Category: Feature Stories

The European Union is ordering 110,000 monkeypox vaccines in light of the current virus outbreak. An agreement to this effect has been reached with the Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic. Delivery to EU states could start at the end of June, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said Tuesday on the sidelines of a meeting of EU health ministers in Luxembourg. According to Bavarian Nordic, it should start immediately. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had recently said it was in talks with Bavarian Nordic, that could see approval of its smallpox…

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There are more and more detections of monkeypox worldwide. Europe is the hardest hit. “Human-to-human transmission is probably underestimated,” says WHO chief Ghebreyesus. Experts are now consulting in an emergency committee in Geneva. Worldwide, nearly 5000 monkeypox infections have been reported in humans this year. In more than 40 countries outside Africa, where monkeypox was virtually unknown until May, there were 3308 cases, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s in addition to about 1,600 suspected or confirmed cases in eight African…

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In the first year of the Corona vaccination, the vaccines reduced deaths from SARS-CoV-2 infections by about 20 million worldwide. That’s according to a model calculation by British experts now published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The scientists from Imperial College in London analyzed the period between Dec. 8, 2020 – the first day of availability of a Corona vaccine – and Dec. 8, 2021. Only a portion of Corona deaths recorded worldwideThis model calculation differs from the officially reported deaths due to the Corona pandemic. Previously, more than 540…

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Compulsory vaccination has officially been abolished. Now the government has decided to cancel it. A corresponding motion was introduced on Thursday in a special session of the National Council. It will be decided in July. Criticism of the abolition of the previously only suspended duty was absent. The government argued the step, on the one hand, with the lack of acceptance, on the other hand, with the fact that the general conditions had changed with the less-lethal Omicron variant: “The vaccination obligation does not bring anyone to vaccinate,” said Health…

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All adults living in Austria will get 500 euros starting in October – but there’s a prerequisite. Inflation continues to be a significant burden for people in Austria. The population feels it in daily shopping, fueling up, and especially in heating, hot water, and electricity costs. To compensate for the increase in energy costs and fuel prices, the climate bonus was initiated as a measure, the increase of which was decided on Wednesday in the meeting of the Environment Committee. This will be increased from the original 100 to 200…

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The summer vacations are just around the corner – and with them, once again, the question of which Corona regulations apply when entering various vacation destinations. A look at other European countries shows: Despite mostly rising case numbers, the Corona measures have largely been lifted. However, there are still some rules to be observed. DENMARK was one of the first countries in Europe to get rid of all corona restrictions in February. This has not changed to this day: Life in the capital Copenhagen, on the Danish North Sea coast,…

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“It will be a wave. It will also be high again,” geneticist Ulrich Elling on Twitter and in an interview with APA. But, “We can still do something.” The expert from the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Molecular Biotechnology specifically addressed the protection of older and particularly vulnerable people. Another booster vaccination would increase protection against hospitalizations, for example. “Both society and policymakers adhere to the misconception that the Corona pandemic is a seasonal disease,” Elling said. But seasonality is only one factor, he said, which the Omicron BA.5 variant,…

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According to a UN report, about 17 percent of food sold worldwide ended up in the trash in 2019. It said that 931 million tons of food ended up in the bins of private homes, restaurants, stores, and other eateries. That’s equivalent to about 23 million fully loaded trucks that, lined up, would reach seven times around the world, said the report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Calculated per Earth citizen, 121 kilograms of food waste was generated at the consumer level, 74 of it in…

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According to the UN Sustainable Development Goal, hunger should be ended worldwide by 2030. According to a recent analysis, this will not be achieved: Although the proportion of people affected will decline slightly – 2.5 billion people will still suffer from hunger. Jesús Crespo Cuaresma of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), with colleagues from Harvard University, the World Data Lab, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg near Vienna, has created a statistical model to forecast future global food insecurity. It is based…

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