September 2022

The Serum Institute of India signed a deal this week with South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare to make four vaccines used in Africa.

The deal has been hailed as saving local vaccine production, which was at risk of shutting down after receiving no orders for a COVID vaccine. But medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says more efforts are needed for vaccines to be fully produced in Africa for Africans.

Four routine pediatric vaccines — pneumococcal vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, polyvalent meningococcal vaccine and hexavalent vaccine — will be made in South Africa with products from bulk drug substances supplied by India’s Serum Institute.

In addition to the 10-year agreement, South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare also anticipates receiving grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI.

“The partnership represents an important step for preventing the kinds of gross inequities of access to life-saving vaccines that emerged during the COVID pandemic,” said CEPI’s chief executive officer, Richard Hatchett. “We are proud to be part of an effort that will secure critically needed vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa, for Africa so that it can be ready when it faces future epidemic or pandemic threats.”

But Candice Sehoma with Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign in South Africa is calling for more than just fill-and-finish deals.

“I think it’s a great step towards realizing the improvements in the African continent’s manufacturing capacity, particularly looking at vaccines. And actually looking into routine vaccines. I think that, for me, is a great step,” Sehoma said. “But I think, definitely, we could do with a lot more and even a full sharing of technology, so that we don’t find ourselves waiting in line for vaccines that are coming from high-income countries.”

Petro Terblanche, managing director of the South African company Afrigen, which reproduced Moderna’s MRNA COVID vaccine, says Aspen’s deal with the Serum Institute may not be healthy for other companies on the continent, as it could drown out local competition.

“So, the manufacturing capacity and the technology capabilities and the reach of the Serum Institute is very dominant, it is very, very powerful. However, if Serum Institute is prepared to do partnerships with Africa and South Africa for end-to-end manufacturing and technology transfer to Africa, it’s a positive development,” Terblanche said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, deputy director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, says the agreement is an important step for African vaccine manufacturing.

“It has responded to African Union heads of state and government calls that 30 percent of our continent’s requirements for human vaccines be procured from Africa manufacturers. And we look forward to this being motivation for more expanded manufacturing of vaccines here on the continent of Africa,” Ouma said.

According to the Africa CDC, less than 1% of vaccines currently used on the continent are locally manufactured.

Aspen’s Group Communications Consultant Shauneen Beukes says they cannot comment on calls for the full African production of vaccines at this stage.
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Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is the largest lake in South America and one of the world’s oldest. It is coming under increasing threat from oil spills, plastic pollution, and an alga popularly known locally as “verdín,” which can suffocate fish. For VOA News, Adriana Nunez Rabascall has the report.
Produced by: Cristina Caicedo Smit
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Imagine if they could bottle a potion called “Just Serena.”

That was Serena Williams’ succinct, smiling explanation for how she’d managed — at nearly 41, and match-rusty — to defeat the world’s second-ranked player and advance Wednesday to the third round of a U.S. Open that so far, doesn’t feel much like a farewell. “I’m just Serena,” she said to roaring fans.

Clearly there’s only one Serena. But as superhuman as many found her achievement, some older fans in particular — middle-aged, or beyond — said they saw in Williams’ latest run a very human and relatable takeaway, too. Namely the idea that they, also, could perform better and longer than they once thought possible — through fitness, practice and grit.

“It makes me feel good about what I’m doing still at my age,” said Bess Brodsky Goldstein, 63, a lifelong tennis enthusiast who was attending the Open on Thursday, the day after Williams’ triumph over 26-year-old Anett Kontaveit.

Yet Goldstein, like any athlete, suffers her share of aches and injuries, like a recent knee issue that set her back a few weeks. Watching Williams, she said, shows ordinary folks that injuries — or, in Williams’ case, a life-threatening childbirth experience five years ago — can be overcome. “She gives you inspiration that you can achieve your best, even in your early 60s,” said Goldstein, who also had high praise for Venus Williams, Serena’s older sister, competing this year at 42.

Evelyn David was also watching tennis at the Open on Thursday, And she, too, was thinking about the night before.

“Everybody is going, ‘WHOA!’” said David, who smilingly gave her age as “older than my 60s” and is the site director for New York Junior Tennis Learning, which works with children and teens. She cited the physicality of Williams’ play, and the role of fitness in today’s tennis. “The rigorous training that athletes go through now is different,” David said. “She’s going, ‘I’m not falling over. I can get to the ball.’”

“A total inspiration,” David termed Williams’ performance — and she had some prominent company.

“Can I put something in perspective here?” former champion and ESPN commentator Chris Evert said during Wednesday’s broadcast. “This is a 40-year-old mother. It is blowing me away.”

Evert retired at age 34 in 1989, well before fitness and nutrition were the prominent factors in tennis they are now. They were even less so when pioneering player Billie Jean King, now 78, was in her heyday.

“For us older ones, it gives us hope and it’s fun,” King said Thursday in an interview about Williams. “Puts a pep in your step. Gives you energy.” She noted how fitness on the tour has changed since the 1960s and 1970s.

“We didn’t have the information and we didn’t have the money,” King said. “When people win a tournament now, they say, ‘Thank you to my team.’ They’re so lucky to have all those people. We didn’t even have a coach.”

Jessica Pegula, the No. 8 seed who won  Thursday, is at 28 a half-century younger than King. She knows well the difference fitness has made.

“It’s been a huge part of it,” she said. “Athletes, how they take care of their bodies, sports nutrition, the science behind training and nutrition — (it) has changed so much.

“Back in the day, you saw a player drinking a Coke on the sideline or they had a beer after their match. Now … health has been the No. 1 priority, whether it’s physical or mental.” She said she remembered thinking Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Williams were all going to retire, but “they kept pushing the boundaries.”

Federer, 41, hasn’t played since Wimbledon last year because of operations to his right knee, but has said he’ll try to play Wimbledon next year, shortly before his 42nd birthday. And Nadal, 36, known for his intense devotion to fitness, has won two Grand Slam titles this year to raise his total to a men’s-record 22. Nobody would be surprised if he won another major. In contrast, Jimmy Connors’ famous run to the 1991 semis of the U.S. Open when he was 39 was considered an event for the history books.

Of course, fitness is only one building block to greatness — in any sport. Denver Broncos safety Justin Simmons, who like Pegula is 28, noted that even though it’s inspiring to see Williams keep an athletic advantage partly through preparation, “not everybody is Serena and Venus Williams. Maybe there’s some genes in there that not everybody else is blessed enough to have, but it’s still cool to know that, hey, even though she is genetically gifted, there are some things that she’s done that have helped her in a tremendous way prolong her career.”

Dr. Michael J. Joyner, who studies human performance at the Mayo Clinic, said Williams shares many traits with other superstar athletes (from baseball’s Ted Williams to golfer Gary Player and star quarterback Tom Brady, 45 and famously un-retired) who have enjoyed long careers.

“What you see with all of these people is they stay motivated, they’ve avoided catastrophic injury … or they’ve been able to come back because they’ve recovered,” he said. Also key: They live in “the modern era of sports medicine.”

The question, he asked, is can Williams perform at the same level every other day to win a whole tournament? He hopes so.

Williams fan Jamie Martin, who has worked in physical therapy since 1985 and owns a chain of clinics in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, said she’s seeing many women playing vigorous, competitive sports into middle age and beyond. Some return to their sport, or take up a new one, after years of focusing on work or family.

Williams’ pursuit of another U.S. Open title at 40 is a reminder that women can not only remain competitive longer, but can compete now for the joy of it, she notes.

“She’s really enjoying playing,” said Martin, 59. “That’s what’s fun to watch about it now.”

Brooklyn teacher Mwezi Pugh says both Williams sisters are great examples of living life on their own terms – which includes deciding how long they want to play.

“They are still following their own playbook,” said Pugh, 51. “‘Are you ready to retire yet, Serena?’ ‘I don’t like that word. I would rather say evolution.’ ‘Are you ready to retire, Venus?’ ‘Not today.’”

“The older you are, the more you should be able to set up your life in the way you like, and what works best for you,” Pugh said. “That’s what the sisters are doing, and they are teaching all of us a lesson.”
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A pair of reports issued this week have combined to illustrate the deep and lasting impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the United States, documenting both declining educational outcomes for young students and a sharp decline in life expectancy for Americans in general.

A special assessment by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) focused on a nationally representative sample of 9-year-olds. It documented the sharpest ever drop in reading achievement between 2019, the year before the pandemic, and the early months of 2022. It also documented the first-ever decline in achievement in mathematics over the same time period.

A separate report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documented a further decline in life expectancy in the U.S., first identified in 2021. According to the findings, the average American’s life expectancy fell by nearly a year from 2020 to 2021, and by 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021.

As the country heads toward its third winter of the pandemic, the two studies demonstrate that even as Americans have, to some degree or another, returned to normal life despite the pandemic, its effects will continue to play out over the months and years to come.

Students struggling

Educators have been concerned about the impact that the transition to virtual learning had on students, as many schools were closed to in-person classes for much of 2020 and 2021. This prompted the National Center for Education Statistics to undertake its special assessment of 9-year-olds.

“We have all been concerned about the short- and longer-term impacts of the pandemic on our children,” Peggy G. Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said in a statement accompanying the findings.

“There’s been much speculation about how shuttered schools and interrupted learning may have affected students’ opportunities to learn,” she said. “Our own data reveal the pandemic’s toll on education in other ways, including increases in students seeking mental health services, absenteeism, school violence and disruption, cyberbullying and nationwide teacher and staff shortages.”

The NAEP report looks at the change in academic proficiency overall, but also at the change within specific cohorts. It breaks the student population into those who score in the 90th percentile or above, as well as those at the 75th, 50th, 25th and 10th percentiles.

The study found declines in proficiency in both math and reading across all percentiles. However, they were greatest among those in the lowest percentiles. That means that the children in the 10th percentile not only showed lower proficiency than those in higher percentiles in 2022, but that they performed worse than other children in the 10th percentile in 2019.

“COVID-19 disruptions may have exacerbated many of the challenges we were already facing,” Carr said. “We know that students who struggle the most have fallen further behind their peers.”

Life expectancy drops

In 2019, the year prior to the pandemic, the life expectancy of the average American was 79 years. According to the data released by the CDC this week though, that had fallen to just a little more than 76 years by 2021, two years into the pandemic. It was a precipitous drop for the population in general, and was far worse for specific demographic groups.

The decline was most pronounced among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, whose already-low life expectancy of 71.8 years in 2019 had tumbled to 65.2 years by 2021. Black Americans’ average life expectancy fell by four years, from 74.8 in 2019 to 70.8 in 2021.

Over the same time period, the life expectancy for Hispanic Americans fell from 81.9 to 77.7 years, while that of Asian Americans fell from 85.6 to 83.5. White Americans’ life expectancy dropped from 78.8 years to 76.4 years.

Pandemic to blame

Noreen Goldman, the Hughes-Rogers professor of demography and public affairs at the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs, told VOA that the “vast majority” of the decline is due to the pandemic.

She said that much of the blame lies with a disjointed and ineffective public health response to COVID-19, even after effective vaccines were available and successful mitigation techniques had been identified.

“That put the U.S. in this just horrific situation of inexcusable loss of life expectancy, which I think is embarrassing and disgraceful,” she said.

However, Goldman noted that other factors were at play as well.

“The U.S. has had worse life expectancy than its peer countries — other high-income countries — for a very long time,” she said. “Lower life expectancy comes along with higher rates of chronic disease, higher rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, the highest rate of obesity in the world.”

In a study published by the Lancet early this year, researchers looked at the decline in life expectancy across 29 different countries between 2019 and 2020. The countries included most of Europe as well as Chile and the U.S. The study found that the decline in life expectancy in the U.S. during that period was greater than in any other country.
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Australia has had some of the world’s strictest disease-control measures. Some of those last remaining COVID-19 restrictions now are being eased.

At the height of the pandemic, millions of people were forced into protracted lockdowns, masks were mandatory and many front-line workers, including medical staff and teachers, were told be vaccinated or face losing their jobs.

Australia banned most foreign nationals after closing its borders in March 2020, and Australians needed government permission to leave the country.

Tens of thousands of Australian citizens were trapped overseas, some unable to return home for months because of border restrictions and a lack of flights.

Australia’s COVID fortress has been dismantled and its borders have reopened with few, if any, restrictions. Other pandemic measures have persisted, but they are now being wound back.

Apart from workers in hospitals and nursing homes, the mandatory isolation period for people infected with the virus will be cut from seven to five days, if they do not have any symptoms.

Masks will no longer be required on domestic flights. The measures will come into effect Sept. 9.

However, public health experts warn the restrictions could trigger another wave of infections. They believe about a third of COVID-19 patients are still potentially infectious on day six and seven after they contract the virus.

“We will be watching very closely at how this plays out in terms of pressure on hospitals, and we will be calling on the government to revise that if we find that things are getting worse,” said Steve Robson, president of the Australian Medical Association, which represents many doctors and other health care professionals. “I think a lot of what we have seen from overseas is literally catastrophic.”

The United Kingdom abandoned its legal requirement for COVID patients to self-isolate several months ago. In England, adults with symptoms are advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people until they recover.

Germany recently shortened its isolation period to five days. France lowered its requirement from 10 days to seven, with COVID-positive patients allowed to leave isolation on day five if they return a negative test. Japan’s isolation period remains at 10 days for those with symptoms.

Australia has recorded more than 10 million coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic. Almost 14,000 people have died, according to government data.

Nearly 12,000 new infections were reported Friday.
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U.S. health advisers on Thursday endorsed new COVID-19 boosters that target today’s most common omicron strains, saying if enough people roll up their sleeves, the updated shots could blunt a winter surge. 

The tweaked shots made by Pfizer and Moderna promise Americans a chance at their most up-to-date protection at yet another critical period in the pandemic. They’re combination or “bivalent” shots, half the original vaccine and half protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions now causing nearly all COVID-19 infections. 

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention struggled with who should get the new booster and when, because only a similarly tweaked vaccine, not the exact recipe, has been studied in people so far. 

But ultimately, the panel deemed it the best option considering the U.S. still is experiencing tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases and about 500 deaths every day — even before an expected new winter wave. 

“I think they’re going to be an effective tool for disease prevention this fall and into the winter,” said CDC adviser Dr. Matthew Daley of Kaiser Permanente Colorado. 

Comparing the tweak that has been studied in people and the one the U.S. actually will use, “it is the same scaffolding, part of the same roof. We’re just putting in some dormers and windows,” said Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University. 

The CDC is expected to adopt that recommendation soon, the last step before shots can begin. Millions of doses are expected to reach vaccination sites nationwide by Labor Day, CDC officials said. 

Protection continues

The original COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against severe illness and death, especially among younger and healthier people who’ve gotten at least one booster. 

But those vaccines were designed to target the virus strain that circulated in early 2020. Effectiveness drops as new mutants emerge and the longer it’s been since someone’s last shot. Since April, hospitalization rates in people over age 65 have jumped, the CDC said. 

The new, updated shots are only for use as a booster, not for someone’s first COVID vaccinations. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s bivalent option for people 12 and older, while Moderna’s is for adults only. 

A big unknown: exactly how much benefit people will get from one of those extra shots. 

The CDC said more than 1,400 people have been included in studies of a prior tweak to the vaccine recipe — targeting an earlier omicron strain named BA.1. That omicron-targeting combo shot proved safe and able to rev up virus-fighting antibodies — and European regulators on Thursday recommended using that type of booster. 

In the U.S., the FDA wanted fall boosters to target the currently circulating omicron strains — and rather than waiting until possibly November for more human studies to be finished, the agency accepted mouse testing that showed the newer tweak sparked a similarly good immune response. 

That’s how flu vaccines are updated every year, the CDC noted. 

Still, several CDC advisers said that to get the maximum benefit, people will need to wait longer between their last vaccination and getting the new booster than the two months that the FDA set as the minimum. Waiting at least three months would be better, from the last shot or if someone had recently recovered from COVID-19, they said. 

Before this new COVID-19 booster update, people 50 and older already were urged to get a second booster of the original vaccine — and those who did saw some extra protection, especially the longer it had been since their last shot, said CDC’s Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles. 

The new combination booster “should provide at least similar or better protection against omicron, since it’ll be a better match” to today’s virus strains, she told the panel. 
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An instrument on the U.S. space agency NASA’s Mars rover, Perseverance, has been reliably producing oxygen from the planet’s thin atmosphere for more than a year, a finding that bodes well for extended future missions to the planet.

A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances and led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the work of the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, known as MOXIE.

The study shows that since it was activated in April 2021 — two months after Perseverance landed on Mars — MOXIE was able to produce oxygen on seven experimental runs, in a variety of atmospheric conditions, including during the day and night, and through different Martian seasons. In each run, the instrument reached its target of producing six grams of oxygen per hour — about the rate of a modest tree on Earth.

The researchers, along with NASA scientists and planners, envision that a scaled-up version of MOXIE could be sent to Mars ahead of a human mission to continuously produce oxygen at the rate equal to several hundred trees. The system should generate enough oxygen to both sustain humans once they arrive and fuel a rocket for returning astronauts back to Earth.

The principal investigator for the study, MIT’s Dr. Michael Hecht, said in a press release the steady output that MOXIE has demonstrated is a promising first step toward those goals.

Hecht said the instrument’s performance producing oxygen on Mars also represents the first demonstration of in-situ, or on-site “resource utilization,” which is the process of using a planet’s existing materials [in this case, carbon dioxide] to make resources [such as oxygen] that would otherwise have to be transported from Earth.

Hect and his MIT co-authors were among researchers from several institutions, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which helped develop and manage MOXIE.

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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NASA’s moon mission suffers another setback. Plus, a look back at a space travel pioneer, and a private spaceflight company continues earning frequent flyer miles. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center reported Thursday that Tropical Storm Danielle has formed in the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to become the first hurricane of what has been an unusually quiet storm season, but one that is predicted to become busier than average. 

Forecasters at the hurricane center say that as Danielle hovers over an area of warmer-than-average ocean waters in the mid- to north Atlantic, atmospheric conditions are forecast to be favorable for it to strengthen into a hurricane in two days, and peak in intensity in about four days. 

But they also forecast it will stay in the middle of the ocean until it weakens back into a tropical depression. 

What makes the storm noteworthy is its status as the first hurricane of the season, the fourth named storm, and the first named storm since July 3. There were no named storms during the entire month of August.  

The hurricane center reports it’s the first August in 25 years without a named storm. And Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach told The Associated Press it is the first time since 1941 the Atlantic has gone from July 3 until the end of August with no named storm. 

In a separate interview, the head of Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, Professor Gabriel Filippelli, told the AP two factors have contributed to the quiet season up to this point. First, exceptionally dry air masses in the Atlantic have stripped the atmosphere of the moisture needed for hurricanes and tropical storms to form. Second, there has been a fair amount of shear winds — horizontal winds — that break the structure of developing hurricanes so that they are unable to form. 

Last month, even as it revised its seasonal forecast downward, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center said atmospheric and oceanic conditions favor an above-normal 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, with the peak months of September and October still ahead. 

Filippelli told the AP it remains to be seen if September will see the quiet trend continue or if the hurricane season will pick up steam. 

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press. 

 
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