Category: General

The United Nations announced Monday that a nationwide house-to-house polio vaccination campaign in conflict-torn Afghanistan will recommence next month and hailed the new Taliban government for agreeing to lift a ban on such drives.

Afghanistan is one of two countries in the world, along with neighboring Pakistan, where the highly infectious and incurable disease continues to cripple children.

Officials on both sides documented only one infection each so far in 2021 of the wild poliovirus Type 1 (WPV1), the lowest-ever transmission seen at the same time in Pakistan and Afghanistan, compared to 84 and 56 cases respectively last year.

The house-to-house Afghan anti-polio campaign due to start November 8 is aimed at reaching around 10 million children under the age of 5 across the country, including more than 3 million in remote and previously inaccessible areas, according to the World Health Organization and U.N. children’s agency UNICEF.

The Taliban, who regained power in August, banned door-to-door vaccinations in April 2018 in areas under their control as they waged insurgent attacks against the ousted Western-backed Afghan government and international forces.

“Over this 3-and-a-half-year period, there were approximately 3.3 million children, some of whom could never be reached — or some of them inconsistently reached — with vaccination because of this ban,” Dr. Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, told VOA.

He explained that the Taliban had seen polio teams’ house-to-house movement as a security risk for their fighters in the wake of the nature of the conflict at the time.

“They have now the controlling authority across the country, and there is not much active conflict right now. So, they (Taliban) have decided to continue their support for polio eradication and specially vaccination through house-to-house vaccination,” the WHO official said.

Jafari recalled the polio eradication program started in Afghanistan in the 1990s when the Taliban were in government and hailed the Islamist group for being supportive of the anti-polio efforts from the outset.

He stressed the need for aggressively implementing the anti-polio campaign, saying the low number of cases offer a “truly unique opportunity” to eradicate the virus from Afghanistan.

Jafari underlined the economic importance of the house-to-house campaign, saying it will be the first major mobilization of Afghan health workers for delivery of a nationwide vaccination service since the Taliban takeover of the country.

“In the current situation of real economic challenges, where many workers and people have not been paid their salaries, this campaign will be one activity in which a large number of the workforce will actually participate in vaccine delivery and will get paid for it,” he said.

WHO officials said a second campaign in Afghanistan, due to begin in coordination with a campaign in Pakistan in December, has also been agreed to.

Jafari cautioned that it is too early for both countries to celebrate that they are nearing polio eradication. He noted there are still several million children in Afghanistan who have not been administered polio drops in recent years, and there are areas in Pakistan where children still need to be inoculated against the virus.

“We have an unprecedented epidemiological opportunity right now to succeed in final polio eradication in both countries. The progress is encouraging, but it is very fragile, and both countries still have to work very hard. This is not a time to be complacent,” Jafari said.

Source: Voice of America

The first new Alzheimer’s treatment in more than 20 years was hailed as a breakthrough when regulators approved it more than four months ago, but its rollout has been slowed by questions about its price and how well it works.

Several major medical centers remain undecided on whether to use Biogen’s Aduhelm, which is recommended for early stages of the disease. Big names like the Cleveland Clinic and Mass General Brigham in Boston say they’ll pass on it for now.

One neurology practice has even banned the company’s sales reps from its offices, citing concerns about the drug and its price, which can climb past $50,000 annually.

Many doctors say they need to learn more about how Aduhelm works and what will be covered before they decide whether to offer it. That might take several months to sort out. Even then, questions may linger.

“The drug won’t be for everybody, even with access,” said Salim Syed, an analyst who covers Biogen for Mizuho Securities USA.

Syed estimates that only around one-tenth of the people diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s may wind up taking Aduhelm chronically, especially if regulators approve similar treatments from Biogen’s competitors.

Biogen, which reports third-quarter financial results Wednesday, is not saying how many people have received the drug since it was approved on June 7. A company executive said last month that Biogen was aware of about 50 sites infusing Aduhelm, far fewer than the 900 the company had said it expected to be ready shortly after regulators approved the drug.

Aduhelm is the first in a line of new drugs that promise to do what no other Alzheimer’s treatment has managed: slow the progress of the fatal brain-destroying disease instead of just managing its symptoms.

“It’s like a breath of fresh air,” said Dr. Stephen Salloway, a Rhode Island neurologist and Biogen consultant who is prescribing the drug. People with Alzheimer’s “know what’s coming, and they want to do whatever they can to stay in the milder stage.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Aduhelm despite objections from its own independent advisers, several of whom resigned. The agency later said the drug was appropriate for patients with mild symptoms or early-stage Alzheimer’s.

Aduhelm clears brain plaque thought to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease, and regulators made the call based on study results showing the drug seemed likely to benefit patients.

Biogen, which developed Aduhelm with Japan’s Eisai Co., had halted two studies on the drug due to disappointing results. It later said further analysis showed the treatment was effective at higher doses.

The FDA is requiring Biogen to conduct a follow-up study.

The research Biogen submitted so far doesn’t give doctors as much insight as they would normally have into a drug, said Dr. Brendan Kelley, a neurologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Its experts are still reviewing Aduhelm.

“Biogen went to the FDA with preliminary data, so it makes it really challenging to know how to navigate,” he said. More complete research would give doctors a better idea for how the drug will work in a broader patient population, Kelley said.

Cost is another concern.

Biogen’s pricing for Aduhelm is “irresponsible and unconscionable,” according to signs posted on office doors for The Neurology Center, a Washington, D.C.-area practice. The signs also refer to Aduhelm as a medication “of dubious effectiveness” and tell Biogen sales reps they are no longer welcomed in the center’s offices.

“As physicians we feel compelled to speak out and protest BIOGEN’s actions,” one of the signs reads.

Neurology Center CEO Wendy Van Fossen said the signs went up in July, but she declined to elaborate on why they were posted.

A Biogen spokeswoman said in an email that it was disappointing that some centers are denying access to the drug.

As for Aduhelm’s effectiveness, company data shows that plaque removal “is reasonably likely to predict a clinical benefit,” said Biogen Chief Medical Officer Dr. Maha Radhakrishnan. She said regulators reviewed data from more than 3,000 patients, counting two late-stage studies and earlier research.

Doctors also are worried about whether patients taking Aduhelm will be able to get the regular brain scans needed to monitor their progress on the drug.

Issues with care access weren’t explored in the clinical research, which also involved patients who were generally younger and healthier than those in the broader population, noted Dr. Zaldy Tan, director of the Cedars-Sinai memory and aging program.

The Los Angeles health system is still evaluating Aduhelm. Its committee of experts is considering things like which doctors will prescribe the drug and how to ensure patients are monitored for problems like dizziness or if headaches develop. Bleeding in the brain is another potential side effect.

“Safety and access are real issues that need to be prioritized,” Tan said.

Aduhelm also requires a deeper level of coordination among doctors than other Alzheimer’s treatments, noted Radhakrishnan.

Prescribing doctors have to work with neurologists, radiologists and nurse practitioners to diagnose patients, confirm the presence of plaque in the brain, get them started on the treatment and then monitor them.

“All of this is work in progress,” Radhakrishnan said.

Uncertainty about insurance coverage is another holdup.

Some insurers have decided not to cover the drug. Others, including the major Medicare Advantage insurer Humana, haven’t made a decision yet but are reviewing claims case by case in the meantime.

The federal Medicare program is expected to make a national coverage determination by next spring that will lay out how it handles the drug.

Biogen executives said recently they think most sites that will offer the drug are waiting for clarity on reimbursement, including that Medicare decision.

Medicare’s determination looms large for the Cedars-Sinai experts. Tan said they know they should reach a decision before the Medicare decision prompts more patient inquiries.

He said doctors also realize they aren’t just evaluating Aduhelm: They’re also thinking about how to handle similar treatments that could get FDA approval.

“We want to make sure we get it right,” Tan said.

Source: Voice of America

Facebook says it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform.

The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build “the metaverse,” a futuristic notion for connecting people online that encompasses augmented and virtual reality.

Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next big thing after the mobile internet as they also contend with other matters such as antitrust crackdowns, the testimony of a whistleblowing former employee and concerns about how the company handles vaccine-related and political misinformation on its platform.

In a separate blog post Sunday, the company defended its approach to combating hate speech, in response to a Wall Street Journal article that examined the company’s inability to detect and remove hateful and excessively violent posts.

Source: Voice of America

Three astronauts successfully docked with China’s new space station on Saturday on what is set to be Beijing’s longest crewed mission to date and the latest landmark in its drive to become a major space power.

The three blasted off shortly after midnight (1600 GMT Friday) from the Jiuquan launch center in northwestern China’s Gobi desert, the China Manned Space Agency said, with the team expected to spend six months at the Tiangong space station.

The space agency declared the launch a success and said the crew “were in good shape.”

The Shenzhou-13 vessel carrying the three completed its docking with the radial port of the space station less than seven hours after the launch.

The mission, which is expected to last twice as long as a previous 90-day visit, will involve the crew setting up equipment and testing technology for future construction on the Tiangong station.

Mission commander Zhai Zhigang, 55, a former fighter pilot who performed the country’s first spacewalk in 2008, said the team would undertake “more complex” spacewalks than during previous missions.

The crew include military pilot Wang Yaping, 41, who is the first woman to visit the space station after becoming China’s second woman in space in 2013.

The other team member is People’s Liberation Army pilot Ye Guangfu, 41.

Pictures released by the space agency showed the three astronauts waving to well-wishers who held up slogans of encouragement at a send-off ceremony before the launch.

A previous record-breaking crew — making the first mission to Tiangong — returned to Earth in September after spending three months on the space station.

China’s heavily promoted space program has already seen the nation land a rover on Mars and send probes to the moon.

Tiangong, meaning “heavenly palace,” is expected to operate for at least 10 years.

Its core module entered orbit earlier this year, with the station expected to be operational by 2022.

The completed station will be similar to the Soviet Mir station that orbited Earth from the 1980s until 2001.

The latest mission is set to “expand China’s technological boundary” and verify the space station system’s capacity for a longer duration of human occupation, Chen Lan, an independent space analyst at GoTaikonauts, told AFP.

“I don’t think it is very challenging, as China’s technologies (are) quite mature, though anything in space is always challenging,” Chen said.

Saturday’s blast-off came shortly after China launched its first solar exploration satellite into space, equipped with a telescope to observe changes in the Sun.

The Chinese space agency is planning a total of 11 missions to Tiangong through to the end of next year, including at least two more crewed launches that will deliver two lab modules to expand the 70-ton station.

China’s space ambitions have been fueled in part by a U.S. ban on its astronauts on the International Space Station, a collaboration among the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan.

The ISS is due for retirement after 2024, although NASA has said it could remain functional beyond 2028.

Chinese space authorities have said they are open to foreign collaboration on the space station, although the scope of that cooperation is as yet unclear.

The country has come a long way since launching its first satellite in 1970.

It put the first Chinese “taikonaut” in space in 2003 and landed the Chang’e-4 robot on the far side of the Moon in 2019 — a historic first.

China in May became the second nation to land and operate a rover on Mars.

Astronauts on the Tiangong space station will have separate living spaces, exercise equipment and a communication center for emails and video calls with ground control.

State broadcaster CCTV said astronauts had also packed special food and supplies to celebrate the Lunar New Year during their long mission, including dumplings.

Source: Voice of America

Like other ranchers across the country, Rusty Kemp for years grumbled about rock-bottom prices paid for the cattle he raised in central Nebraska, even as the cost of beef at grocery stores kept climbing.

He and his neighbors blamed it on consolidation in the beef industry stretching back to the 1970s that resulted in four companies slaughtering more than 80% of the nation’s cattle, giving the processors more power to set prices while ranchers struggled to make a living. Federal data show that for every dollar spent on food, the share that went to ranchers and farmers dropped from 35 cents in the 1970s to 14 cents recently.

It led Kemp to launch an audacious plan: Raise more than $300 million from ranchers to build a plant themselves, putting their future in their own hands.

“We’ve been complaining about it for 30 years,” Kemp said. “It’s probably time somebody does something about it.”

Crews will start work this fall building the Sustainable Beef plant on nearly 400 acres near North Platte, Nebraska, and other groups are making similar surprising moves in Iowa, Idaho and Wisconsin. The enterprises will test whether it’s really possible to compete financially against an industry trend that has swept through American agriculture and that played a role in meat shortages during the coronavirus pandemic.

The move is well timed, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now taking a number of steps to encourage a more diverse supply in the beef industry.

Still, it’s hard to overstate the challenge, going up against huge, well-financed competitors that run highly efficient plants and can sell beef at prices that smaller operators will struggle to match.

‘They’re ready to take a risk’

The question is whether smaller plants can pay ranchers more and still make a profit themselves. An average 620-kilogram steer is worth about $1,630, but that value must be divided between the slaughterhouse, feed lot and the rancher, who typically bears the largest expense of raising the animal for more than a year.

David Briggs, the CEO of Sustainable Beef, acknowledged the difficulty but said his company’s investors remain confident.

“Cattle people are risk takers and they’re ready to take a risk,” Briggs said.

Consolidation of meatpacking started in the mid-1970s, with buyouts of smaller companies, mergers and a shift to much larger plants. Census data cited by the USDA shows that the number of livestock slaughter plants declined from 2,590 in 1977 to 1,387 in 1992. And big processors gradually dominated, going from handling only 12% of cattle in 1977 to 65% by 1997.

Currently four companies — Cargill, JBS, Tyson Foods and National Beef Packing — control more than 80% of the U.S. beef market thanks to cattle slaughtered at 24 plants. That concentration became problematic when the coronavirus infected workers, slowing and even closing some of the massive plants, and a cyberattack last summer briefly forced a shutdown of JBS plants until the company paid an $11 million ransom.

The Biden administration has largely blamed declining competition for a 14% increase in beef prices from December 2020 to August. Since 2016, the wholesale value of beef and profits to the largest processors has steadily increased while prices paid to ranchers have barely budged.

Trying to retain workers with higher pay

The backers of the planned new plants have no intention of replacing the giant slaughterhouses, such as a JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, that processes about 6,000 cattle daily — four times what the proposed North Platte plant would handle.

However, they say they will have important advantages, including more modern equipment and, they hope, less employee turnover thanks to slightly higher pay of more than $50,000 annually plus benefits along with more favorable work schedules. The new Midwest plants are also counting on closer relationships with ranchers, encouraging them to invest in the plants, to share in the profits.

The companies would market their beef both domestically and internationally as being of higher quality than meat processed at larger plants.

Chad Tentinger, who is leading efforts to build a Cattlemen’s Heritage plant near Council Bluffs, Iowa, said he thinks smaller plants were profitable even back to the 1970s but that owners shifted to bigger plants in hopes of increasing profits.

Now, he said, “We want to revolutionize the plant and make it an attractive place to work.”

‘They’re extremely efficient’

Besides paying ranchers more and providing dividends to those who own shares, the hope is that their success will spur more plants to open, and the new competitors will add openness to cattle markets.

Derrell Peel, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, said he hopes they’re right, but noted that research shows even a 30% reduction in a plant’s size will make it far less efficient, meaning higher costs to slaughter each animal.

Unless smaller plants can keep expenses down, they will need to find customers who will pay more for their beef, or manage with a lower profit margin than the big companies.

“We have these very large plants because they’re extremely efficient,” Peel said.

According to the North American Meat Institute, a trade group that includes large and mid-size plants, the biggest challenge will be the shortage of workers in the industry.

It’s unfair to blame the big companies and consolidation for the industry’s problems, said Tyson Fresh Meats group President Shane Miller.

“Many processors, including Tyson, are not able to run their facilities at capacity in spite of ample cattle supply,” Miller told a U.S. Senate committee in July. “This is not by choice: Despite our average wage and benefits of $22 per hour, there are simply not enough workers to fill our plants.”

The proposed new plants come as the USDA is trying to increase the supply chain. The agency has dedicated $650 million toward funding mid-size and small meat and poultry plants and $100 million in loan guarantees for such plants. Also planned are new rules to label meat as a U.S. product to differentiate it from meat raised in other countries.

“We’re trying to support new investment and policies that are going to diversify and address that underlying problem of concentration,” said Andy Green, a USDA senior adviser for fair and competitive markets.

Source: Voice of America

A panel of U.S. health advisers has recommended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorize a second shot of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for anyone who has received the single-dose inoculation.

The panel expressed concerns Friday that Americans who received the shot are not as protected as those who were given a two-dose vaccination from drugmakers Pfizer or Moderna.

Last month, the FDA authorized a third booster shot for the Pfizer vaccine for seniors as well as adults who are at high risk for COVID-19. On Thursday, the FDA advisory panel recommended a similar course of action for Moderna boosters, except using lower doses.

Johnson & Johnson is the only COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States that is only one dose. Initially, it was hailed for its ability to take effect quickly, but soon ran into concerns that it led to a rare blood clot disorder and a neurological disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome. It is now facing criticism that it is less effective than rival brands.

Only about 15 million Americans received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine out of 188 million Americans who are fully vaccinated.

In other developments Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would accept mixed-dose coronavirus vaccines from international travelers. It has said it would allow travelers to have received any vaccine authorized for use by the FDA or the World Health Organization.

Earlier in the day, the White House said it would lift COVID-19 travel restrictions for international travelers who are fully vaccinated on Nov. 8.

In France, health officials ended a policy Friday of allowing free COVID-19 tests for everyone in an effort to persuade people to get vaccinated. Now, only those who have been vaccinated, who have a prescription from a doctor, or minors will be allowed to take free tests while others will have to pay.

Health ministry data Friday showed COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the country, with 6,099 new cases up from last Friday’s 4,470 cases.

South Africa said Friday it would start vaccinating children between the ages of 12 and 17 next week using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The government is trying to meet a goal of vaccinating 70% of the adult population by December.

Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said Friday they have submitted data to the European Union’s regulatory agency to approve their coronavirus vaccine for children ages 5-11. The companies have already taken a similar step with U.S. regulators.

In Italy, officials made health passes mandatory for all workers Friday. The passes must show proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from infection in order to work.

Scattered demonstrations were held across the country to protest the new rules, including 6,000 protesters in the northeastern port of Trieste.

And in Russia, the coronavirus task force said the daily number of new coronavirus infections and deaths surged to another record Friday. It reported 32,196 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 999 deaths in the previous 24 hours.

Source: Voice of America