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GENEVA — The U.N. health agency on Monday launched a six-month plan to help stanch outbreaks of mpox transmission, including ramping up staffing in affected countries and boosting surveillance, prevention and response strategies. The World Health Organization said it expected the plan, running from September through February next year, would require $135 million in funding. The plan would also aim to improve fair access to vaccines, notably in African countries hardest hit by the outbreak. “The mpox outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries can be controlled, and can be stopped,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. The agency is “significantly scaling up staff” in affected countries, it said. In mid-August, WHO classified the current mpox outbreak as a global health emergency. Also Monday, German government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Germany was donating 100,000 doses of mpox vaccine to affected countries from stocks held …

The rapid rise in disposable electronic cigarette, or vape, usage is creating a tidal wave of pollution, and it’s raising serious environmental concerns. Aron Ranen reports from New York City about one woman who is trying to make a difference. …

Brazzaville, Congo — Twenty-one cases of mpox have been recorded in Congo-Brazzaville, the country’s health minister told state television Sunday. Gilbert Mokoki said that the central African country had “registered 158 suspect cases” since the beginning of the year, “21 of which we have confirmed.” The latest two were reported Thursday, he said. Cases of the infectious disease — formerly known as monkeypox — have been surging in eastern and central Africa, but the virus has also been detected in Asia and Europe, with the World Health Organization declaring an international emergency. The virus has been reported in five of Congo-Brazzaville’s 15 regions, with the forested areas of Sangha and Likouala in the north particularly affected. A new variant of mpox has swept across neighboring DR Congo, killing more than 570 people so far this year. Mokoki said that the epidemic was not alarming in Congo-Brazzaville, but appealed to people to take preventative …

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GENEVA — U.N. agencies are scaling up cholera prevention and treatment programs to get on top of a new, deadly cholera outbreak in Sudan that threatens to further destabilize communities suffering from hunger and the ill effects of more than 16 months of conflict. The recent cholera outbreak has resurged after several weeks of heavy rainfall and resulting flooding,” Kristine Hambrouck, UNHCR representative in Sudan, told journalists Friday in Geneva. Speaking on a video-link from Port Sudan, she warned, “Risks are compounded by the continuing conflict and dire humanitarian conditions, including overcrowding in camps and gathering sites for refugees and Sudanese displaced by the war, as well as limited medical supplies and health workers.” She expressed particular concern about the spread of the deadly disease in areas hosting refugees, mainly in Kassala, Gedaref and al-Jazirah states. “In addition to hosting refugees from other countries, these states are also sheltering thousands of …

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Port Sudan — For the second consecutive year Sudan is in the grip of a cholera outbreak that has left at least 28 people dead in the last month as rains fall in areas crammed with those fleeing the country’s 16-month-old war, officials said. Since July 22, when the current wave began, 658 cases of cholera have been recorded across five states, World Health Organization (WHO) country director Shible Sahbani told Reuters in Port Sudan. With much of the country’s health infrastructure collapsed or destroyed and staffing thinned by displacement, 4.3% of cases have resulted in deaths, a high rate compared to other outbreaks, Sahbani said. Some 200,000 are at high risk of falling ill, he said. The war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises and displaced more than 10 million people inside Sudan and beyond its borders. …

BERLIN — The Berlin Zoo announced Friday that longtime resident giant panda Meng Meng has given birth to twins — for a second time. The cubs were born on Thursday, the zoo said in a statement. They were born only 11 days after ultrasound scans showed that Meng Meng, 11, was pregnant. Their sex has not yet been determined “with certainty.” “Now it’s time to keep your fingers crossed for the critical first few days,” the zoo said. The cubs are tiny, weighing just 169 grams and 136 grams respectively, and are about 14 centimeters long. As with other large bears, giant pandas are born deaf, blind and pink. Their black-and-white panda markings only develop later. “I am relieved that the two were born healthy,” zoo director Andreas Knieriem said. “The little ones make a lively impression and mom Meng Meng takes great care of her offspring.” The zoo said that …

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COPENHAGEN, denmark — A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday, the meteorological office said, spraying red-hot lava and smoke in its sixth outbreak since December. “An eruption has begun. Work is under way to find out the location of the recordings,” the Icelandic Met Office, which is tasked with monitoring volcanoes, said in a statement. The total length of the fissure was about 3.9 kilometers (2.42 miles) and had extended by 1.5 kilometers (.93 mile) in about 40 minutes, it said. Livestreams from the volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula showed glowing hot lava shooting from the ground. Studies had shown magma accumulating underground, prompting warnings of new volcanic activity in the area just south of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik. The most recent eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, home to 30,000 people or nearly 8% of the country’s total population, ended on June 22 after spewing fountains of molten rock for 24 …

Harare, Zimbabwe — The United Nations said Thursday it is working with governments and health officials in Eastern and Southern Africa to contain the outbreak of mpox there. UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with local partners, are responding to the spread of the new mpox clade 1b variant, said Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF’s regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa. Kadilli said in a statement that more than 200 confirmed cases have been detected in five countries: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda. Dr. Francis Kasolo, director and head of the WHO at the African Union and U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, told a joint WHO-Africa CDC meeting, “Our collaboration has been instrumental in enhancing surveillance, laboratory capacity and effective deployment of technical capacity to countries. Together we are making progress.” But, he said, there is still much to be done. …

A green revolution is sweeping Pakistan as consumers switch to generating their own solar electricity. But as VOA Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports, the move to the increasingly affordable, green option may also cause a crisis for the national grid. Videographer: Wajid Asad …

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