuesday during a visit to an Indigenous community in Manaquiri, in Amazonas state. He didn’t specify what steps the government would take to try to prevent deforestation from increasing after paving. 

Hours later, he oversaw the signing of a contract to pave 52 kilometers (32 miles) of the road, and promised to begin work before his term ends in 2026 on the most controversial section of the road — a 400-kilometer (249-mile) stretch through old-growth forest. 

A permit for the longer stretch was issued under Lula’s far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who favored development in the Amazon and weakened environmental protections. In July, a federal court suspended the permit in a lawsuit brought by the Climate Observatory, a network of 119 environmental, civil society and academic groups. 

Lula’s government had appealed the suspension, but it wasn’t until his visit on Tuesday that Lula made clear his plan to move ahead with paving. The Climate Observatory lamented the move. 

“Without the forest, there is no water, it’s interconnected,” said Suely Araujo, a public policy coordinator with the group. “The paving of the middle section of BR-319, without ensuring environmental governance and the presence of the government in the region, will lead to historic deforestation, as pointed out by many specialists and by Brazil’s federal environmental agency in the licensing process.” 

Lula has sought to portray himself as an environmental protector, and deforestation has slowed significantly since he took over for Bolsonaro. But he has also struck out at times against pressure from richer nations on preserving the Amazon, an invaluable resource for the planet in storing the carbon driving atmospheric warming, and did so again on Tuesday. 

“The world that buys our food is demanding that we preserve the Amazon,” he said. “And why? Because they want us to take care of the air they breathe. They didn’t preserve their own lands in the last century during the Industrial Revolution.” 

Brazil is enduring its worst drought ever recorded, with 59% of the country under stress — an area about half the size of the U.S. In the Amazon, rivers’ low levels have stranded hundreds of riverine communities, with shortage of potable water and food. Lula announced a wide distribution of water filters and other measures during his visit to the region. 

Meanwhile, most of Brazil has been under a thick layer of smoke from wildfires in the Amazon, affecting millions of people in faraway cities such as Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Curitiba and reaching as far south as Argentina and Paraguay. At Lula’s event, Environment Minister Marina Silva blamed the extreme drought brought by climate change for the widespread fires in a rainforest usually resistant to fire, calling it “a phenomenon we don’t even know how to handle.” 

Silva has been more cautious than Lula about paving the roadway. At a congressional hearing earlier, she called the Bolsonaro era’s permit a “sham” and praised the judicial ruling that suspended it. 

Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing nearly 3% of global emissions, according to Climate Watch, an online platform managed by the World Resources Institute. Almost half these emissions stem from destruction of trees in the Amazon rainforest. 
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A billionaire stepped out for the first private spacewalk Thursday, teaming up with SpaceX on the daring endeavor hundreds of kilometers above Earth. 

Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman and his crew waited until their capsule was depressurized before popping open the hatch. Isaacman emerged first, joining a small elite group of spacewalkers who until now had included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries. 

“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world,” said Isaacman. 

The commercial spacewalk was the main focus of the five-day flight financed by Isaacman and Elon Musk’s company, and the culmination of years of development geared toward settling Mars and other planets. 

All four on board donned SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits to protect themselves from the harsh vacuum. They launched on Tuesday from Florida, rocketing farther from Earth than anyone since NASA’s moonwalkers. The orbit was reduced by half — 740 kilometers — for the spacewalk. 

This first spacewalking test, expected to last about two hours, involved more stretching than walking. The plan called for Isaacman to keep a hand or foot attached to it the whole time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the new spacesuit would hold up. The hatch sported a walker-like structure for extra support. 

After about 15 minutes outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions. 

Each had 3.6-meter tethers but no intention of unfurling them or dangling at the end unlike what happens at the International Space Station, where astronauts routinely float out to do repairs at a much lower orbit. 

More and more wealthy passengers are plunking down huge sums for rides aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Other have spent tens of millions to stay in space for days or even weeks. Space experts and risk analysts say it’s inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, deemed one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry but also the most soul-stirring. 

This operation was planned down to the minute with little room for error. Trying out new spacesuits from a spacecraft new to spacewalking added to the risk. So did the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space. 

Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon stayed strapped to their seats to monitor from inside. All four underwent intensive training before the trip. 

Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of the Shift4 credit card-processing company, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he’s dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. For SpaceX’s inaugural private flight in 2021, he took up contest winners and a cancer survivor. 

Until Thursday, only 263 people had conducted a spacewalk, representing 12 countries. The Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov kicked it off in 1965, followed a few months later by NASA’s Ed White. 
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Gaborone, Botswana — Botswana and an American biotech firm, Ginkgo Bioworks, have partnered to conduct pathogen surveillance at the country’s entry points. Health officials say the proactive move is meant to safeguard public health as the world faces emerging disease threats.

Botswana introduced mpox screening last month for travelers at its entry points.

In a statement Wednesday, Ministry of Health spokesperson Christopher Nyanga said a pathogen-monitoring program is critical to detecting similar emerging health threats.

Dr. Mbatshi Mazwiduma, a public health expert, said the pathogen-surveillance program will complement existing strategies to prevent disease threats.

“The initiative by the Ministry of Health is a very welcome development in the sense that it is at least demonstrating that they are both embracing traditional methods of surveillance and disease detection plus at the same time, they are looking at other innovative ways of disease detection,” he said.

Through the collaboration, Boston-based Gingko Bioworks will work with the Ministry of Health to collect and monitor travelers’ samples. Nasal swabs will be used to collect the samples.

Nyanga said testing will be done on a voluntary, anonymous basis.

“Although participation in this initiative is entirely voluntary, travelers are encouraged to participate because this early detection of pathogens is meant to safeguard the health of all citizens, visitors and residents of this country,” he said. “The samples collected will be kept anonymous. The data collected from the samples will be vital in strengthening the country’s robust health system and response to public health threats and emergencies.”

But Mazwiduma said voluntary participation in the pathogen-monitoring program could hinder effective disease detection.

“Perhaps if non-invasive, non-intrusive, the technique should be compulsory because it ensures that the number of people who comply to sample acquisition is increased and, therefore, you can actually rapidly achieve suitable sample sizes for you to be able to ensure that you do not miss any patients, but also more importantly that it allows you to improve your validation of these particular technologies,” Mazwiduma said.

Botswana and Gingko Bioworks previously collaborated in a 2022 pathogen-monitoring program to detect new and emerging COVID-19 variants.

During the same year, Botswana was credited with the discovery of COVID-19 variant omicron.
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MOSCOW — A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American blasted off Wednesday for an express trip to the International Space Station. 

The space capsule atop a towering rocket set off at 1623 GMT from Russia’s manned space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and was scheduled to dock with the space station three hours later, in contrast to some missions that last for days. 

The mission commander is Alexei Ovchinin, with Russian compatriot Ivan Vagner and American Donald Pettit in the crew. 

The blast-off took place without obvious problems and the Soyuz entered orbit eight minutes after liftoff, a relief for Russian space authorities after an automated safety system halted a launch in March because of a voltage drop in the power system. 

On the space station, Pettit, Vagner and Ovchinin will join NASA’s Tracy Dyson, Mike Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, and Russians Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko. 
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KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo said that 50,000 doses of mpox vaccine from the United States arrived in the country on Tuesday, a week after the first batch arrived from the European Union.

Adults in Equateur, South Kivu and Sankuru, the three most-affected provinces, will be vaccinated first, starting on October 2, said Cris Kacita Osako, coordinator of the DRC’s Monkeypox Response Committee.

Last week, the first batch of mpox vaccines arrived in the capital, Kinshasa, the center of the outbreak. The 100,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine, manufactured by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic, were donated by the EU through HERA, the bloc’s agency for health emergencies. Another 100,000 were delivered over the weekend.

The 50,000 doses from the U.S. will be of the same JYNNEOS vaccine.

The 250,000 doses are just a fraction of the 3 million doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreaks in the DRC, the epicenter of the global health emergency. EU countries pledged to donate more than 500,000 others, but the timeline for their delivery remained unclear.

Since the start of 2024, there have been 5,549 confirmed mpox cases across the continent, with 643 associated deaths, representing a sharp escalation in infections and fatalities compared with previous years. The cases in the DRC constituted 91% of the total number. Most mpox infections in the DRC and Burundi, the second-most-affected country, are in children under age 15.

Last week, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization launched a continentwide response plan to the outbreak of mpox, three weeks after the World Health Organization declared outbreaks in 12 African countries a global emergency.

The DRC issued an emergency approval of the vaccine, which has already been used in Europe and the United States in adults. For the moment, the rollout will be reserved for adults, with priority groups being those who have been in close contact with infected people and sex workers, Africa CDC Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya told reporters last week.

The European Medicines Agency is examining additional data to be able to administer it to children ranging in age from 12 to 17, which could happen at the end of the month, HERA Director-General Laurent Muschel said.

The next batch of mpox vaccines will come from Japan and could arrive as early as this weekend, Kacita Osako told the AP, without specifying how many doses.
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Islamabad — Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Monday that a roadside bomb explosion injured at least 10 people, including anti-polio vaccinators and police personnel escorting them.  

 

The bombing in the South Waziristan district near the border with Afghanistan targeted a convoy carrying polio workers and their guards on the opening day of a nationwide immunization campaign.  

 

Area security and hospital officials reported that three health workers and six security personnel were among the victims. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence in a region where security forces are fighting militants linked to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban.  

 

Last week, Pakistan reported its 17th wild poliovirus case of the year from Islamabad, saying it paralyzed a child and marked the first infection in 16 years in the national capital.  

 

Pakistani health officials said in the lead-up to Monday’s polio campaign that it is designed to vaccinate more than 33 million children under five in 115 districts nationwide. 

 

Muhammad Anwarul Haq, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication, stated that the immunization drive would primarily focus on districts where “the virus has been detected and the risk of continued transmission and spread is really high.” 

 

Haq encouraged all parents and caregivers to ensure their children get vaccinated, lamenting that “parents have not always welcomed and opened their doors to the vaccinators when they visit their homes.” 

 

Pakistan and Afghanistan, which reported nine paralytic polio cases so far in 2024, are the only two remaining polio-endemic countries globally. Polio immunization campaigns have long faced multiple challenges in both countries, such as security and vaccine boycotts, dealing setbacks to the goal of eradicating the virus from the world.
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New Delhi — India reported Sunday that it had put a “suspected mpox case” into isolation, assuring that the world’s most populous nation had “robust measures” in place, the health ministry said in a statement.

There have been no confirmed cases of mpox in India, a country of 1.4 billion people.

“A young male patient, who recently traveled from a country currently experiencing mpox transmission, has been identified as a suspect case of mpox,” the health ministry said in a statement.

“The patient has been isolated in a designated hospital and is currently stable,” it said, adding the samples “are being tested to confirm the presence of mpox.”

It gave no further details of where he may have contracted the disease.

“There is no cause of any undue concern,” the statement added.

“The country is fully prepared to deal with such (an) isolated travel related case and has robust measures in place to manage and mitigate any potential risk.”

Mpox’s resurgence and the detection in the Democratic Republic of Congo of a new strain, dubbed Clade 1b, prompted the World Health Organization to declare its highest international alert level on August 14.  

Mpox has also been detected in Asia and Europe.
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Beijing — China said Sunday it would allow the establishment of wholly foreign-owned hospitals in nine areas of the country including the capital, as Beijing tries to attract more foreign investment to boost its flagging economy.

In a document on the official website of China’s commerce ministry, it said the new policy was a pilot project designed to implement a pledge the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee led by President Xi Jinping made at its July plenum meeting held roughly every five years.

“In order to … introduce foreign investment to promote the high-quality development of China’s medical-related fields, and better meet the medical and health needs of the people, it is planned to carry out pilot work of expanding opening-up in the medical field,” according to the document.

The project will allow the establishment of such hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hainan — all relatively wealthy cities or provinces in eastern or southern China.

The new policy excludes hospitals practicing traditional Chinese medicine and “mergers and acquisitions of public hospitals,” the document read, adding that the specific conditions, requirements and procedures for setting up such foreign-owned hospitals would be detailed soon.

The policy also allows companies with foreign investors to engage in the development and application of gene and human stem cell technologies for treatment and diagnosis in the pilot free-trade zones of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Hainan.

This includes registration, marketing and production of products that can be bought nationwide, according to the document.

The removal of restrictions on foreign investment in these fields comes as the world’s second-largest economy faces growing headwinds with flagging foreign business sentiment, one of the issues threatening growth.
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KAJIADO, Kenya — The blood, milk and meat of cattle have long been staple foods for Maasai pastoralists in Kenya, perhaps the country’s most recognizable community. But climate change is forcing the Maasai to contemplate a very different dish: fish.

A recent yearslong drought in Kenya killed millions of livestock. While Maasai elders hope the troubles are temporary and they will be able to resume traditional lives as herders, some are adjusting to a kind of food they had never learned to enjoy.

Fish were long viewed as part of the snake family due to their shape, and thus inedible. Their smell had been unpleasant and odd to the Maasai, who call semi-arid areas home.

“We never used to live near lakes and oceans, so fish was very foreign for us,” said Maasai Council of Elders chair Kelena ole Nchoi. “We grew up seeing our elders eat cows and goats.”

Among the Maasai and other pastoralists in Kenya and wider East Africa — like the Samburu, Somali and Borana — cattle are also a status symbol, a source of wealth and part of key cultural events like marriages as part of dowries.

But the prolonged drought in much of East Africa left carcasses of emaciated cattle strewn across vast dry lands. In early 2023, the Kenya National Drought Management Authority said 2.6 million livestock had died, with an estimated value of 226 billion Kenya shillings ($1.75 billion).

Meanwhile, increasing urbanization and a growing population have reduced available grazing land, forcing pastoralists to adopt new ways to survive.

In Kajiado county near Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the local government is supporting fish farming projects for pastoralists — and encouraging them to eat fish, too.

Like many other Maasai women, Charity Oltinki previously engaged in beadwork, and her husband was in charge of the family’s herd. But the drought killed almost 100 of their cows, and only 50 sheep of their 300-strong flock survived.

“The lands were left bare, with nothing for the cows to graze on,” Oltinki said. “So, I decided to set aside a piece of land to rear fish and monitor how they would perform.”

The county government supplied her with pond liners, tilapia fish fingerlings and some feed. Using her savings from membership in a cooperative society, Oltinki secured a loan and had a well dug to ease the challenge of water scarcity.

After six months, the first batch of hundreds of fish was harvested, with the largest selling for up to 300 Kenyan shillings each ($2.30).

Another member of the Maasai community in Kajiado, Philipa Leiyan, started farming fish in addition to keeping livestock.

“When the county government introduced us to this fish farming project, we gladly received it because we considered it as an alternative source of livelihood,” Leiyan said.

The Kajiado government’s initiative started in 2014 and currently works with 600 pastoralists to help diversify their incomes and provide a buffer against the effects of climate change. There was initial reluctance, but the number of participants has grown from about 250 before the drought began in 2022.

“The program has seen some importance,” said Benson Siangot, director of fisheries in Kajiado county, adding that it also addresses issues of food insecurity and malnutrition.

The Maasai share their love for cattle with the Samburu, an ethnic group that lives in arid and semi-arid areas of northern Kenya and speaks a dialect of the Maa language that the Maasai speak.

The recent drought has forced the Samburu to look beyond cattle, too — to camels.

In Lekiji village, Abdulahi Mohamud now looks after 20 camels. The 65-year-old father of 15 lost his 30 cattle during the drought and decided to try an animal more suited to long dry spells.

“Camels are easier to rear as they primarily feed on shrubs and can survive in harsher conditions,” he said. “When the pasture dries out, all the cattle die.”

According to Mohamud, a small camel can be bought for 80,000 to 100,000 Kenyan shillings ($600 to $770) while the price of a cow ranges from 20,000 to 40,000 ($154 to $300).

He saw the camel’s resilience as worth the investment.

In a vast grazing area near Mohamud, 26-year-old Musalia Piti looked after his father’s 60 camels. The family lost 50 cattle during the drought and decided to invest in camels that they can sell whenever they need cattle for traditional ceremonies. Cows among the Samburu are used for dowries.

“You have to do whatever it takes to find cattle for wedding ceremonies, even though our herds may be smaller nowadays,” said Lesian Ole Sempere, a 59-year-old Samburu elder. Offering a cow as a gift to a prospective bride’s parents encourages them to declare their daughter as “your official wife,” he said.
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ISLAMABAD — Millions of people in Pakistan continue to live along the path of floodwaters, showing neither people nor the government have learned lessons from the 2022 devastating floods that killed 1,737 people, experts said Thursday, as an aid group said half of the 300 victims killed by rains since July are children.

Heavy rainfall is drenching those areas that were badly hit by the deluges two years ago.

The charity Save the Children said in a statement that floods and heavy rains have killed more than 150 children in Pakistan since the start of the monsoon season, making up more than half of all deaths in rain-affected areas.

The group said that 200 children have also been injured in Pakistan because of rains, which have also displaced thousands of people. Save the Children also said that people affected by floods were living in a relief camp in Sanghar, a district in the southern Sindh province, which was massively hit by floods two years ago.

“The rains and floods have destroyed 80% of cotton crops in Sanghar, the primary source of income for farmers, and killed hundreds of livestock,” the charity said, and added that it’s supporting the affected people with help from a local partner.

Khuram Gondal, the country director for Save the Children in Pakistan, said that children were always the most affected in a disaster.

“We need to ensure that the immediate impacts of the floods and heavy rains do not become long-term problems. In Sindh province alone, more than 72,000 children have seen their education disrupted,” he said.

Another charity, U.K.-based Islamic Relief, also said weeks of torrential rains in Pakistan have again triggered displacement and suffering among communities that were already devastated by the 2022 floods and are still in the process of rebuilding their lives and livelihoods.

Asif Sherazi, the group’s country director, said his organization is reaching out to flood-affected people.

There was no immediate response from the country’s ministry of climate change and national disaster management authority.

Pakistan has yet to undertake major reconstruction work because the government didn’t receive most of the funds out of the $9 billion that were pledged by the international community at last year’s donors’ conference in Geneva.

“We learned no lessons from that 2022 floods. Millions of people have built mud-brick homes on the paths of rivers, which usually remain dry,” said Mohsin Leghari, who served as irrigation minister years ago.

Leghari said that less rain is predicted for Pakistan for monsoon season compared with 2022, when climate-induced floods caused $30 billion in damage to the country’s economy.

“But the floodwater has inundated several villages in my own Dera Ghazi Khan district in the Punjab province,” Leghari said. “Floods have affected farmers, and my own land has once again come under the floodwater.”

Wasim Ehsan, an architect, said Pakistan was still not prepared to handle any 2022-like situation mainly because people ignore construction laws while building homes and even hotels in urban and rural areas.

He said the floods in 2022 caused damage in the northwest because people had built homes and hotels after slightly diverting a river. “This is reason that a hotel was destroyed by the Swat River in 2022,” he said.
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ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigeria’s difficult victory over polio faces a challenge as the poliovirus type 2 variant reemerges and the nation considers new measures to tackle the outbreak.

Nigeria eradicated wild polio in 2020, but more than 50 cases of the poliovirus type 2 variant were reported between January and May. Authorities and global partners met Wednesday in Abuja with northern traditional leaders to strengthen efforts against the disease, particularly in under-immunized areas.

Bill Gates, a key global funder of Nigeria’s polio fight, said eradicating this strain is a top priority for the Gates Foundation.

“We do have this circulating variant, poliovirus type 2. The acronym is cVDPV2. … Unfortunately, it’s equally bad as the wild poliovirus,” Gates said. “It can paralyze or even kill children, and we still have work to do to get rid of this.”

Efforts focus on improving surveillance and expanding vaccination coverage. The World Health Organization noted setbacks earlier this year, stressing the need for continuing vigilance.

“We are facing the challenge of interrupting transmission of significant variant poliovirus type 2,” said Walter Kazadi Mulombo, WHO country representative to Nigeria. “We nearly got there several months ago but then we experienced some setbacks.”

Reluctance to take the vaccine, driven by religious and traditional beliefs, has hampered polio eradication efforts in Nigeria. However, northern traditional leaders have played a pivotal role in community outreach and health campaigns.

Muyi Aina, executive director of the Nigerian Primary Healthcare Development Agency, said traditional leaders have helped close the immunization gap in remote areas.

“The results we’re getting are due largely to the commitment received from our revered traditional leaders,” Aina said. “For example, we had a 57% reduction in pending noncompliance from the April campaign, and we were able to vaccinate an additional 117,000 zero-plus children [newborns and older] across 14 states with the help of the traditional leaders.”

Nigeria’s routine vaccination efforts, including recent campaigns to immunize against the human papilloma virus have been lauded. However, the resurgence of poliovirus type 2 highlights the need for sustained immunization, especially in vulnerable regions.

Cristian Munduate, the UNICEF country representative, called for more collaboration.

“We need to accelerate with polio, but we also need to accelerate in line with all these effects to link more routine immunization to reach those children,” Munduate said. “To work and strengthen primary health care, we are very committed to at least having one primary health care [worker] fully equipped per ward.”

Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, the sultan of Sokoto, representing northern traditional rulers, reaffirmed their commitment to supporting vaccination efforts while thanking stakeholders.

“We are more concerned in the welfare of our people, so whoever is going to help us to help our people is part and parcel of us and is always welcomed,” Abubakar said.

Despite progress, the resurgence of poliovirus type 2 remains a serious threat. The Abuja meeting concluded with calls for stronger efforts, better surveillance, and continued collaboration between traditional leaders and health officials to ensure eradication.
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Zimbabwe’s heavy reliance on coal-based energy is hurting the health of people in mining regions who continue to be exposed to dirty air from coal burning. Columbus Mavhunga visited the Hwange thermal power station — about 700 kilometers from Harare — and the surrounding area, where residents have complained about the air pollution.
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For more than a century, dams have blocked fish migration on California’s second-largest river. VOA’s Matt Dibble takes us to the removal of the last of four dams, a victory for Native Americans who depend on the river.
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A trip that should have lasted just over a week spirals into a roughly eight-month adventure. Plus, a pioneering teacher memorialized in bronze. And a robot proves its purpose by picking up pebbles. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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Despite global efforts to stop the practice of female genital mutilation, the harmful tradition continues to affect the lives and health of millions of women and girls in Somalia. Reporter Najib Ahmed has this story from the capital, Mogadishu, narrated by Anthony LaBruto. (Camera and Produced by: Abdulkadir Zuber)
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Kinshasa, Congo — The first delivery of almost 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines will arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, the African Union’s health watchdog said.

The vast central Africa country of around 100 million people is at the epicenter of the mpox outbreak, with cases and deaths rising.

“We are very pleased with the arrival of this first batch of vaccines in the DRC,” Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told AFP, adding that more than 99,000 doses were expected.

More than 17,500 cases and 629 deaths have been reported in the country since the start of the year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The vaccine doses will be transported onboard an airplane leaving the Danish capital Copenhagen on Wednesday evening and are due to arrive at Kinshasa’s international airport on Thursday at 1100 GMT.

 ‘Health war’

The Congolese National Institute of Public Health, which is in charge of managing the country’s mpox response, indicated that it was still waiting for details on the origin of the vaccines contained in the first delivery.

“Kinshasa is still waiting for documents from the Africa CDC that will provide information on these doses,” the institute’s director Dieudonne Mwamba Kazadi told AFP.

“We are in a health war against mpox. To face this disease, we need you,” Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said on X on Tuesday.

In Africa, mpox is now present in at least 13 countries, including Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, according to figures from the Africa CDC dated August 27.

On Wednesday, Guinea said it had recorded its first confirmed case of the disease, convening an emergency meeting in response.

A health official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP that the case was discovered in a sub-prefecture close to the Liberian border.

Outside the continent, the virus has also been detected in Sweden, Pakistan and the Philippines.

The WHO said last week that the first vaccine doses would arrive in the DRC in the following days, with other deliveries to follow.

The WHO said at the end of August that around 230,000 MVA-BN vaccine doses produced by Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic were “imminently available to be dispatched to affected regions.”

Other countries have also promised to send vaccine doses to African nations.

Spain has promised 500,000 doses, with France and Germany each pledging 100,000.

The WHO declared an international emergency over mpox on August 14, concerned by the surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries.

Both the Clade 1b and Clade 1a strains are present in the DRC.

The WHO’s Africa bureau said at the end of last month that 10,000 vaccine doses would be delivered to Nigeria — Bavarian Nordic vaccines donated by the United States.

This was the first African country to receive doses outside of clinical trials.

Formerly called monkeypox, the virus was discovered in 1958 in Denmark, in monkeys kept for research.

It was first discovered in humans in 1970 in what is now the DRC.

Mpox is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.

The disease causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.
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