Police in Vietnam showed up at a private home last year to find what they had suspected: a menagerie of illegal pets, from a clouded leopard to flying squirrels. Acting on a tip, the police ended up with a haul of 16 wild animals in total that had made up the resident’s personal zoo.An environmental group, Education for Nature Vietnam, has been passing citizens’ tips to police to fight wildlife trafficking, which it said is now more urgent because of COVID-19. As the world fights a virus passed from animals to humans, the organization has now released a report card on the Southeast Asian nation’s success in its fight against the wildlife trade, not giving it the best grades.Law enforcement acted on 84 percent of reported wildlife crimes in Vietnam but resolved 35 percent of the total in 2019, said the report, released last week. It recommended authorities respond more …

A massive oil spill that occurred a week ago in Russia’s Arctic region has resulted in an emergency declaration by the country’s president and a government response to assess and clean up the damage.  Approximately 20,000 tons of diesel oil leaked from a storage tank on May 29, seeping into the Ambarnaya River in a part of Siberia located above the Arctic Circle, authorities said.   The tank was at an industrial plant operated by a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest producer of palladium and one of the largest producers of nickel, platinum and copper. The incident was reportedly caused by “abnormally mild temperatures” that caused the permafrost beneath the tank to thaw, leading to its structural collapse, according to a company official. A government investigation into the cause is being conducted. The French news agency AFP reports the spill has been contained. “The company is working painstakingly to understand what happened …

Weather scientists said May was the warmest month on record worldwide, with one observing station reporting carbon dioxide levels hitting a record high.The World Meteorological Organization warned that will have a major impact on biodiversity and nature as well as on people’s socioeconomic development and well-being.    Pandemic won’t affect climateAt the same time, lockdowns due to the COVID-19 virus have led to improvements in air quality and cleaner skies in many places.  But WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis said scientists agree the effects are temporary and the pandemic will not affect climate change in the long term.    “The industrial and economic slowdown from COVID 19 is not a substitute for sustained and coordinated climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Nullis said. “Unfortunately carbon dioxide concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa observing station in Hawaii reached a new record in May.”   The WMO noted the atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at the observatory is a seasonal peak, not a global average.  Nevertheless, it said that is indicative of the continuing increase in carbon dioxide concentrations …

After an initial cancellation due to weather conditions, NASA and SpaceX achieved a historic launch Saturday, marking the first time in nine years that astronauts went to orbit from U.S. soil.  Many moving parts behind the scenes ensured the launch’s success.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi spoke with two teams keeping travelers safe in This Week in Space.   …

Several authors of a large study that raised safety concerns about malaria drugs for coronavirus patients have retracted the report, saying independent reviewers were not able to verify information that’s been widely questioned by other scientists. Thursday’s retraction in the journal Lancet involved a May 22 report on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, drugs long used for preventing or treating malaria but whose safety and effectiveness for COVID-19 are unknown. The study leaders also retracted an earlier report that used the same company’s database on blood pressure drugs published by the New England Journal of Medicine. That study suggested that widely used blood pressure medicines were safe for coronavirus patients, a conclusion some other studies and heart doctor groups also have reached. Even though the Lancet report was not a rigorous test, the observational study had huge impact because of its size, reportedly involving more than 96,000 patients and 671 hospitals on six continents.  President Donald Trump tells reporters …

NASA’s Near-Earth observatory (NEO) is monitoring an asteroid bigger than New York’s Empire State building that is expected to pass by the Earth Saturday.According to the NEO, the asteroid known as 2002 NN4 at its broadest section, has a diameter of 570 meters. The Empire State building is just more than 426 meters tall.  But scientists at the NEO say there is nothing to fear from the asteroid, as “near earth” is a relative term. They measure the distance to deep space objects in astronomical units, with one astronomical unit close to the mean distance between the sun and Earth – approximately 150 million kilometers. Anything that comes within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun, is considered a near-Earth objectAt its closest distance, Asteroid 2002 NN4 is expected to pass about .034 astronomical units – or about 5.09 million kilometers from Earth, about 13 times the distance between the Earth …

The temporary expansion of telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic would become permanent under a bill considered Thursday by a Senate committee. As passed by the House in March, the bill would allow reimbursement for medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorders conducted via telehealth. But an amendment before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee would also make permanent the provisions of Gov. Chris Sununu’s emergency order on telehealth, which allowed all health care providers to offer services via phone, video and other remote systems and required insurers to cover them. Officials representing hospitals, community health centers, dentists and mental health providers all told the committee that telehealth has been a valuable tool during the pandemic and should continue. Christine Stoddard of the Bistate Primary Care Association said community health centers “were able to turn on a dime” and transition to telehealth. And though in-person visits have resumed, centers still don’t …

A report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says emergency room visits for non-coronavirus illnesses plummeted in April at the peak of the pandemic.The agency released an analysis Wednesday that the declines were greatest among children 14 years old and younger, women and for people living in the U.S. northeast region.  The CDC noted a steep drop in the number of people seeking emergency care for chest pain, including heart attack, along with declines in children needing help for conditions like asthma.   FILE – A view of medical personnel working in Mt. Sinai Hospital Morningside during the coronavirus pandemic on May 18, 2020 in New York City.The United States has the world’s largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 1.8 million infections, with the death toll now topping 107,175.   The New York Times reports the Trump administration has selected five companies as the most likely candidates …

The White House medical team kept a close eye on President Donald Trump’s heart rhythms, including at least one electrocardiogram, to watch for potential side effects when he took a two-week course of a malaria drug to try to prevent the coronavirus, his doctor reported Wednesday.”The President completed the regimen safely and without side effects,” Dr. Sean Conley wrote in a report on Trump’s latest physical and his treatment with hydroxychloroquine.A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 20, 2020.Overall, Conley said, Trump showed little change in basic health measurements from 16 months ago. On the negative side, he gained a pound. But on the plus side, his cholesterol level continued to fall.”The data indicates the President remains healthy,” Conley concluded. Trump recently took a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine after two White House staffers tested positive for COVID-19.Conley said it was done in …

Turkey and Russia have agreed to cooperate in the development of a coronavirus vaccine and plan to carry out joint clinical trials, the Turkish health minister said Wednesday. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said scientific advisers from the two countries were scheduled to hold a second round of talks later this week. A total of 22 Turkish universities and research centers are working to develop a vaccine, and four of them have advanced to the animal-testing stage, Koca said. The minister also said that Turkey has seen the benefit of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and will continue to administer it to COVID-19 patients, despite concerns raised over the drug. Koca said that unlike other countries, Turkey has been using the drug early in COVID-19 threatment.  Turkey recorded 867 confirmed virus cases and 24 deaths between Tuesday and Wednesday, the minister said. The update brought total confirmed cases in the country to 144,422 and the death …

A form of ibuprofen called flarin is being studied in Britain to see if it is effective for treating COVID-19 respiratory symptoms caused by the coronavirus.Also called lipid ibuprofen, flarin has anti-inflammatory effects and is designed to shield the stomach from irritation when taken.The study, LIBERATE Trial in COVID-19, aims to test flarin on 230 people who have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 and have acute respiratory failure. Only patients who are 18 or older are eligible.COVID-19 patients who have shown hypersensitivity to other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) do not qualify for the study.Ibuprofen received attention in March, when French Health Minister Olivier Veran tweeted that NSAIDS, which include ibuprofen, could aggravate COVID-19 symptoms.Since then, the World Health Organization, European Medicines Agency and other groups said there was not enough evidence to prove ibuprofen would worsen COVID-19 symptoms.  The sponsor of the LIBERATE study is King’s College London, with the …

The World Health Organization has warned that malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa could double this year to 769,000 due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Nigeria has the highest cases of malaria in the world but with the global focus on controlling the spread of COVID-19, many malaria patients are not getting to hospitals and intervention could fall through the cracks. Nigerian technology startup Wellahealth is trying to bridge the gap with rapid malaria testing. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.Camera: Emeka Gibson   …

A soccer field every 6 seconds. That’s the rate at which the world lost mature tropical forests last year, according to new data from the Global Forest Watch monitoring program.Satellite data shows nearly 4 million hectares of tree cover disappeared, an increase from last year and the third-largest loss this century.  Some experts find hopeful notes among the bad news, however. While Brazil’s forest losses have increased under right-wing President Jair Bolosonaro, policies to curb deforestation appear to be working in Indonesia, Colombia and West Africa.  The destruction of mature tropical forests is a massive hit to biodiversity and is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Resources Institute, the research and advocacy group that oversees Global Forest Watch. Since forests are massive sponges of carbon dioxide, reversing their loss would play an outsize role in fighting climate change.  The United Nations set a goal of ending deforestation by 2020, …

A study conducted by a major hospital in Milan, Italy, has found that the viral load present in people who now test positive for the coronavirus is decreasing, suggesting the infection may be weakening, according to doctors, whose findings have been greeted with skepticism.Alberto Zangrillo, head of Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital, said the coronavirus might be becoming less lethal and that those who have been recently infected have weaker symptoms than two months ago. “The swabs performed over the last 10 days show a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” Zangrillo, a physician to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, told Italy’s public broadcaster, RAI.The president of the scientific body advising the government on the pandemic says he is “baffled” by the claim. Italy has the third-highest coronavirus death toll in the world, with 33,475 people …

The World Health Organization on Monday confirmed a second outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, just as an initial outbreak appeared to be ending.At a briefing Monday in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this new outbreak is near the northwestern city of Mbandaka in the DRC’s Equateur province.Provincial Governor Bobo Boloko Bolumbu also confirmed four deaths on local radio. He said samples were sent to the INRC, the national medical research headquarters in Kinshasa, for secondary confirmation. He urged the population to remain calm, maintain good personal hygiene and not greet people “with your hands.”In 2018, Equateur province had an Ebola outbreak that killed 33 people before it was brought under control.Elsewhere, the eastern DRC has been battling an outbreak of the deadly virus since 2018. That outbreak left more than 2,240 people dead. The DRC is also grappling with a measles …