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By Sami ACEF with David COURBET in Marseille PARIS, Oct 3, 2023 (AFP) – The French government said Tuesday it would host emergency meetings this week to examine surging numbers of reported bedbug cases, which are being increasingly seen as a major potential public health problem. Bedbugs have in recent weeks gone from being a subject of potential derision to a contentious political issue in France, with aghast citizens reporting seeing the creatures in locations […]
By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, Oct 2, 2023 (AFP) – From developing a one-and-done coronavirus shot to overcoming misinformation and global vaccine inequity, Nobel prize winner Drew Weissman says that at 64, he’s only “speeding up.” The University of Pennsylvania immunologist was awarded the biggest accolade in medicine on Monday for his pioneering research on messenger RNA, the technology behind Covid-19 vaccines that changed the course of the pandemic. “What happened is I got a cryptic […]
DHAKA, Oct 2, 2023 (AFP) – More than 1,000 people in Bangladesh have died of dengue fever since the start of the year, official figures showed, in the country’s worst recorded outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease. Dengue is a disease endemic to tropical areas that causes high fevers, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain and, in the most serious cases, bleeding that can lead to death. The World Health Organization has warned that dengue — and […]
Here is a list of the winners of the Nobel Medicine Prize in the past 10 years: 2022: Swedish paleogeneticist Svante Paabo for his discoveries on the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. 2021: US duo David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for discoveries on human receptors responsible for our ability to sense temperature and touch. 2020: Americans Harvey Alter and Charles Rice, together with Briton Michael Houghton, for the discovery of the Hepatitis C […]
By Pia OHLIN STOCKHOLM, Oct 2, 2023 (AFP) – Narcolepsy, cancer or mRNA vaccine research could win the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday when a week of announcements kick off, but experts see no clear frontrunner for the Peace Prize. The awards, first handed out in 1901, were created by Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will to celebrate those who have “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” The Medicine Prize is […]
By Daniel Lawler An anti-Covid drug widely used across the world may have caused mutations in the virus, researchers said on Monday, but there was no evidence that the changes had led to more dangerous variants. Pharmaceutical giant Merck’s antiviral pill molnupiravir was one of the earliest treatments rolled out during the pandemic to prevent Covid becoming more severe in vulnerable people. The drug, which is taken orally over a five-day course, works mainly by […]
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 22, 2023 (AFP) – South African poultry farmers have warned of possible chicken and egg shortages as they battle what the industry says is the worst bird flu outbreak ever to hit the country. Producer Quantum Foods said on Friday that this year it had lost almost two million chickens — worth a total of more than 100 million rand ($5.3 million) — because of the disease. “The bird flu outbreak is the […]
People in poorer countries are disproportionately suffering from air pollution spewed from the increasing scourge of fires in forests and fields around the world, according to new research published Wednesday. Landscape fires include blazes in forests, shrub, grass, pastures and agricultural lands, whether planned or uncontrolled such as the wildfires that have ravaged countries including Algeria, Canada and Greece this year. They generate smoke that can travel up to thousands of kilometres, creating public health […]
The Galapagos National Park said Tuesday that it had detected its first cases of avian flu on the remote islands, home to unique bird species that helped inspire the theory of evolution. Three positive cases of the H5N1 virus were detected after reports of visibly sick birds on the islands, the park said in a statement. The Galapagos archipelago is a bird-watchers paradise with scores of unique and colorful species, such as the blue-footed booby […]
NEW DELHI, Sept 15, 2023 (AFP) – Authorities in India are scrambling to contain a rare outbreak of Nipah, a virus spread from animals to humans that causes deadly fever with a high mortality rate. Here is a look at what we know so far: – What is the Nipah virus? – The first Nipah outbreak was recorded in 1998 after the virus spread among pig farmers in Malaysia. The virus is named after the […]
When Michel Sadelain began his decades-long quest to genetically modify immune cells to fight cancer, his peers dismissed his ideas as absurd and even his mother grew concerned for his career. On Thursday, the French and Canadian scientist was announced as a winner of the prestigious Breakthrough Prize for his pioneering work in CAR T-cell therapy, a new form of treatment that has shown exceptional efficacy against blood cancers. “Over the years, I can’t tell […]
US surgeons who transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a brain-dead patient announced Thursday they had ended their experiment after a record-breaking 61 days. The latest experimental procedure is part of a growing field of research aimed at advancing cross-species transplants, mainly testing the technique on bodies that have been donated for science. There are more than 103,000 people waiting for organ transplants in the United States, 88,000 of whom need kidneys. “We have […]
