Conversations on Vietnam Development
Liệu Việt Nam có thể tiếp tục tiêm vaccine cúm gia cầm đại trà?
Chuyện đã xảy ra từ năm 2003 nhưng nhắc đến thời điểm cúm gia cầm bùng phát ở Việt Nam, nhiều người vẫn còn ký ức về bối cảnh người dân thì lo sợ, chính quyền thì bất ngờ, bỡ ngỡ và lúng túng trước một căn bệnh “từ trên trời rơi xuống”, càn quét qua đàn gia cầm trên cả nước một cách hủy diệt, chưa từng có tiền lệ.
Tiếp tục đọc “Tiêm vaccine cúm gia cầm ở Việt Nam: Trước ngã ba đường”
FILE – Surgeon and doctor-turned-refugee, Dr. Tewodros Tefera, prepares a malaria test for 23-year-old Tigrayan refugee Hareg from Mekele, Ethiopia, at the Sudanese Red Crescent clinic in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, on March 17, 2021. The coronavirus pandemic interrupted efforts to control malaria, resulting in 63,000 more deaths and 13 million more infections. That’s according to a World Health Organization report released Thursday Dec. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
The coronavirus pandemic interrupted efforts to control malaria, resulting in 63,000 additional deaths and 13 million more infections globally over two years, according to a report from the World Health Organization published Thursday.
Cases of the parasitic disease went up in 2020 and continued to climb in 2021, though at a slower pace, the U.N. health agency said Thursday. About 95% of the world’s 247 million malaria infections and 619,000 deaths last year were in Africa.
“We were off track before the pandemic and the pandemic has now made things worse,” said Abdisalan Noor, a senior official in WHO’s malaria department.
Alister Craig, dean of biological sciences at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, noted that progress in reducing malaria deaths had stalled even before COVID-19.
“It is almost as if we have reached a limit of effectiveness for the tools we have now,” said Lister, who was not linked to the WHO report.
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Noor said he expected the wider rollout of the world’s first authorized malaria vaccine next year to have a “considerable impact” on reducing the number of severe illnesses and deaths if enough children get immunized, adding that more than 20 countries have applied to vaccines alliance Gavi for help in securing the shot. Still, the vaccine is only about 30% effective and requires four doses.
Bed nets can protect people from being bitten by the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The WHO report found that about three-quarters of nets provided by donors have been distributed, but there are major gaps in some of the worst-hit countries. Authorities in Nigeria, for example, gave out just over half their nets, while Congo distributed about 42% of theirs.
Officials also raised concerns about a new invasive mosquito species that thrives in cities, is resistant to many pesticides and which could undo years of progress against malaria. The invasive species has not yet significantly contributed to the continent’s overall malaria burden, but the insects are likely responsible for a recent spike in parts of the horn of Africa, Noor said.
David Schellenberg, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said there were promising new tools and strategies to tackle malaria, but that “the elephant in the room is the level of funding.” WHO estimated the total investment into malaria — about $3.5 billion — was less than half of what was needed to dramatically reduce its impact.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Climate change is creating many pathways for zoonotic diseases to reach people. Four cases show how the climate crisis is altering disease threats and how the world can respond.
Article by Claire Klobucista and Lindsay Maizland November 4, 2022 4:12 pm (EST)
The world is already witnessing the consequences of human-caused climate change, including hotter temperatures, rising sea levels, and more frequent and severe storms. What’s harder to see are climate change’s effects on the spread of disease: on the mosquito that carries a virus, or the pathogenic bacteria on a piece of fruit.
Tiếp tục đọc “Perilous Pathogens: How Climate Change Is Increasing the Threat of Diseases”
A World Mosquito Program project staff member hangs a mosquito-box from a tree in Colombo, Sri Lanka. | WORLD MOSQUITO PROGRAM
For Kasun Chameera, who lives in Sri Lanka’s densely populated capital Colombo, dengue fever is a disease which has afflicted many loved ones, including his brother.
“We fear death when we hear about dengue,” Chameera said. “It’s present almost everywhere in my district, and spreads faster in the city than in the villages.”
His brother “suffered a lot from it,” Chameera said. “For at least one to two months, he would be tired walking just 10 steps. We were very scared.”
Also known as breakbone fever because of the severe pain it can cause, the disease is a growing threat across Asia, where 70% of the world’s dengue cases occur. The virus is transmitted to humans through the bites of the female aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which thrive in both tropical and subtropical urban areas.
Worldwide, it is estimated to infect about 390 million people every year, with more than half of the global population now at risk.
Recent weeks have seen soaring cases in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, despite the peak season usually lasting from June to October. Reported cases in Singapore topped the 10,000 mark in the first five months of this year, already exceeding the 5,258 cases reported in all of 2021.
In Japan, 461 cases were reported in 2019 — mainly found in travelers from Asian countries. But with the borders effectively closed during the pandemic, the number of cases dropped to 43 and eight in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Published: August 8, 2022 4.00pm BST
Climate change can exacerbate a full 58% of the infectious diseases that humans come in contact with worldwide, from common waterborne viruses to deadly diseases like plague, our new research shows
Our team of environment and health scientists reviewed decades of scientific papers on all known pathogenic disease pathogens to create a map of the human risks aggravated by climate-related hazards.
The numbers were jarring. Of 375 human diseases, we found that 218 of them, well over half, can be affected by climate change.
Flooding, for example, can spread hepatitis. Rising temperatures can expand the life of mosquitoes carrying malaria. Droughts can bring rodents infected with hantavirus into communities as they search for food.
With climate change influencing more than 1,000 transmission pathways like those and climate hazards increasingly globally, we concluded that expecting societies to successfully adapt to all of them isn’t a realistic option. The world will need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change to reduce these risks.
Modelling study is first to project how global warming will increase virus swapping between species.
Over the next 50 years, climate change could drive more than 15,000 new cases of mammals transmitting viruses to other mammals, according to a study published in Nature1. It’s one of the first to predict how global warming will shift wildlife habitats and increase encounters between species capable of swapping pathogens, and to quantify how many times viruses are expected to jump between species.
Many researchers say that the COVID-19 pandemic probably started when a previously unknown coronavirus passed from a wild animal to a human: a process called zoonotic transmission. A predicted rise in viruses jumping between species could trigger more outbreaks, posing a serious threat to human and animal health alike, the study warns — providing all the more reason for governments and health organizations to invest in pathogen surveillance and to improve health-care infrastructure.
Why deforestation and extinctions make pandemics more likely
The study is “a critical first step in understanding the future risk of climate and land-use change on the next pandemic”, says Kate Jones, who models interactions between ecosystems and human health at University College London.
The research predicts that much of the new virus transmission will happen when species meet for the first time as they move to cooler locales because of rising temperatures. And it projects that this will occur most often in species-rich ecosystems at high elevations, particularly areas of Africa and Asia, and in areas that are densely populated by humans, including Africa’s Sahel region, India and Indonesia. Assuming that the planet warms by no more than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures this century — a future predicted by some climate analyses — the number of first-time meetings between species will double by 2070, creating virus-transmission hotspots, the study says.
Tiếp tục đọc “Climate change will force new animal encounters — and boost viral outbreaks”
vietnamnet 13/11/2021 08:39 GMT+7
Chau Ba Thao Company
Bac Lieu reported 291 positive cases within 24 hours, including 97 community transmission cases, raising the total number of infections to 6,200.
Gia Rai commune and Bac Lieu City are the two hotspots in the province. The hotbeds at Tan Khoi Seafood Import/Export Company and Chau Ba Thao Seafood Company in Gia Rai Town are the most serious.
The hotbed at Tan Khoi was found after a worker went to the Gia Rai medical center to have a health examination and tested positive. To date, 700 infections have been found.
Tiếp tục đọc “Companies in Mekong Delta fined, prosecuted for being sources of Covid”By Laura H. Kahn | June 8, 2021
Researchers wearing positive pressure personnel suits at a US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases biosafety level 4 lab. Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Our luck has run out. The worst pandemic in a century has killed over 3.7 million people globally. In the United States, almost 600,000 have lost their lives to COVID-19. Societies around the world have been, and many are continuing to be, devastated.
The debate regarding the origins of the virus continues with growing circumstantial evidence that the virus leaked from a laboratory. Knowing the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is important if we want to prevent this catastrophe from happening again.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 09:16 GMT+7 tuoitrenews
CHICAGO — More than 15,000 mink in the United States have died of the coronavirus since August, and authorities are keeping about a dozen farms under quarantine while they investigate the cases, state agriculture officials said.
Global health officials are eying the animals as a potential risk for people after Denmark last week embarked on a plan to eliminate all of its 17 million mink, saying a mutated coronavirus strain could move to humans and evade future COVID-19 vaccines.
The U.S. states of Utah, Wisconsin and Michigan – where the coronavirus has killed mink – said they do not plan to cull animals and are monitoring the situation in Denmark.
“We believe that quarantining affected mink farms in addition to implementing stringent biosecurity measures will succeed in controlling SARS-CoV-2 at these locations,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture told Reuters on Tuesday.
The USDA said it is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state officials and the mink industry to test and monitor infected farms.
The United States has 359,850 mink bred to produce babies, known as kits, and produced 2.7 million pelts last year. Wisconsin is the largest mink-producing state, followed by Utah.
Sick mink in Wisconsin and Utah were exposed to people with probable or confirmed COVID-19 cases, the USDA said. In Michigan it is still unknown if the mink were infected by humans, according to the agency.
In Utah, the first U.S. state to confirm mink infections in August, about 10,700 mink have died on nine farms, said Dean Taylor, state veterinarian.
“On all nine, everything is still suggesting a one-way travel from people to the minks,” he said.
Coronavirus testing has been done on mink that die and randomly on the affected farms, Taylor said. Like people, some mink are asymptomatic or mildly affected, he said.
The CDC said it was supporting states’ investigations into sick mink, including testing of animals and people.
“These investigations will help us to learn more about the transmission dynamics between mink, other animals around the farms and people,” the CDC said. “Currently, there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to people.”
Coronavirus is thought to have first jumped to humans from animals in China, possibly via bats or another animal at a food market in Wuhan, although many outstanding questions remain.
Monitoring U.S. mink for virus symptoms and quarantining infected farms should limit the disease’s spread if cases are caught early, said Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
“I’m fairly confident that as long as they have that surveillance going and it’s strong enough, then they should be able to prevent the spread,” he said.
U.S. authorities are urging farmers to wear protective gear like masks and gloves when handling mink to avoid infecting the animals.
In Wisconsin, about 5,000 mink have died on two farms, State Veterinarian Darlene Konkle said.
One farm is composting the dead mink to dispose of the carcasses without spreading the virus, Konkle said. Authorities are working with the second farm to determine how to dispose of the mink, and dead animals are being kept in a metal container in the meantime, she said.
Michigan declined to disclose how many mink have died, citing privacy rules.
State officials said they are working with the USDA to determine whether farmers can sell the pelts of infected mink. The pelts are used to make fur coats and other items.
The coronavirus has also infected cats, dogs, a lion and a tiger, according to the USDA. Experts say mink appear to be the most susceptible animal so far.
Reuters
Các doanh nghiệp Du lịch chiếm tỉ lệ cao nhất trong tổng số doanh nghiệp tham gia khảo sát, tới 28%, đây cũng đồng thời là nhóm chịu ảnh hưởng nặng nề nhất bởi đại dịch. Tiếp tục đọc “Báo cáo tác động của bùng phát dịch Covid-19 lần thứ 2 đối với Doanh nghiệp”
bangkokpost.com 14 MAY 2020 AT 16:20 Writer REUTERS
HANOI: Vietnam will import 20,000 breeding pigs from Thailand this year, state media said on Thursday, as the country is seeking to rebuild its hog herd battered by an African swine-fever outbreak.
First detected in February 2019, the outbreak has forced the culling of around six million pigs, or 20% of Vietnam’s pig herd, resulting in higher pork prices and putting upward pressure on inflation. Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnam to import 20,000 pigs from Thailand”
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Bonn today received a donation of 1,000 nose and mouth masks as protection in the corona pandemic. An alumna from Vietnam thanks the donation for supporting the DAAD during their master’s degree.
Bonn May 13, 2020
© DAAD / singer DAAD General Secretary Dr. Dorothea Rüland received the masks from Thi Minh Chau Bui.
In Germany, a mask requirement applies in many federal states and areas such as retail or local transport. Masks are also used in the DAAD’s Bonn headquarters in the science center. The joy was correspondingly great when DAAD alumna Thi Minh Chau Bui from Vietnam approached her former funding organization with the wish to donate 1,000 reusable and washable mouth-nose masks.
“We are very happy about this unexpected donation, which helps us in times of the corona pandemic. It is a wonderful sign of solidarity, not only with the DAAD, but with the Federal Republic and its education system as a whole, ”said DAAD General Secretary Dr. Dorothea Rüland, who personally accepted the masks at the DAAD headquarters in Bonn.
Tiếp tục đọc “Vietnamese DAAD alumna donates protective masks to Germany”
The image, shot by Indian lecturer Prabu Mohan last Sunday, was posted on the Facebook community Hanoi Massive, frequented by 136,000 expat and local netizens living in the capital.
Over a hundred Vietnamese flags were hung from the balconies of an apartment building on Tam Trinh Street in Hoang Mai District, garnering thousands of Facebook likes and shares.
“One of the ways to show your support in difficult times,” Mohan wrote in the caption.
Tiếp tục đọc “Hanoi building festooned in Vietnamese colors to support Covid-19 fight”
CVD 