Medical authorities in Cameroon marked World Blood Donor Day on Monday with continued pleas for blood donors, after a dramatic drop in donations over the past year. Donations fell by half in 2020, then by nearly half again so far this year, worsening the country’s blood shortage.Officials in Cameroon point …

U.S.-based biotech company Novavax announced Monday that Phase 3 clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine show it to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing the disease and provide good protection against variants. A release from the company said the study enrolled 29,960 participants across 119 sites in the …

Elizabeth Sherr had always had a passion for the ocean since she was young so trying to clean up the trash that litters beaches and the sea seemed a natural move. When she moved to live next to the sea in Barcelona, the native New Yorker posted some videos on TikTok …

Conservationists have praised efforts by Australian authorities to drastically reduce the amount of plastic waste and eliminate some disposable coffee cups. The New South Wales state government wants to ban many common plastic items, including straws, drinks stirrers and cutlery, as well as polystyrene cups in a bid to protect the environment and reduce waste.    Lightweight plastic shopping bags could be eliminated …

A report published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows the potentially lifesaving results of lab-grown mosquitos. Infected with bacteria, the insects may no longer have the ability to transmit dengue. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.  …

Saudi Arabia announced Saturday this year’s Hajj pilgrimage will be limited to no more than 60,000 people, all of them from within the kingdom, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.The announcement by the kingdom comes after it ran an incredibly pared-down pilgrimage last year over the virus, but still allowed …

The recent breakup of an Antarctic ice shelf is speeding up the ocean-bound descent of a glacier holding back at least a meter of sea level rise, Ice front of the ice shelf in front of Pine Island Glacier, a major glacier system of West Antarctica.”The real question is, how …

Moscow’s mayor on Saturday ordered a week off for some workplaces and imposed restrictions on many businesses to fight coronavirus infections that have more than doubled in the past week.The national coronavirus task force reported 6,701 new confirmed cases in Moscow, compared with 2,936 on June 6. Nationally, the daily …

Concerns about the safety of the COVID vaccine are common especially when it comes to inoculating very young children. A new study suggests that some moms may be passing along antibodies to their infants. VOA’s Dilge Timocin has more.  Camera: Tezcan Taskiran …

Top U.S. and Chinese diplomats appear to have had another sharply worded exchange, with Beijing saying it told the U.S. to cease interfering in its internal affairs and accusing Washington of politicizing the search for the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.Senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi and Secretary of …

COVID-19 vaccines for children are moving closer to availability, but access remains limited.Moderna announced late this week that it was submitting its vaccine to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization in children age 12 and older.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has already received the go-ahead for this age …

The G-7 nations announced Friday that they will donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and medium-income nations.  The U.S., as previously announced, will donate 500 million shots, while Britain will donate 100 million.  “I hope my fellow @G7 leaders will make similar pledges so that, together, we can …

Authorities in Kenya are taking steps to eradicate trachoma, an infectious disease that is a leading cause of blindness in Africa. About 7 million people in central Kenya are at risk for the disease, as Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa …

On Thursday, before the opening Friday of the G-7 Summit in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the group is set to donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries.Johnson’s announcement came after U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier in the day that his administration is …

South Africa has been gripped by the mystery of whether a woman has, as has been claimed, actually given birth to 10 babies, in what would then be the world’s first recorded case of decuplets.Gosiame Thamara Sithole from the Tembisa township near Johannesburg gave birth to the babies on Monday, …

On Thursday, the eve of the G-7 summit in Cornwall, England, U.S. President Joe Biden formally announced what had been disclosed a day earlier — that his administration would donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to 92 low- and middle-income countries. Here’s the latest from White House …

Washington-area residents are increasingly out and about as COVID-19 cases fall in the U.S., including the capital region. But reluctance to get vaccinated persists in some quarters, despite extensive campaigns promoting inoculation — and warnings of the dangers of failing to get the jab. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has our story.Camera: …

U.S federal workers will not be required to get a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the office, according to guidance from the Biden administration released Thursday.The guidance says federal agencies should base their reopening plans on the percentage of employees who are vaccinated, but said revealing vaccination status would be …

NASA sends squids to space. Plus, the world’s wealthiest man makes out-of-this-world travel arrangements, and a soccer star talks game with an orbiting astronaut.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi  …

India posted a single-day world record Thursday of more than 6,000 COVID-19 deaths after one state revised a set of numbers.The eastern state of Bihar, one of India’s largest and poorest states, revised its death toll Wednesday from about 5,500 to 9,500 after the state’s high court ordered the government …

The World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe urged caution Thursday, as 36 of the region’s 53 countries begin to ease COVID-19 restrictions, saying the continent’s vaccination rate is insufficient to prevent a resurgence.At a virtual briefing from his headquarters in Copenhagen, WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge acknowledged current pandemic …

Hong Kong will allow children age 12 and above to receive the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine as it seeks to boost immunization rates in the city. Government officials said Thursday they will offer the vaccine to about 240,000 children from 12 to 15 years old starting Friday, joining other countries that have started vaccinating …

By any measure, the number of those being vaccinated against COVID-19 in Africa are running behind the rest of the world. Health experts warn that failure to inoculate the 1.3 billion people on the continent will have a huge impact on its health care systems and economies. More than a year …

Across the Eastern United States, billions of Brood X cicadas are emerging after 17 years underground. The noisy insects with the bright red eyes overwhelm predators by emerging in densities of 1 million per acre, scientists say. And the hum of mating males has been likened to the buzz of …

A chartered airplane scheduled to take the U.S. presidential press corps from Washington to Europe was delayed for at least five hours late Tuesday after cicadas — large flying insects that are currently out in huge numbers in the region — apparently clogged the plane’s engines.Media reports say the flight, …