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by Fran BLANDY and AFP Africa bureaus PICTURES BY SIMON MAINA AND NIPAH DENNIS Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP)— Watching from afar as much of the world was brought to its knees by the coronavirus, African scientists, engineers and innovators have turned to homegrown solutions to prepare for the worst case scenario. By the time the virus hit Africa, where cases have risen relatively slowly, images of overwhelmed hospitals and stories of health workers strapped for […]
by Qian Ye and Matthew Knight Agence France Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt. The outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to find treatments and vaccines. A drug being tested by scientists at China’s prestigious Peking University could not only shorten the recovery […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Tests on hamsters reveal the widespread use of facemasks reduces transmission of the deadly coronavirus, a team of leading experts in Hong Kong said Sunday. The research by the University of Hong Kong is some of the first to specifically investigate whether masks can stop symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers from infecting others. Led by Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, one of the world’s top coronavirus experts, the team placed hamsters […]
by Rob Lever Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON DC, United States (AFP) — In a world suddenly fearful of touch, voice technology is getting a fresh look. Voice-activated systems such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri have seen strong growth in recent years, and the virus pandemic could accelerate that, analysts say. Voice assistants are not only answering queries and shopping, but also being used for smart home control and for a range of business and […]
by Kelly MACNAMARA Agence France Presse Researchers in Hong Kong have found that patients suffering milder illness caused by the new coronavirus recover more quickly if they are treated with a three-drug antiviral cocktail soon after symptoms appear. Authors of the study, published in the Lancet on Friday, described the findings as “early but important”. They called for larger-scale research on critically-ill patients to ascertain if the drug combo could be a viable treatment for […]
by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Agence France Presse Even as virologists zero in on the virus that causes COVID-19, a very basic question remains unanswered: do those who recover from the disease have immunity? There is no clear answer to this question, experts say, even if many have assumed that contracting the potentially deadly disease confers immunity, at least for a while. “Being immunized means that you have developed an immune response against a virus such that […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Total said Tuesday its quarterly profit fell by 99 percent because of dropping oil prices and announced it would slash investments in response to ongoing turmoil in crude markets. The French oil major reported a net profit of $34 million for the first quarter, against $3.1 billion a year earlier. Oil prices suffered a sharp drop in the first quarter due to overproduction and a price war between Saudi Arabia and […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China on Tuesday successfully launched a new rocket and prototype spacecraft, state media said, in a major test of the country’s ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the Moon. The Long March 5B rocket took off from the Wenchang launch site in the southern island of Hainan and eight minutes later an unmanned prototype spaceship successfully separated and entered its planned orbit, according to the Xinhua […]
by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS with AFP bureaus Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — China reported its first cases of the new coronavirus in December. But was COVID-19 already silently circulating? To find out scientists are looking for “patient zeros” by tracking the evolution of the virus itself. This genetic detective work is tracing the family tree of the coronavirus that has killed tens of thousands in its relentless spread across the planet. It could also help find out if […]
by Ivan Couronne Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON DC, United States (AFP) NASA and SpaceX said Friday they were pressing ahead with plans to launch astronauts to space from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade later on this month, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, both veterans of the Space Shuttle program that was shuttered in 2011, will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on May […]
by Issam AHMED Agence France Presse Remdesivir has been shown to speed up recovery times for patients with COVID-19 in a major US-led trial, becoming the first drug with proven benefit against the disease. Here is what you need to know. – What is remdesivir? – Remdesivir is an experimental, broad spectrum antiviral made by US pharmaceutical Gilead Sciences that was first developed to treat Ebola, a viral hemorrhagic fever. It showed early promise in […]
by Olga SHYLENKO Agence France-Presse KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) — Yuriy Otruba was preparing for his sixth scientific expedition to Antarctica when the coronavirus pandemic hit, shutting borders, grounding flights and locking down countries he needed to travel through. After repeated trips since 2009, the 34-year-old Ukrainian scientist feared this year’s journey would be impossible due to strict lockdown measures imposed throughout the world to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. The journey from Kiev to the Akademik Vernadsky […]
