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 and sixteen possible infections. Despite dismissing the reported cases, Cameroon’s health ministry says it is increasing surveillance and travel restrictions along the border. Health Minister Manaouda Malachie says Cameroon does not yet have any suspected cases of the Marburg virus, despite reports of two possible infections. Health officials in Cameroon’s South region on Tuesday said a teenage boy and girl suffering from high fever were rushed to a hospital Monday in Olamze, on the border with Equatorial Guinea. The health officials said the children were suspected of being infected with the Marburg virus, are in isolation, and are responding to …

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 a fiery, mangled mess on the outskirts of East Palestine near the Pennsylvania state line, apparently because of a mechanical issue with a rail car axle. No one was injured in that wreck. But concerns about air quality and the hazardous chemicals on board the train prompted some village residents to leave, and officials later ordered the evacuation of the immediate area as fears grew about a potential explosion of smoldering wreckage.  Officials seeking to avoid the danger of an uncontrolled blast chose to intentionally release and burn toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke …

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 the spread is largely because people in the country are not following good hygiene practices. “And because the behavior is not changing, the situation has become dire,” he said. “So far, over 1,300 funerals have happened around the country because of cholera. And the disease is still spreading at an alarming rate. We are getting between 500 to 600 cholera cases every day in our health facilities throughout the country.” The campaign, known as “Tithetse Kolera” or “Let’s end cholera,” focuses on repairing water kiosks across the country and helping people construct toilets in their homes. Chakwera said statistics show …

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 laboratory in Senegal on February 7 came back positive.  Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba told reporters that a health alert had been declared in Kie-Ntem province and the neighboring district of Mongomo, after consulting with the World Health Organization and the United Nations, Agence France-Presse reported. The nine deaths occurred between January 7 and February 7, Ayekaba said. The Marburg virus has a fatality rate of up to 88% and spreads from person to person through direct contact with bodily fluids, WHO said. The disease comes from the same family of viruses as Ebola. Symptoms consist of high fever and …

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 of pills is rising — in 2022, six out of 10 pills contained a potentially lethal dose of the narcotic. President Joe Biden mentioned the deadly drug in his recent State of the Union address, in which he spoke of “a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers, seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months.” And Biden outlined his administration’s plan to tackle the epidemic in different ways, including funding screening measures, checking packages and “expanding access to evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery.” VOA’s Jorge Agobian spoke …

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 pressure didn’t affect the orbiting outpost. “The temperature and pressure on board the station are within norms and there is no danger to health and safety of the crew,” it said in a statement. The space corporation didn’t say what may have caused the cargo ship to lose pressure. Roscosmos noted that the cargo ship had already been loaded with waste before its scheduled disposal. The craft is set to be undocked from the station and deorbit to burn in the atmosphere Feb. 18. The announcement came shortly after a new Russian cargo ship docked smoothly at the station Saturday. …

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 checks and other costly maintenance costs,” Kariuki said. Electric motorcycles are gaining traction in Kenya as private sector-led firms rush to set up charging points and battery-swapping stations to speed up the growth of cleaner transport and put the east African nation on a path toward fresher air and lower emissions. But startups say more public support and better government schemes can help further propel the industry. Ampersand, an African-based electric mobility company, began its Kenyan operations in May 2022. The business currently operates seven battery-swapping stations spread across the country’s capital and has so far attracted 60 customers. Ian …

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 by drought, they are quick to flower, and that’s the only way we can beat the drought,” the 59-year old said, smiling broadly. Millets, including sorghum, now take up over two hectares of her land — a patch where maize was once the crop of choice. Farmers like Nyamukunguvengu in the developing world are on the front lines of a project proposed by India that has led the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization to christen 2023 as “The Year of Millets,” an effort to revive a hardy and healthy crop that has been cultivated for millennia — but was largely …

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 least for one bird species at Lake Tahoe.  Snowshoe and cross-country ski enthusiasts routinely feed the tiny mountain chickadees high above the north shore of the alpine lake on the California-Nevada border. The black-capped birds of Chickadee Ridge will even perch on extended hands to snatch offered seeds.  New research from University of Nevada scientists found that supplementing the chickadees’ natural food sources with food provided in feeders or by hand did not negatively impact them, as long as proper food is offered and certain rules are followed.  “It’s a wonderful experience when the birds fly around and land on …

Experts predict that psychedelic compounds could become a billion-dollar industry for treating depression and trauma after initial clinical trials in the United States show promising results. Out of respect for medical privacy some full names were not used. Aron Ranen has the story from New York. …

SpaceX is a big step closer to sending its giant Starship spacecraft into orbit, completing an engine-firing test at the launch pad on Thursday. Thirty-one of the 33 first-stage booster engines ignited simultaneously for about 10 seconds in south Texas. The team turned off one engine before sending the firing command and another engine shut down _ “but still enough engines to reach orbit!” tweeted SpaceX’s Elon Musk. Musk estimates Starship’s first orbital test flight could occur as soon as March, if the test analyses and remaining preparations go well. The booster remained anchored to the pad as planned during the test. There were no signs of major damage to the launch tower. NASA is counting on Starship to ferry astronauts to the surface of the moon in a few years, linking up with its Orion capsule in lunar orbit. Further down the road, Musk wants to use the mammoth …

The two Sudanese women thought they had malaria and were taking their medication, but things took a dire turn. Both complained of a splitting headache and fever that didn’t respond to the antimalaria treatment. By the time she was diagnosed with dengue fever, Raqiya Abdsalam was unconscious. “Soon after they examined me, I fell into a coma,” she said, recounting her ordeal some three months ago. Both women have since recovered and are at home in the city of El Obeid in the central province of North Kordofan. For decades, Sudan’s underfunded public health sector has struggled to effectively diagnose or treat patients as significant government spending went to its vast security services. A recent spike in mosquito-borne diseases — such as dengue fever and malaria — has underscored the fragility of the African country’s health system, boding ill for future challenges driven by climate change. Sudan’s best-equipped hospitals are …

A single-injection antiviral treatment for newly infected COVID-19 patients reduced the risk of hospitalization by half in a large-scale clinical trial, a study published Wednesday said. Stanford University professor Jeffrey Glenn, co-author of the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said the new drug “showed profound benefits for vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike.” While the number of Americans dying daily of the disease caused by a coronavirus has fallen to about 500, treatments for COVID-19 remain limited. One of the most common — Paxlovid, made by Pfizer — involves taking 30 pills over five days. The new treatment involves a single dose of pegylated interferon lambda, a synthetic version of a naturally occurring protein that infected cells secrete to defend against viral infection. “What it does is it binds receptors on the surfaces of cells that activate our own antiviral defense mechanisms,” said Glenn, a professor of …

Whether out-of-the-box thinking or a sign of desperation, scientists on Wednesday proposed the regular transport of moon dust to a point between Earth and Sun to temper the ravages of global warming.  Ideas for filtering solar radiation to keep Earth from overheating have been kicking around for decades, ranging from giant space-based screens to churning out reflective white clouds.  But the persistent failure to draw down planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions has pushed once-fanciful geoengineering schemes toward center stage in climate policy, investment and research.  Blocking 1%-2% of the Sun’s rays is all it would take to lower Earth’s surface by a degree or two Celsius, roughly the amount it has warmed over the last century.  The solar radiation technique with the most traction so far is the 24/7 injection of billions of shiny sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere.  So-called stratospheric aerosol injection would be cheap, and scientists know it …