The global vaccine alliance Gavi will buy 500,000 doses of mpox vaccine to battle outbreaks of the disease in African countries, the organization said on Wednesday. The vaccine doses — manufactured by the Danish company Bavarian Nordic — will be available this year, Gavi said, without giving any specific dates. Gavi said the full costs, including the transportation, delivery and administration of the doses, amounting to $50 million, would be covered by the group's First Response Fund, a new financial mechanism created in June 2024. Since the beginning of the year, there have been over 25,000 confirmed mpox cases and 723 related deaths, the vast majority in Congo, and the World Health Organization declared it a global health emergency. So far Congo, the epicenter of the global health emergency, has received only 250,000 vaccine doses, donated by the European Union and the United States. The 250,000 doses are just a fraction of the 3 million doses authorities have said are needed to end the mpox outbreak in the country. EU countries pledged to donate more than 500,000 others, but the timeline for their delivery remained unclear. Congo issued an emergency approval of the vaccine, which has already been used in Europe and the United States in adults. Adults in Equateur, South Kivu and Sankuru, the three most affected provinces, will be vaccinated first, starting on Oct. 2, Cris Kacita Osako, coordinator of Congo’s Monkeypox Response Committee, told The Associated Press. For the moment, the rollout will be reserved for adults, with priority targeted groups being those who have been in close contact with infected people and sex workers. Gavi's announcement comes days after the World Health Organization said it has granted its first authorization for the use of a vaccine against mpox in adults, calling it an important step toward fighting the disease in Africa. It made it possible for donors like Gavi and UNICEF to buy it. But supplies are limited because there’s only a single manufacturer. “This first (authorization) of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa and in future,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Last week, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization launched a continent-wide response plan to the outbreak of mpox, three weeks after WHO declared outbreaks in 12 African countries a global emergency.  

The World Health Organization said Friday it has granted its first authorization for use of a vaccine against mpox in adults, calling it an important step toward fighting the disease in Africa and beyond. The pre-qualification of the vaccine by Bavarian Nordic A/S means that donors like GAVI the Vaccine Alliance and UNICEF can buy it. But supplies are limited because there's only a single manufacturer. “This first pre-qualification of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa, and in future,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The U.N. health agency chief called for “urgent” scale-up of procurement, donations and rollout to get the vaccine where it is needed most, along with other response measures. Under the WHO authorization, the vaccine can be administered in people aged 18 or above in a two-dose regimen. The approval says that while the vaccine is not currently licensed for those under 18 years old, it may be used in infants, children and adolescents “in outbreak settings where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the potential risks.” Officials at the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that nearly 70% of cases in Congo — the country hardest hit by mpox — are in children younger than 15, who also accounted for 85% of deaths. On Thursday, the Africa CDC said 107 new deaths and 3,160 new cases had been recorded in the past week, just a week after it and WHO launched a continental response plan. Mpox belongs to the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms like fever, chills and body aches. People with more serious cases can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.  

Pakistan’s health ministry said Friday it has identified a case of mpox, but sequencing is being done to determine whether it is a new variant, days after the World Health Organization declared the spread of mpox a global health emergency. The case, in a man who had recently returned from a Middle Eastern country, is the first in Pakistan this year but the nature of the variant was yet to be determined. The first case was reported on Thursday by authorities in Sweden. The ministry in a statement said the man was from Mardan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. It said the ministry has directed officials at border crossing points and airports to ensure strict surveillance and collect samples for medical tests if they see symptoms of the disease in any passenger returning from abroad. It was unclear which Middle Eastern country the man had visited, and no cases of the new variant have yet been reported in that region. The United Arab Emirates, however, has had 16 confirmed cases of mpox since 2022, according to the WHO. The UAE is particularly affected by transnational outbreaks given its role as a hub connecting East and West with its long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad. On Wednesday, the WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures. More than 96% of all cases and deaths have been in Congo. The director of public health for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr. Irshad Roghani, said the person infected with mpox in Pakistan has mild symptoms. “Contact tracing of the affected person has been started and samples of more people are being obtained,” he told The Associated Press. Roghani said that since 2022, 300 people have been tested in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of whom two tested positive last year. This is the first case detected this year.

Nabila Hamada gave birth to twin boys in Gaza early in the war, in a hospital reeking of decaying bodies and full of displaced people. When Israeli forces threatened the hospital, she and her husband fled with only one of the babies, as medical staff said the other was too weak to leave. Soon after, Israeli forces raided the hospital, Gaza’s largest, and she never saw the boy again. The trauma of losing one twin left the 40-year-old Hamada so scared of losing the other that she became frozen and ill-equipped to deal with the daily burden of survival. “I’m unable to take care of my other, older children or give them the love they need,” she said. She is among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggling with mental health after nine months of war. The trauma has been relentless. They have endured the killing of family and friends in Israeli bombardments. They have been wounded or disfigured. They have huddled in homes or tents as fighting raged and fled again and again, with no safe place to recover. Anxiety, fear, depression, sleep deprivation, anger and aggression are prevalent, experts and practitioners told The Associated Press. Children are most vulnerable, especially because many parents can barely hold themselves together. There are few resources to help Palestinians process what they are going through. Mental health practitioners say the turmoil and overwhelming number of traumatized people limit their ability to deliver true support. So they’re offering a form of “psychological first aid” to mitigate the worst symptoms. “There are about 1.2 million children who are in need of mental health and psychosocial support. This basically means nearly all Gaza’s children,” said Ulrike Julia Wendt, emergency child protection coordinator with the International Rescue Committee. Wendt has been visiting Gaza since the war began. She said simple programming, such as playtime and art classes, can make a difference: “The goal is to show them that not only bad things are happening.” Repeated displacement compounds trauma: an estimated 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes. Most live in squalid tent camps and struggle to find food and water. Many survivors of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel that precipitated the war in Gaza also bear the scars of trauma, and are seeking ways to heal. The militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took around 250 hostage. Sheltering near the southern city of Khan Younis, Jehad El Hams said he lost his right eye and fingers on his right hand when he picked up what he thought was a can of food. It was an unexploded ordnance that detonated. His children were almost hit. Since then, he experiences sleeplessness and disorientation. “I cry every time I take a look at myself and see what I’ve become,” he said. He reached out to one of the few mental health initiatives in Gaza, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. Fouad Hammad, an UNRWA mental health supervisor, said they typically encounter 10 to 15 adults a day at shelters in Khan Younis with eating and sleeping disorders, extreme rage and other issues. Mahmoud Rayhan saw his family shattered. An Israeli strike killed his young son and daughter. His wife's leg was amputated. Now he isolates himself inside his tent and sleeps most of the day. He talks to almost no one. He said he doesn’t know how to express what’s happening to him. He trembles. He sweats. “I’ve been crying and feel nothing but heaviness in my heart.” A relative, Abdul-Rahman Rayhan, lost his father, two siblings and four cousins in a strike. Now when he hears a bombardment, he shakes and gets dizzy, his heart racing. “I feel like I’m in a nightmare, waiting for God to wake me up,” the 20-year-old said. For children, the mental toll of war can have long-term effect on development, Wendt said. Children in Gaza are having nightmares and wetting their beds because of stress, noise, crowding and constant change, she said. Nashwa Nabil in Deir al-Balah said her three children have lost all sense of security. Her eldest is 13 and her youngest is 10. “They could no longer control their pee, they chew on their clothes, they scream and have become verbally and physically aggressive,” she said. “When my son Moataz hears a plane or tank, he hides in the tent.” In the central town of Deir al-Balah, a psychosocial team with the Al Majed Association works with dozens of children, teaching them how to respond to the realities of war and giving them space to play. “In the case of a strike, they place themselves in the fetal position and seek safety away from buildings or windows. We introduce scenarios, but anything in Gaza is possible,” said project manager Georgette Al Khateeb. Even for those who escape Gaza, the mental toll remains high. Mohamed Khalil, his wife and their three children were displaced seven times before they reached Egypt. His wife and children arrived in January and he joined them in March. Their 8-year-old daughter would hide in the bathroom during shelling and shooting, saying, “We are going to die.” Their 6-year-old son could sleep only after his mother told him that dying as a martyr is an opportunity to meet God and ask for the fruits and vegetables they didn’t have in hunger-ravaged Gaza. Khalil recalled their terror as they escaped on foot down a designated “safe corridor” with Israeli guns firing nearby. Even after arriving in Egypt, the children are introverted and fearful, Khalil said. They have enrolled in a new initiative in Cairo, Psychological and Academic Services for Palestinians, which offers art and play therapy sessions and math, language and physical education classes. “We saw a need for these children who have seen more horror than any of us will ever see,” said its founder, psychologist Rima Balshe. On a recent field trip, she recalled, 5-year-old twins from Gaza who were playing and suddenly froze when they heard helicopters. “Is this an Israeli warplane?” they asked. She explained it was an Egyptian aircraft. “So Egyptians like us?” they asked. “Yes,” she reassured them. They had left Gaza, but Gaza had not left them. There is hope that children traumatized by the war can heal, but they have a long way to go, Balshe said. “I wouldn’t say ‘recovering’ but I certainly see evidence of beginning to heal. They may not ever fully recover from the trauma they endured, but we are now working on dealing with loss and grief,” she said. “It’s a long process.”

Dozens of salmonella illnesses have been linked to raw milk from a California farm, a far wider outbreak than previously known, according to newly released state records. As of February, at least 165 people were sickened with salmonella infections tied to products from Raw Farm, of Fresno, California, according to the records. It is the largest reported salmonella outbreak linked to raw milk in the U.S. in the past decade, according to health officials. The disclosure of the outbreak's size comes as health officials warn the public to avoid unpasteurized milk due to a bird flu virus circulating in U.S. dairy cows. The bird flu, known as Type A H5N1, has been detected in more than 140 U.S. dairy herds, and federal health officials say the virus has been detected in high levels in raw milk. State and local health officials hadn't updated the public about the full scope of the salmonella outbreak since October, when officials in San Diego reported about a dozen cases. At the time, Raw Farm issued a voluntary recall of milk and heavy cream sold between Oct. 11 and Nov. 6. Cases continued to mount, however, according to documents obtained by Bill Marler, a Seattle food safety lawyer who shared the records with The Associated Press. Marler said he represents 16 clients allegedly sickened in the outbreak. Investigators matched samples from sick people to samples from the farm and a retail store, the documents said. More than 60% of the people with confirmed infections who were interviewed reported consuming Raw Farm products. People from four states were infected, though the vast majority — 162 — were from California. Four of the people with salmonella were also infected with campylobacter and/or dangerous E. coli bacteria, the documents said. Nearly 40% of illnesses were reported in children younger than 5, officials said. Twenty people were hospitalized. No deaths were reported. California health officials said Wednesday that they had conducted a “robust” investigation in partnership with local teams and state agriculture officials and notified the public about the outbreak through the October recall notice and social media posts in October, November and December. The outbreak ended May 4, officials said. It's not clear whether more cases were reported after February. Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farm, acknowledged that his products were part of the outbreak. He said that a single cow was infected with salmonella last fall and later removed from the herd. He said he put additional testing protocols in place in response to the outbreak. Jessie McGee, 35, of San Pedro, California, said she plans to sue Raw Farm because her 6-year-old daughter was hospitalized in October with a confirmed infection tied to the outbreak. McGee said she had read about supposed health benefits of raw milk online and started drinking Raw Farm products and feeding them to her daughter and her 2-year-old twins. All three children and McGee fell ill, she said, but her older daughter's symptoms of high fever and stomach cramps were most severe. After the ordeal, McGee said she'll no longer drink unpasteurized milk. “None of the possible benefits you could maybe get from the milk is worth any of that,” she said.

The entire Gaza Strip is at high risk of famine, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned on Wednesday. The alarm was raised as a new report has shown that almost the entire population is facing "acute food insecurity, with 1 in 5 Gazans being on the verge of famine," FAO stated. Around 459,000 people in Gaza (22 percent) are in a state of "catastrophic food insecurity," while almost the entire population (96 percent) is facing "crisis levels of acute food insecurity or higher," according to the paper published by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Global Initiative. FAO launches climate smart 'ACCESS' project to support smallholder farmers The situation is a result of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and current restrictions on humanitarian convoys into Gaza. Commenting on the latest findings at a press conference in New York, FAO chief economist Maximo Torero said the agency had observed a high risk of famine over the last eight months. "The relentless hostilities ... as well as limited access to those in need of urgent humanitarian aid have had severe impacts on the entire population in Gaza," he said. Despite some recent improvements in the flow and access to food and water in northern Gaza, the situation remains very fragile, and vulnerable to a rapid deterioration into famine, he added. While intense ground operations in northern Gaza continue, forced displacement of people could exacerbate the food security situation in the whole Gaza Strip. "With some 96 percent of the population facing ... acute food insecurity, any deterioration may push more people into catastrophic levels of hunger," the FAO chief economist stressed. "(This would happen) For example, if the level of permits and access of humanitarian trucks to Gaza declines and does not increase substantially." Bangladesh participating in UN FAO Asia, Pacific Regional Conf to shape future of food security, reform regional food systems The FAO is scaling up efforts to prepare essential food production inputs for transportation to Gaza by mobilizing advanced procurement arrangements, once access is granted. It has appealed for around 40 million U.S. dollars, of which 29 million would be allocated to Gaza and 11 million to the West Bank. Before the conflict, agriculture provided 20-30 percent of daily consumption, but more than 57 percent of agricultural land in Gaza has been damaged as of May 2024, the FAO said.

A mother encourages her daughter to fully open her mouth to swallow a live fish holding “the medicine” she believes will help cure her child's asthma, as scores clamor about, gulping down their own fish and hoping for the best. Each summer, on a day deemed auspicious by astrological calculations, people suffering from asthma and other respiratory ailments flock to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to swallow a small live fish with its mouth stuffed with a secret herbal treatment that only one family can craft. Legend has it that in 1845 a wandering saint presented a secret formula of miracle herbs to Veeranna Goud, a man living in the old city of Hyderabad, and instructed him to give it to asthma patients for free. Since then, Goud’s descendants, known as the Bathini family, have preserved the tradition and kept the herbal formula under wraps, shared only among male descendants.

Scientists studying a family plagued by early-in-life Alzheimer’s found some carry a genetic oddity that delays their initial symptoms by five years. The finding points to novel ways of fighting the mind-robbing disease – if researchers can unravel how a single copy of that very rare gene variant offers at least a little protection. “It opens new avenues,” said neuropsychologist Yakeel Quiroz of Massachusetts General Hospital, who helped lead the study published Wednesday. “There are definitely opportunities to copy or mimic the effects.” The first hint of this genetic protection came a few years ago. Researchers were studying a huge family in Colombia that shares a devastating inherited form of Alzheimer’s when they discovered one woman who escaped her genetic fate. Aliria Piedrahita de Villegas should have developed Alzheimer’s symptoms in her 40s but instead made it to her 70s before suffering even mild cognitive trouble. Denmark recalls spicy South Korean noodles over health concerns The big clue: She also harbored something incredibly rare, two copies of an unrelated gene named APOE3 that had a mutation dubbed Christchurch. That odd gene pair appeared to shield her, staving off her genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's. Quiroz’s team then tested more than 1,000 extended family members, and identified 27 who carry a single copy of that Christchurch variant. But would one copy be enough to offer any protection? Those Christchurch carriers on average showed their first signs of cognitive trouble at age 52, five years later than their relatives, concluded a collaboration that includes Mass General Brigham researchers and Colombia's University of Antioquia. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, are encouraging, said Dr. Eliezer Masliah of the National Institute on Aging. “It gives you a lot of comfort that modifying one of the copies could be really helpful,” at least in helping to delay the disease, he said. Ground-breaking progress made in Member State negotiations on amendments to  International Health Regulations Already some very early work is beginning to explore if certain treatments might induce the protective mutation, he added. More than 6 million Americans, and an estimated 55 million people worldwide, have Alzheimer’s. Less than 1% of cases are like the Colombian family’s, caused by a gene passed through generations that triggers the disease at unusually young ages. Alzheimer’s usually is a disease of people over age 65 and while simply getting older is the main risk, the APOE gene has long been known to play some role. It comes in three main varieties. Carrying one copy of the notorious APOE4 gene increases the risk -- and recent research found that having two copies of APOE4 can actually cause Alzheimer’s in seniors. Another variety, APOE2, seems to reduce the risk while APOE3 has long been considered neutral. Then came discovery of the Christchurch variant’s seemingly protective role. Silent changes in the brain precede Alzheimer’s symptoms by at least two decades -- including buildup of a sticky protein called amyloid that, once it reaches certain levels, appears to trigger tangles of another protein, called tau, that kill brain cells. Earlier research has suggested something about the Christchurch variant impedes that tau transition. Recent crises show the need to substantially increase investments in health security: Saima Wazed Wednesday's study included brain scans from two people with a single Christchurch copy and autopsy analysis of four others who’d died. Quiroz cautioned there's still a lot to learn about how the rare variant affects the underlying Alzheimer’s process — including whether it affects the common old-age type — but said tau and inflammation are among the suspects.