Nigerian health officials say nearly 1,800 people have died from cholera this year, with cases found in more than 20 states around the country. To combat the bacterial disease that is spread by dirty water, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment is urging proper hygiene and organizing mass cleanups in affected areas. Timothy Obiezu reports from the capital, Abuja.Camera: Emeka Gibson
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Scientists in South Africa say they have detected a new variant of COVID-19.The country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases announced Monday in a new study that the variant, which has been designated C.1.2, was first detected in South Africa in May of this year, and has since spread to seven other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the southern Pacific region of Oceania.   The scientists say the C.1.2 variant appears to have the same characteristics as that of other mutations that are more transmissible and more able to overtake a person’s immune system.The study has not been published nor has it undergone the normal peer review process. The scientists say they are still monitoring the frequency of the C.1.2 variant, and that it has not evolved as either a “variant of interest” or “variant of concern” under the guidelines established by the World Health Organization. FILE – A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Sept. 30, 2014.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the three COVID-19 vaccines currently in use in the United States remain highly effective in preventing severe disease. Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC scientist, told a vaccine advisory panel that the COVID-19 vaccine was 94% effective in preventing hospitalization for adults between the ages of 18 to 74 between April and July, when the delta variant became dominant. The vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization dropped among adults 75 and older, but was still above 80%.   Dr. Oliver told the panel the vaccines appear to be less effective in preventing infection or mild illness, which she said was due to the vaccine’s weakening over time and the more contagious delta variant.   A Dallas County Health and Human Services nurse completes paperwork after administering a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a county-run vaccination site in Dallas, Aug. 26, 2021.The advisory committee is considering whether to recommend authorizing booster shots of the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines amid a surge of new COVID-19 infections across the United States. The Biden administration recently announced it will begin offering a third shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine sometime next month. Both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration have recently recommended a third shot of Pfizer or Moderna for some people with weakened immune systems.  The committee unanimously voted Monday to recommend the Pfizer vaccine for Americans 16 years old and older.  In a separate development Monday, the CDC added seven new destinations to its highest risk level of its COVID-19 travel advisory list. Azerbaijan, Estonia, Guam, North Macedonia, the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia and Switzerland have been designated as Level 4, which signifies a “very high” risk of contracting COVID-19. The CDC says people should avoid travel to these destinations, and advises that anyone who must travel to these spots needs to be fully vaccinated. FILE – People cross nearly empty streets in the central business district of Auckland, New Zealand, Aug. 27, 2021.In New Zealand, health officials Tuesday reported another decline in new COVID-19 cases since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern placed the country under a strict lockdown earlier this month. The health ministry posted 49 new cases on Tuesday, after reporting 53 cases Monday and 83 new cases Sunday.   Ardern imposed the strict lockdown on August 17 after a 58-year-old man in Auckland became the first person to test positive for COVID-19 since February. About 612 new cases have since been posted, with Auckland posting 597 and 15 detected in the capital, Wellington, according to Reuters.Some information for this report came from Reuters.      
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Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday its experimental vaccine failed to provide sufficient protection against HIV in sub-Saharan Africa to young women who accounted for a large number of infections last year.The results from the mid-stage study are the latest setback to efforts to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV or human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS that had infected over 37 million people globally as of 2020.”Although this is certainly not the study outcome for which we had hoped, we must apply the knowledge learned from the … trial and continue our efforts to find a vaccine that will be protective against HIV,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine Shown Less Effective Against VariantsPreliminary study at New York University suggests a second shot may help Despite the discovery of effective treatments that can put the virus in remission, experts say an HIV vaccine is critical to eradicating the virus.The mid-stage study testing the J&J vaccine included 2,600 women participants across five Southern African countries, where women and girls accounted for over 60% of all new HIV infections last year.Researchers found that 63 participants who received placebo and 51 who were administered the J&J vaccine got HIV infection, resulting in a vaccine efficacy of 25.2%.The vaccine was found to be safe with no serious side effects reported, but the study will not continue based on the efficacy data, J&J said.The trial of the vaccine was supported by the NIAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.J&J said it was studying the safety and efficacy of a different experimental HIV vaccine among men who have sex with men, and transgender persons. The trial, conducted in the Americas and Europe, is expected to be completed in March 2024.
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The mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, is urging residents who evacuated ahead of Sunday’s arrival of now-Tropical Depression Ida not to return as the massive storm has left the city without electricity. Ida hit the Louisiana coastline as a Category 4 hurricane packing winds of 240 kilometers per hour, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans when the flood barriers known as levees failed and left the city underwater, killing 1,800 people and trapping thousands of other residents for days.  Officials said the new $14.5 billion system of levees that were erected around New Orleans after the 2005 disaster withstood the onslaught of Ida and kept the waters of the Mississippi River from flooding the city again. However, more than one million residents in Louisiana, including New Orleans, and the neighboring southern U.S. state of Mississippi are without electricity.  Local utility company Entergy said all eight electric transmission lines that feed the city are out of service, with one tower falling into the Mississippi River. Authorities said it could be days, even weeks, before power is fully restored, raising further concerns over residents falling ill from the area’s searing late-summer heat, which forecasters say could go as high as 32 degrees Celsius later this week.People move in boat on flooded streets in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021, in Lafitte, La.“Now is not the time for re-entry,” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Monday during a post-Ida press conference.  The situation was far worse in several surrounding areas, such as the town of LaPlace, located about 55 kilometers west of New Orleans. The heavy rain Ida dumped on the town left the streets flooded, trapping many residents in their homes Monday. A group of volunteers searched the flooded streets in motorboats in LaPlace and other small towns to rescue the trapped residents.  Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said at least two people have died as a result of Hurricane Ida, including a man who drowned in New Orleans and a person killed when a tree fell on a house outside of the city of Baton Rouge, the state capital. Governor Edwards said he expects the death toll to rise considerably due to the significant destruction caused by Ida.  U.S. President Joe Biden talked with officials from the hardest-hit regions Monday, voicing his confidence that people in “Louisiana and Mississippi are resilient,” while assuring them that “we can certainly see the power of government respond to the needs of the people.”   “We’re going to stand with you and the people in the Gulf (of Mexico), as long as it takes for you to recover,” Biden said during a virtual videoconference call at the White House. The National Hurricane Center downgraded Ida to a tropical depression late Monday afternoon, with maximum sustained winds of 55 kilometers an hour on a path towards Jackson, Mississippi. Forecasters expect it to veer to the northeast through Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia before heading toward the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. by Wednesday.  Emergency management officials in Tennessee warned about the dangers of the storm in areas that are still recovering from flash flooding that killed at least 20 people earlier in August.  Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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