Children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are dying from Ebola at an unprecedented rate due largely to poor sanitary practices at clinics run by traditional healers, the health ministry said on Sunday. The impact on children has been felt acutely in the city of Beni, which has emerged as …

Pancreatic cancer treatment could become more advanced with help from 13-year-old Rishab Jain. He’s created a tool for doctors to locate the hard-to-find pancreas more quickly and precisely during cancer treatment. The teen recently won a prestigious young scientist award for his potentially game-changing idea. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. …

The Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has led to 164 deaths, health authorities said.  In mid-October, Congolese authorities said they were facing a “second wave” of the outbreak centered on Beni, a town in North Kivu near the border with Uganda.  The epicenter had earlier been focused on Mangina, a town about …

When she was a young girl, Edna Adan Ismail’s mother and grandmother circumcised her in a traditional ceremony while her father, a doctor, was away. That evening, he returned home, enraged at what had happened. “What have you done?” he asked Ismail’s mother and grandmother. Cutting the young girl, he …

A group of Chilean youths with Down syndrome are gaining important life skills as they learn to plant, grow and sell their own fresh vegetables, and create delicious marmalades and preserves, which they sell for profit. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. …

Less than two weeks before the midterm elections, President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a plan to lower prices for some prescription drugs, saying it would stop unfair practices that force Americans to pay much more than people in other countries for the same medications.  “We are taking aim at the …

It started out modestly enough: David Hertz, having learned that under the right conditions you really can make your own water out of thin air, put a little contraption on the roof of his California office and began cranking out free bottles of H2O for anyone who wanted one. Soon …

Doctors at Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital have told Robert Wanyonyi there’s nothing more they can do for him. Yet more than a year after he first arrived, shot and paralyzed in a robbery, the ex-shopkeeper remains trapped in the hospital. Because Wanyonyi cannot pay his bill of nearly 4 million …

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ban single-use plastic products such as straws, eating utensils and coffee sticks across the European Union. The measure passed 571 to 53, with 34 abstentions. If approved by the European Commission — the EU executive — and individual states, the ban would become …

Four cost-effective methods are ready today to remove substantial amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, according to a new report from a panel of top scientists. All four take advantage of nature’s ability to take carbon from the air and store it. However, fully implementing all of …

Violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is hampering efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak that has already killed more than 150 people, according to the World Health Organization. “It’s a very serious situation. This is something that we have been fearing from the beginning; that the security situation …

An Ebola outbreak that ravaged Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in 2014 cost economies an estimated $53 billion, according to a study in this month’s Journal of Infectious Diseases. The study aimed to combine the direct economic burden and the indirect social impact to generate a comprehensive cost of the …

Authorities in a North Sumatra village have banned three HIV+ orphans from elementary school, and threatened the children, who are from outside the area, with expulsion from Nainggolan due to community fears of transmission. The children, a boy and two girls, aged 7 to 11 years, were infected by transmission …

Another child has died following a severe viral outbreak at a New Jersey rehabilitation center for “medically fragile children,” bringing the death toll to seven, the facility said Wednesday. There have been 18 cases overall of adenovirus at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Haskell, about 30 miles …

As another World Polio Day comes around, the World Health Organization reports three polio endemic countries— Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria — hold the key to the global eradication of this crippling disease.    About one-half million children were becoming paralyzed by polio every year when the World Health Organization began its …

A United Nations official is warning that Yemen is in imminent danger of being engulfed by unprecedented famine. Mark Lowcock, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, advised the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that the war-torn Arab country is facing greater famine than any professional in the field has ever seen. VOA’s …

People seeking dubious, potentially harmful treatment for cancer and other ailments raised nearly $7 million over two years from crowdfunding sites, a study found. Echoing recent research on campaigns for stem cell therapies, the findings raise more questions about an increasingly popular way to help pay for costly, and sometimes …

In the first study of its kind, Austrian researchers have tracked the movement of microplastics into human beings. The results show that the plastic that is a ubiquitous element of human life is now also a constant element in the human body. The research was presented at this week at …

Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has resulted in an acute shortage of essential medical drugs. Officials say the shortage has pushed some people to turn to the black market for medicines — and authorities are worried those drugs do more harm than good. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare for VOA News. …

Several possessions of the late physicist’s Stephen Hawking will be included in an upcoming auction at Christie’s, the famed auction house. Included among the items belonging to the iconic scientist will be one of his wheelchairs, one of five copies of his Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis “Properties of Expanding Universes,” …

Typhus, a bacterial infection that is sometimes life threatening, is on the rise in Los Angeles and several other U.S. cities. Public health officials say homelessness is making the problem worse and that the disease, which is associated with poverty and poor sanitation, is making a comeback in the United …

Typhus, a bacterial infection that is sometimes life-threatening, is on the rise in Los Angeles and several other U.S. cities. Public health officials say homelessness is making the problem worse. Mike O’Sullivan reports that this disease associated with poverty and poor sanitation is making a comeback in the United States. …

The ability to fight any future outbreaks of disease could be at risk, following a huge loss of public confidence in vaccines in the Philippines. That’s according to a new report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The drop in trust could also affect the rollout of …

For the first time, one of the new immunotherapy drugs has shown promise against breast cancer in a large study that combined it with chemotherapy to treat an aggressive form of the disease. But the benefit for most women was small, raising questions about whether the treatment is worth its …

An observatory in Barrow, Alaska, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has become a key scientific instrument in studying climate change. Established in 1973, the Barrow Observatory is staffed year-round by two researchers who measure and track changes in air quality and weather. Natasha Mozgovaya traveled to Barrow, …