The European Union and the World Health Organization teamed with the international advocacy organization Global Citizen on Tuesday to host a virtual panel discussion on global recovery of the COVID-19 pandemic.The webcast included leaders from the United States and the African Union, as well as actors and musicians seeking to solicit donations from organizations and individuals. The effort aims to set the stage for the world to bounce back from the pandemic, addressing issues such as vaccine equity, world hunger, the climate crisis and international aid.European Commission President Ursula von der …

U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry urged the U.N. Security Council Tuesday to start treating the climate crisis like the “urgent security threat” that it is.“The climate threat is so massive, so multifaceted, that it is impossible to disentangle it from other challenges that the Security Council faces,” Kerry told a virtual summit on climate and conflict.“We bury our heads in the sand at our peril,” he cautioned.His participation at the summit comes just days after the United States officially rejoined the Paris Agreement, reversing a Trump administration decision to leave the landmark …

After a disappointingly slow start, drug company executives told Congress Tuesday that they have ironed out startup problems and expect to deliver enough vaccines to immunize 300 million people in the United States by the end of July.   Moderna and Pfizer officials told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that they had greatly expanded manufacturing capacity and were on track to deliver additional doses that the Biden administration purchased earlier this month.    Moderna President Stephen Hoge said in written testimony that the company had doubled deliveries since late …

West African countries are taking steps to prevent a regional outbreak of Ebola after the deadly virus killed at least five people in Guinea.  As Guinea launched an Ebola vaccination drive Tuesday, after an outbreak in the West African nation’s southern Nzérékoré region, its neighbors were also preparing. The last Ebola outbreak in 2013 also started in Guinea and killed 11,300 people over three years as it spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone. There were also cases in Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal and as far away as Europe and the United States.   Locations of …

As the United States races against time and devastating winter weather to vaccinate more than 300 million people against COVID-19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a new set of guidelines that removes a key requirement for vaccine approval. The FDA announced Monday that drug makers would not need to perform a new round of massive clinical trials involving thousands of volunteers to test vaccines that have been adapted to target new variants of the coronavirus.  The agency said companies can test the efficacy of the updated vaccines through …

Is it better to give more people partial protection from COVID-19, or maximum protection to fewer people? As limited supplies of vaccines begin rolling out in parts of the world, some experts are suggesting authorities go against the recommended vaccine schedule. Rather than giving two shots spaced three or four weeks apart, they say it would be better to delay the second shot and instead focus on giving as many people their first shots as possible. With an out-of-control pandemic, they say, some protection is better than nothing.  And new data suggest …

NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface. The quality was so good — and the images so breathtaking — that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along. “It gives me goose bumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team. The Perseverance rover …

With the Ebola virus flaring in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a new outbreak in Guinea, Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum is worried.“This is a great concern for us, especially since the COVID and Ebola crises are occurring” simultaneously, said Muyembe, who manages DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research and is coordinating his country’s responses to both infectious diseases.A renowned expert on the Ebola virus, the 78-year-old microbiologist sees it as a more urgent threat than COVID-19 in his country. Meanwhile, the pandemic’s official Locations of current Ebola virus disease …