Zimbabweans living on the border with Zambia are increasingly taking advantage of their neighbor’s superior health care. But Zambian officials say they are also draining resources as nearly one-third of patients in some clinics and hospitals are Zimbabweans. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Lusaka, Zambia. VOA footage by Blessing Chigwenhembe. …

Overdose deaths from the drug fentanyl have communities across the United States scrambling to respond. In Washington state, librarians are becoming unlikely first responders in this latest wave of the US opioid crisis. Natasha Mozgovaya has our story …

To address the relatively high cost of health care in Africa, a Kenyan mobile application lets users pay for medical services by selling their personal data through blockchain technology. Officials say Snark Health’s Hippocratic Coins have attracted more than 300 doctors and 4,000 users.  Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: …

An organization that trains young people for conservation jobs is recycling dead trees and replacing them with new ones, salvaging valuable lumber in the process. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Long Beach, California. …

A controversial Chinese biophysicist, who had been imprisoned after creating the world’s first gene-edited babies, had his Hong Kong work visa revoked after immigration officials suspected he lied on an application form for a talent scheme. He Jiankui, who sparked an international scientific and ethical debate in 2018 when he …

Researchers in Kenya say they’ve detected an invasive mosquito that can transmit malaria in different climates, threatening progress to fight the parasitic disease. Kenya’s Medical Research Institute this week urged the public to use mosquito nets and clean up areas where mosquitos can breed. Kenya has detected the presence of …

Decades of violence and humanitarian crises have left many Somali people traumatized, according to a health study by the U.N. and Somali organizations. Harun Maruf reported from Washington and Abdulkadir Zubeyr in Mogadishu spoke to mental health doctors and patients in the country. They have this report narrated by Salem …

The U.N. in Malawi has launched an urgent appeal for aid to deal with the impact of a record cholera outbreak that has so far killed nearly 1,450 people and infected 45,000.   Local health experts say if urgent action isn’t taken to scale up the response, the number of cases …

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Ghenya Grondin of Waltham, Massachusetts, was a postpartum doula – a person charged with helping young couples navigate the first weeks of their newborn child’s life at home. Grondin, now aged 44, was infected with SARS-CoV-2 in mid-March of that year – before there were …

Two 16th-century sculptures, jewels of French Renaissance art, have been on display since 1908 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But thanks to modern technology and an unusual agreement, precise 3D copies will be made and installed in the French castle where the originals long resided. The facsimiles plan …

United Nations members gather Monday in New York to resume efforts to forge a long-awaited and elusive treaty to safeguard the world’s marine biodiversity.  Nearly two-thirds of the ocean lies outside national boundaries on the high seas where fragmented and unevenly enforced rules seek to minimize human impact.  The goal …

The prospect of large-scale mining to extract valuable minerals from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, once a distant vision, has grown more real, raising alarms among the oceans’ most fervent defenders. “I think this is a real and imminent risk,” Emma Wilson of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an …

World health officials warn the war in Ukraine is taking a heavy toll on the mental health condition of millions of people, requiring an urgent increase in mental health and psychological support. “An estimated almost 10 million people may currently have a mental health condition, of whom about 4 million …

Avian flu has reached new corners of the globe and become endemic for the first time in some wild birds that transmit the virus to poultry, according to veterinarians and disease experts, who warn it is now a year-round problem. Reuters spoke to more than 20 experts and farmers on …

Police use of automated data analysis to prevent crime in some German states was unconstitutional, a top German court said on Thursday, ruling in favor of critics of software provided by the CIA-backed Palantir Technologies PLTR.N. Provisions regulating the use of the technology in Hesse and Hamburg violate the right …

The confirmation of more bird flu cases in South America raised alarm bells in Brazil, which remains free of contagion even after its close neighbors Argentina and Uruguay confirmed cases there on Wednesday.  In a press conference to discuss the global sanitary hazard, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said Brazil, …

Cameroon’s health ministry has dismissed a report of two suspected cases of Marburg virus in the country after a first deadly outbreak in neighboring Equatorial Guinea. Health officials along the border said Tuesday there were two suspected cases of the severe hemorrhagic fever in Cameroon after Malabo confirmed nine deaths …

Plumes of smoke, questions about dead animals, worries about the drinking water. A train derailment in Ohio and subsequent burning of some of the hazardous chemicals has people asking: How worried should they be?  It’s been more than a week since about 50 cars of a freight train derailed in …

Health rights campaigners in Malawi are welcoming a national campaign against a record cholera outbreak, which has affected all 29 districts in the country and killed nearly 1,400 people. President Lazarus Chakwera launched the campaign Monday, pledging to reduce the transmission and mortality rate of the water-borne illness. Chakwera said …

Equatorial Guinea announced its first outbreak of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious disease similar to Ebola, the World Health Organization said in a statement Monday.  The small central African nation of about 1.6 million people reported nine deaths and 16 more suspected cases after a sample sent to a …

The Biden administration says it’s working with the governments of Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador to combat a documented rise in the availability and lethality of illegal drugs containing fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can be up to 100 times stronger than morphine. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the potency …

An uncrewed Russian supply ship docked at the International Space Station has lost cabin pressure, the Russian space corporation reported Saturday, saying the incident doesn’t pose any danger to the station’s crew. Roscosmos said the hatch between the station and the Progress MS-21 had been locked so the loss of …

On the packed streets of Nairobi, Cyrus Kariuki is one of a growing number of bikers zooming through traffic on an electric motorbike, reaping the benefits of cheaper transport, cleaner air and limiting planet-warming emissions in the process. “Each month one doesn’t have to be burdened by oil change, engine …

While others in her Zimbabwean village agonize over a maize crop seemingly headed for failure, Jestina Nyamukunguvengu picks up a hoe and slices through the soil of her fields that are lush green with a pearl millet crop in the African country’s arid Rushinga district. “These crops don’t get affected …

Don’t feed the bears!  Wildlife biologists and forest rangers have preached the mantra for nearly a century at national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, and for decades in areas where urban development increasingly invaded native wildlife habitat.  But don’t feed the birds? That may be a different story — at …