There were an estimated 20 million new cancer cases in 2022, with more than 35 million new cases predicted by 2050.
The number of new cancer cases globally will reach 35 million in 2050, 77 percent higher than the figure in 2022, according to predictions from the World Health Organization’s cancer agency.
A survey conducted by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cited tobacco, alcohol, obesity and air pollution as key factors in the predicted rise.
“Over 35 million new cancer cases are predicted in 2050,” the IARC said in a statement, a 77 percent increase from the some 20 million cases diagnosed in 2022.
“Certainly the new estimates highlight the scale of cancer today and indeed the growing burden of cancer that is predicted over the next years and decades,” Freddie Bray, head of cancer surveillance at the IARC, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.
There were an estimated 9.7 million cancer deaths in 2022, the IARC said in the statement alongside its biannual report based on data from 185 countries and 36 cancers.
Around one in five people develop cancer in their lifetimes, with one in nine men and one in 12 women dying from the disease, it added.
“The rapidly-growing global cancer burden reflects both population ageing and growth, as well as changes to people’s exposure to risk factors, several of which are associated with socioeconomic development. Tobacco, alcohol and obesity are key factors behind the increasing incidence of cancer, with air pollution still a key driver of environmental risk factors,” the IARC said.
Lower-income burden
The IARC also highlighted that the threat of cancer varies depending on where a patient lives.
The most-developed countries are expected to record the greatest increases in case numbers, with an additional 4.8 million new cases predicted in 2050 compared with 2022 estimates, the agency said.
But in terms of percentages, countries on the low end of the Human Development Index (HDI) – used by the United Nations as a marker of societal and economic development – will see the greatest proportional increase, up 142 percent.
Meanwhile, countries in the medium range are predicted to record a 99-percent increase, it said.
“One of the biggest challenges we are seeing is the proportional increases in the cancer burden are going to be most striking in the lower income, lower human development countries,” Bray told Al Jazeera.
“They are going to see a projected increase of well over doubling of the burden by 2050.
“And these are very much the countries that currently are ill-equipped to really deal with the cancer problem. And it’s only going to get bigger and there are going to be more patients in cancer hospitals in the future.”
Bray said that although there are more than 100 different cancer types, the top five cancers account for about 50 percent of cases.
“Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide … particularly in men, whereas breast cancer is certainly the most common cancer in women,” he said.
The IARC also said different types of cancer were now increasingly affecting populations as lifestyles change. For example, colorectal cancer is now the third most common cancer and second in terms of deaths. Colorectal cancer is linked particularly to age as well as lifestyle factors like obesity, smoking and alcohol use.
“There should be a lot more investment in the early diagnosis and screening [of cancers]. There should be a lot more investment in preventing the disease,” as well as in palliative care for people who are suffering, Bray said.
Kayah State, Myanmar – When the military seized power in February 2021, Dr Ye was living a life many young people in Myanmar only dream of – working as a doctor in London. Hailing from a military-supporting family, he had given little thought to politics before then.
“Before the coup, I was brainwashed by them,” the 32-year-old told Al Jazeera during an interview in southern Shan State in December. “The coup enlightened me.”
But it also left him reeling with survivors’ guilt. He watched from afar as hundreds of people his age and younger were gunned down in the streets during peaceful pro-democracy protests. Soon, those protests morphed into an armed uprising, with the military deploying mass reprisals against the civilian population.
“For a while, I was donating money, but I wasn’t happy with that. Every morning when I woke up, I was depressed seeing news about the killings, the bombings, the burned down villages,” he said.
At his lowest point, Dr Ye even attempted suicide.
“I decided I had to come back and participate in the revolution physically,” he said.
In April 2022, he travelled to Kayah State, which shares a mountainous border with Thailand. A coalition of anti-coup armed groups has carved out significant territory there and in neighbouring southern Shan.
Dr Ye’s decision to move to this “liberated area” caused a rift in his family because his father is an official in the regime’s prison department in the nation’s capital of Naypyidaw.
“We totally split up, we don’t talk at all any more,” he said, adding that his father had even threatened him with arrest. “I don’t think he’ll ever change his mind.”
A PDF fighter in Demoso shows off the tattoo he had inked to mark the date he was injured by a military RPG [Andrew Nachemson/Al Jazeera]
His background as a paediatrician made Dr Ye valuable in treating the many children displaced by the conflict, but like all healthcare professionals in Kayah, he is also a temporary war medic.
“I have to stabilise the vital signs, check the blood pressure and heart rate,” he said, of patients brought in after being injured in the conflict.
Raining down bombs
When a resistance fighter was rushed into her clinic in east Demoso with a serious injury to his right leg from an air attack, Dr May got to work despite the buzz of warplanes overhead.
“We could hear the sound of a fighter jet flying over us, but we couldn’t run anywhere because we had to resuscitate the soldier. So, we just had to stay there and accept whatever might come,” said the 33-year-old, who worked as a general practitioner at a private hospital in Mawlamyine before the coup.
“I could work in a private hospital again or go abroad, but if I did that I’d feel like I wasn’t doing my duty for my country, for my people,” she said.
In the first half of 2023, east Demoso was one of the worst conflict zones in the country, and Dr May took to sleeping in a bomb shelter.
“Every day when I woke up, I heard the sound of artillery, and sometimes at 2 or 3am, we’d hear a fighter jet flying over our heads,” she said. “We literally lived beneath the soil in the bunker. We had to sleep there, we had to eat there because we didn’t feel safe on the surface any more.”
Kayah has been hit by multiple air attacks by the military, which is fighting forces opposed to its February 2021 coup [Andrew Nachemson/Al Jazeera]
When Al Jazeera visited east Demoso on January 4, it was eerily quiet. Fighting had since shifted to Loikaw, the state capital, but few civilians had returned home, leaving the area largely devoid of people.
Dr May said the military targets healthcare facilities because it knows resistance fighters receive treatment there, even though common civilians also rely on them for life-saving care.
“Because we’ve been taking care of our comrades, including war injuries, and that’s not good for these …,” she pauses thinking of the right word. “These dogs.”
Since the coup, people in Myanmar have taken to referring to regime soldiers as sit-kway, or “military dogs”.
The Geneva Convention says that health facilities and mobile health units “may in no circumstances be attacked”.
A resistance fighter injured by a landmine gets treatment at a clandestine hospital in Kayah [Andrew Nachemson/Al Jazeera]
After months of near-misses, Dr May’s hospital was hit by an air raid in May 2023.
“It felt like I’m suddenly on a battlefield, I’m inside my own coffin, everything flashed before my eyes,” she said. Luckily, nobody was killed, but the inpatient buildings were destroyed.
Dr May’s hospital has since moved to a more stable area in the state and Dr Ye said his facility has also relocated three or four times. Dr Oak, who did autopsies of the victims of the Christmas Eve massacre, said he has had to move twice as well. Once, a missile landed next to his hospital in Nanmekhon in Demoso township. The second time, an air raid hit his facility in northern Loikaw township. Dr Oak was taking a break, using the internet in town, but four of his medics were killed.
For this reason, most hospitals in Kayah are not only hidden but also come equipped with bomb shelters.
On the front lines
When Al Jazeera visited one of these clandestine hospitals in late December, a member of the Demoso People’s Defence Force (PDF) was groaning in his bed.
“It hurts so much I can’t sleep,” he said. The PDF is a pro-democracy armed group with units spread out across the country. The fighter’s legs had been badly injured by an air attack in Loikaw; doctors had already amputated one of his feet.
Half of the 12 patients in the hospital had been injured by landmines in Moebye, a town in southern Shan that is mostly controlled by the resistance. The military seemingly rigged it with explosives before retreating in September 2022.
A 20-year-old woman working as a nurse at the clinic was a trainee nurse at Loikaw Hospital before the coup. She spent six months as a front-line medic for the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF), another post-coup armed group, before coming to the hospital.
“I want to help any way I can,” she said, declining to share her name for fear of reprisals. “Nothing is too hard for me to help people, to save people.
Another 20-year-old KNDF medic, who was a high school student when the military seized power, said he must rush into the battlefield unarmed to extract wounded soldiers.
“Our rule is medic, no gun. I see the military shoot my comrades and I want to shoot them so badly, but I can’t,” he said.
Hospitals must not only conceal themselves from the risk of military attack but also provide bomb shelters for staff and patients [Andrew Nachemson/Al Jazeera]
In Loikaw town, the KNDF battalion commander overseeing the medical response told Al Jazeera three of his medics had been killed since the resistance launched an offensive to seize the capital in the closing months of last year.
“They send aerial drones to survey the area and if they find us, they send in an air strike, so we have to move around every few days,” he said.
He continues to pray for a peaceful resolution to the crisis but is prepared to fight till the end.
“We always pray for their compassion, that they will see the truth and turn to us and surrender, but they never do,” he said. “So, we have to wipe them out once and for all.”
Despite the hostile and terrifying environment, Dr Ye says he has found unexpected fulfilment and understanding in Kayah.
“I didn’t know much about all the difficulties going on in the border areas because I chose not to, I think,” Dr Ye said. “Before the coup, I wasn’t the only one. Most of the Bamars, we chose not to think about the conflict.”
For decades, Myanmar’s ethnic minorities have struggled under military occupation and oppression, while Bamar-majority areas rarely saw armed conflict. But today, the uprising against military rule has taken root in the central Bamar heartland as well, and many Bamar youths have joined ethnic armed groups in the borderlands.
Dr Ye said it was his “adamant hope” that there would be greater ethnic unity after the revolution. When asked about his plans after the war, he says he will need to help with the “rehabilitation” of Myanmar.
“I used to have so many dreams in London, but I don’t want to think about that because this is my life now,” he said. “My country needs me. Even if the revolution was over tomorrow, I couldn’t go back to London right away because my people will still need me for a while.”
Royal officials said the 75-year-old monarch has an enlarged prostate but his condition is benign.
The United Kingdom’s King Charles III has been admitted to a London hospital for scheduled surgery, Buckingham Palace said, joining his daughter-in-law Kate who is recovering from surgery.
“The king was this morning admitted to a London hospital for scheduled treatment,” the palace said in a statement on Friday.
“His Majesty would like to thank all those who have sent their good wishes over the past week and is delighted to learn that his diagnosis is having a positive impact on public health awareness.”
Royal officials took the unusual step last week of issuing a bulletin on the 75-year-old monarch’s health, disclosing that he had an enlarged prostate but the condition was benign.
The king was pictured arriving with his wife Queen Camilla at the private London Clinic in west London on Friday, where Kate, the princess of Wales, is also having treatment after undergoing abdominal surgery last week.
A royal source said Charles had visited Kate before his own treatment.
The palace has declined to say how long the king would stay in hospital but his upcoming public engagements have been postponed to allow a short period of recuperation.
Royal health issues
Charles travelled to his private Sandringham estate in eastern England last Friday to prepare for what royal officials said would be a “corrective procedure”, before returning to London on Thursday.
He was told he had the condition, which is common in men aged over 50 and affects urination, last Wednesday after experiencing symptoms and having a check-up.
He wanted to share his diagnosis publicly to encourage other men who may be experiencing symptoms to see their doctor.
The state-run National Health Service said there had been a 1,000 percent increase in visits to its webpage advising on prostate enlargement since the king’s diagnosis was revealed.
His treatment is one of a series of health blows for the royals over the past week.
Kate, 42, is recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery for a non-specified, but non-cancerous, condition.
A royal source has said she was “doing well” but there has been no further information about her since she was admitted to the London Clinic last week.
She was due to spend up to two weeks in hospital and is unlikely to return to public duties until after Easter. Her husband Prince William, the heir-to-the-throne, has postponed his engagements to look after their three children, Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5.
Meanwhile, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, the ex-wife of Charles’ younger brother Prince Andrew, said on Monday she was in shock after being diagnosed with a malignant form of skin cancer.
It was the second cancer diagnosis for the duchess, often just referred to as “Fergie”, after she underwent a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery following the discovery she had breast cancer last summer.
Medellin, Colombia – Victor Hidalgo Lopez had already carried his three-year-old daughter through 10 countries by the time they reached Mexico.
Along the way, they used long hours on the road to prepare for their destination, the United States.
Hidalgo, a 37-year-old from Venezuela, quizzed Emiliannys on how to count to 10 in English and how explorer Christopher Columbus reached the Americas.
“On a boat!” she chirped in response.
With golden brown hair and a broad smile, Emiliannys barely reached her dad’s knee. She was born with a rare genetic disorder: congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a condition which affects the hormones for genital development, salt regulation and stress.
Like millions of other migrants last year, Hidalgo had decided travelling to the US was his and Emiliannys’s last chance for a better life.
Maybe there, he figured, Emiliannys could finally receive the treatment she needed.
Emiliannys plays in a family photo from Chigorodo, Colombia [Courtesy of Victor Hidalgo Lopez]
He knew of people successfully entering the country by claiming humanitarian protection, or asylum, at the border. His plan was to ask for asylum based on Emiliannys’s urgent need for medical care.
“My American dream is to see my daughter operated on,” Hidalgo told Al Jazeera last month from Mexico.
Their final push to arrive at the border came in late December, against the backdrop of ongoing negotiations in Washington, DC.
There, US politicians were weighing whether to further tighten the country’s immigration procedures, in an effort to crack down on unprecedented numbers of arrivals at the border.
The negotiations in Washington hit a milestone last week, as US President Joe Biden held a bipartisan meeting with legislators at the White House to help hammer out a deal.
The details of a possible deal remain under wraps. But media reports have said proposals include stringent limits to the US asylum process.
Asylum lets foreign nationals who fear persecution for their “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” seek protection within US borders.
Among the possible changes lawmakers are discussing could be stricter standards for screening “credible fear” interviews, wherein asylum seekers make the case they face persecution abroad.
Another proposal reported in the media would allow border agents to forgo asylum screenings altogether when their offices are overwhelmed with applicants. There have also been talks of expediting the deportation process.
But immigration advocates say asylum is critical for people who have no other option to seek safety.
“People are just fleeing dangerous conditions immediately and don’t have time to wait,” said Melina Roche, campaign manager for the humanitarian advocacy group Welcome with Dignity. “[Asylum] is a life-saving pathway.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson holds a press conference on January 3 in the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to push for tighter immigration procedures [File: Kaylee Greenlee Beal/Reuters]
The pressure to tighten immigration policy has been amplified in recent months by a spike in arrivals at the US-Mexico border.
In fiscal year 2023, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded 2,475,000 “encounters” with undocumented immigrants along the border — its highest tally ever.
While official statistics have yet to be released for December, CBS News reports that agents intercepted a record monthly total of 300,000 migrants and asylum seekers entering between ports of entry.
CBP also said in a press release last month that it has “surged personnel and transportation resources” to the border to keep up with demand.
But politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Democrats like New York Mayor Eric Adams, have criticised Biden for not doing more to slow the number of arrivals.
Experts say it is hard to tell whether expelling migrants more often or more quickly would have a lasting impact on those statistics.
While border crossings can dip after the introduction of new US policies, they sometimes increase again as migrants adjust to the new requirements.
That was the case last year when the Biden administration touted a decline in crossings after the expiration of the Title 42 border policy and the implementation of new restrictions. Within months, however, the number of arrivals had climbed once more.
Victor Hidalgo Lopez poses for a photo in Mexico City with his daughter Emiliannys [Courtesy of Victor Hidalgo Lopez]
Then there are the ongoing pressures migrants and asylum seekers face in their home countries that force them to pursue lives abroad.
In Hidalgo’s home country of Venezuela, the government of President Nicolas Maduro has faced criticism for human rights abuses meant to squelch dissent. The country’s economic collapse has also left basic necessities like food and medicine scarce.
After working without pay for several months, Hidalgo fled across the border to settle in neighbouring Colombia.
That’s where Emiliannys was born in 2020. He tried to get her care in Bogota, but he said her doctors were not experts on the disorder, and it was difficult to pay for pills and treatment without legal residence in Colombia.
“What affected us the most was our migratory status,” he said.
He then took Emiliannys to Ecuador, and later to Peru and Chile, hoping to find the appropriate treatment for her rare condition.
Emiliannys poses atop a horse in the Darien Gap, a dangerous stretch of jungle in Panama [Courtesy of Victor Hidalgo Lopez]
But in each country, it was much the same: Without residency, Hidalgo didn’t see a way for Emiliannys to get the care she needed.
They even tried going back to Venezuela, but the two prescriptions Emiliannys needed would cost nearly $200 a month, an impossible amount. Hidalgo struggled to find work, which he said would only earn him around $6 per month.
So he turned his hopes to the US. As he and Emiliannys journeyed north from South America, Hidalgo documented the trip.
In photographs, Emiliannys would flash a peace sign, as they walked through the Darien Gap, a treacherous jungle connecting Colombia to Panama.
“¡Vamos, Papi, tú puedes!” Hidalgo remembers her telling him. “Let’s go, Dad, you can do it!”
“All my inspiration … in the jungle, it was through her,” Victor said, recounting how he carried her in his arms for hundreds of miles. “She was a warrior.”
On the final day of 2023, they were about to board a final train to reach the US-Mexico border when Emiliannys started to tremble in Hidalgo’s arms.
Soon she was vomiting and convulsing. Hidalgo flagged down a nearby truck and begged the driver to take them to the hospital.
The driver took them as far as the local pharmacy. Emiliannys died within minutes.
Doctors later told Hidalgo that she had experienced complications of the stomach flu – her second bout that year.
Hidalgo said the death of his little girl felt “unexplainable”, like a “very strong pain” rippling through his body.
“The first thing I wanted was to throw myself at the first vehicle that passed in front of me,” he said, struggling to describe the moments after his daughter’s death.
Emiliannys died of complications from the stomach flu while trying to reach the US-Mexico border [Courtesy of Victor Hidalgo Lopez]
While Hidalgo’s family might have qualified for protection at the border, not everyone does, said Theresa Cardinal Brown, the director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“They don’t know our laws well enough to know whether or not they can get asylum, but they know that’s a way they can come,” she explained.
Cardinal Brown also said it was possible that Hidalgo and his daughter could have been offered emergency entry for “critical medical treatment” if they had applied from outside the US.
But she noted that many migrants are unaware of those legal pathways, instead opting for the long, risky trip to claim asylum at the border.
“Or they don’t believe in those other ways, or those other ways take too long,” she said. She called on the US to educate people “much sooner in their own decision-making” and take greater measures to counter smugglers who encourage migration.
Victor Hidalgo Lopez holds an urn with his daughter’s ashes outside a chapel in Chihuahua, Mexico [Courtesy of Victor Hidalgo Lopez]
A January report from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute also declared that a “new era of large-scale migration has begun at the US-Mexico border” — and that one solution would be to simplify the resettlement process.
Among its recommendations was to “streamline lawful pathways and build new ones to and beyond the United States”.
Now that Emiliannys is gone, Hidalgo will stay in Mexico for now. A family in Chihuahua took him in after her death.
His mission to find medical care for Emiliannys, after all, is over — after hundreds of miles and dozens of months.
The family helped him hold a small memorial at a local chapel, her cremated remains collected in a small marble urn.
“Forever you will live in our hearts,” the urn’s plaque reads.
But in the days since losing Emiliannys, Hidalgo said he has wanted to help other migrants and asylum seekers continue on their journey, so they don’t feel as helpless as he did.
After gathering donations, Victor had enough money to buy ingredients for ham-and-cheese sandwiches. He made 150, handing them out to people passing through on their own trek north.
Hage Geingob, 82, will continue to carry out his presidential duties while seeking treatment, his office said.
Namibian President Hage Geingob will start treatment for cancer after routine medical checkups led to the detection of “cancerous cells”, his office has said.
In a statement from the Namibian Presidency on Friday, it said that “as part of regular annual medical examinations” the 82-year-old leader had a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy on January 8, followed by a biopsy.
“The results revealed cancerous cells,” the statement said.
“On the advice of the medical team, President Geingob will undertake appropriate medical treatment to deal with the cancerous cells,” it added.
Geingob’s office gave no more details on his diagnosis but said he would continue working.
“With Presidential and National Assembly elections programmed for the end of the year 2024, The Presidency wishes to inform the Namibian public that President Geingob will continue to carry out presidential duties, alongside the Cabinet, of which he is the Chairperson,” the statement said.
Health scares have followed the president even before he took office.
In 2013 Geingob underwent brain surgery. A year later, he told the public that he had survived prostate cancer.
In 2023, the tall, deep-voiced leader, underwent an aortic operation in neighbouring South Africa.
Geingob, who is serving his second term, was first elected as president in 2014 after spending 12 years as the country’s longest-serving prime minister.
Namibia will hold elections to choose a new leader in November.
Geingob will not be standing for re-election.
Last year, the governing party, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), named Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as its candidate for the election. She is the party’s vice-president and Namibia’s current deputy prime minister.
The former leader is charged with treason for his alleged role in a failed coup in November.
A Sierra Leone court has allowed former President Ernest Bai Koroma, who is charged with treason, to travel abroad on medical grounds.
Koroma, 70, was charged early this month with four offences for his alleged role in a failed military attempt to topple the West African country’s government in November.
The High Court on Wednesday ruled in favour of Koroma, whose lawyers had asked it to allow the former leader a trip abroad for medical reasons.
The ex-president, who has been under house arrest, will be allowed to travel to Nigeria for no more than three months, the magistrate said before adjourning the case to March 6.
“The High Court approved the order, and that was transmitted to the Magistrate’s Court where [Koroma] has been appearing since the day investigations started into his case,” Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said, reporting from the capital, Freetown.
Chernor Bah, Sierra Leone’s minister of information, told Al Jazeera the state is “happy to abide by the ruling of the court because we believe in the rule of law”, adding that Koroma is leaving for medical attention but his case remains open.
“At this stage, the case is still alive. It is adjourned,” he said, adding that the court’s instructions to the lawyers included continuing to send updates on Koroma’s health to the state and the judiciary for the duration of his absence.
Nigeria had previously offered to allow Koroma to enter on a temporary basis, which he accepted, according to West Africa’s main regional bloc.
“We know the Economic Community of West African States has been trying hard to convince the Sierra Leone government to think about releasing Mr Koroma to leave the country – probably into exile – but again, the court said he is going on medical grounds to be checked,” Idris said.
Coup attempt
On November 26, gunmen launched a series of attacks in Sierra Leone, breaking into a key armoury, military barracks and prisons, freeing about 2,200 inmates. More than 20 people were killed in the violence.
The government said later that it was a foiled coup led mostly by Koroma’s bodyguards. They summoned the ex-president for questioning at the start of December and charged him with treason on January 3.
Koroma condemned the attacks in a statement shortly after they happened and has denied any involvement. His lawyers have called the charges “trumped up” and part of a “political vendetta”.
There are concerns Koroma’s indictment could stoke tensions that arose from a contentious election in June in which President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected for a second term.
The main opposition candidate rejected the results, and international partners questioned the vote.
Two months after Bio was re-elected, police said they arrested several people, including senior military officers planning to use protests “to undermine peace”.
Koroma served as Sierra Leone’s president for 11 years until 2018. Although officially retired from politics, he remains an influential figure within his political party.
Twelve other people were also charged with treason in connection with the failed coup, including former police and correctional officers and a member of Koroma’s security detail.
According to Sierra Leone’s penal code, a person found guilty of treason could face life imprisonment.
Today marks 100 days since Israel started its assault on Gaza.
In that time, the death toll among Palestinians living in Gaza has risen to nearly 24,000 as Israel unleashed more than 65,000 tonnes of bombs on the besieged enclave and its population of 2.3 million people trapped in less than 400sq kilometres.
Israel’s assault on Gaza began on October 7, in response to an attack by armed fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas and other Palestinian groups. Some 1,140 people died during the attack and about 240 were taken into Gaza as captives.
In retaliation, Israel began a vicious bombing campaign and tightened what was already a crushing siege that Gaza has been under since 2007.
(Al Jazeera)
“We are fighting human animals,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9, announcing that food, water, fuel, medicines, everything, would not be permitted into Gaza.
Since then, defying condemnations and pleas from international organisations and rights groups, Israel has continued an indiscriminate campaign that has sown terror among the people in Gaza, killed entire multi-generation families, and destroyed huge swaths of urban and rural lands.
Israel now stands accused by South Africa of carrying out genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in the Netherlands.
Speaking on Saturday, after presentations by both sides were done at the ICJ, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else.” His “axis” comment referred to Iran and its allied groups.
Alternating between claims that this level of killing and destruction is somehow justified in the name of self-defence and statements that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, Israel has often strayed far from its statements about the different aspects of this war on Gaza.
Lloyd Austin went to hospital for elective surgery on January 1 but the White House was not notified.
United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said he takes “full responsibility” for the secrecy after it emerged that he had been in hospital since last Monday and that many top White House officials including President Joe Biden were unaware.
Austin, who is 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on January 1 for what the Pentagon announced on Friday were “complications following a recent elective medical procedure”.
The secrecy surrounding Austin’s hospital admission is a breach of standard protocol and comes amid the Israel-Gaza war and heightened tension in the Middle East.
Austin sits just below Biden at the top of the chain of command of the US military and is required to be available at a moment’s notice to respond to any manner of national security crisis.
“I recognise I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better,” Austin said in a statement on Saturday evening.
“But this is important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure.”
He added that he would be “returning to the Pentagon soon”.
Politico was the first of several media outlets to report that Austin had been in hospital for three days before Pentagon officials told National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and other top White House officials about the situation.
Sullivan then informed Biden, the outlet said. It also reported that Congress found out about Austin’s admission to hospital 15 minutes before Friday evening’s public statement.
The defence department has said Austin resumed “full duties” from his hospital bed on Friday evening.
The Pentagon Press Association, whose members are journalists covering the defence department, criticised the secrecy surrounding Austin’s condition, saying he was a public figure who had no claim to medical privacy in such a situation.
It also noted that even US presidents disclose when they must delegate duties due to medical procedures.
“At a time when there are growing threats to US military service members in the Middle East and the US is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader,” the association wrote in a letter to the Pentagon on Friday.
Other senior US officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, have been more transparent about hospital stays. Garland’s office informed the public a week in advance and outlined when he would return to work when the attorney general was admitted for a routine medical procedure in 2022.
Washington, DC – It was a hot summer day in July when Shekita McBroom received a phone call from a local hair salon.
The stylist on the other end of the line urgently needed a resupply — not of hair dye or shampoo, but of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone.
Commonly known by the brand name Narcan, naloxone is a life-saving medication, often taken as a nasal spray to counteract the symptoms of opioid consumption.
That a hair salon had a backroom supply of the drug came as no surprise, though, to McBroom, a community advocate in Washington, DC, who campaigns to prevent overdoses. If anything, she would like to see naloxone available more widely — including through vending machines.
“I try to connect people with more supply because they don’t always know where to find it,” she told Al Jazeera. But with vending machines, she sees a convenient solution: a quick and easy way to dispense emergency care at all hours of the day, in neighbourhoods where services might otherwise be limited.
More and more communities in the United States are adopting that approach. In 2023, there has been a boom in vending machines dispensing overdose reversal drugs for free — as well as fentanyl testing strips, clean needles and other “harm reduction” items.
Community advocate Shekita McBroom helps to connect people in the community with Narcan, in an effort to prevent overdoses [Joseph Stepansky/Al Jazeera]
US ‘behind everyone’ in adopting method
Washington, DC, was among several cities to launch a vending machine programme this year. It currently has seven vending machines overseen by two local community health organisations.
Four of those machines, overseen by the Family and Medical Counseling Service Inc, dispensed 204 packages of Narcan from October to November. That meant, on an average day, about three boxes of Narcan, each containing two doses, made their way to those in need.
“We’ve been surprised at the amount of activity that the machines actually can get,” said Angela Wood, the group’s chief operating officer.
She pointed out that the vending machines do not require users to produce any personal information — or even interact with a real person, thereby reducing the potential for stigma.
“It’s a way for people to gain access to these products in their own time, in their own way, without having to fully engage with a programme,” she told Al Jazeera.
Chicago likewise introduced a pilot programme for naloxone vending machines in November, and New York City opened its first machine in Brooklyn in June.
There were also advances on the state level. West Virginia, Wisconsin, Vermont, Missouri, Kansas and Connecticut all either unveiled or approved deployments of the vending machines this year.
Even tribal governments have embraced the strategy. In April, the Pala Band of Mission Indians installed what it described as the first naloxone vending machine on tribal land in the US. Four months later, the Tulalip reservation in Washington state set up its own machine.
The spread of the vending machines has been dramatic, according to Rebecca Stewart, an assistant professor at the Penn Center for Mental Health who studies substance abuse treatment.
“They’re really popping up all over the country,” she said.
The trend began in the US only five years ago, in 2017, with a vending machine programme in Nevada. But as Stewart pointed out, similar programmes had already existed for years in Europe, Australia and even Puerto Rico.
“The United States is sort of behind everyone in this aspect,” she said. “In terms of harm reduction vending machines, these have been implemented for decades all over the world. And so these implementations in the United States are just beginning.”
Four of the seven naloxone vending machines in Washington, DC, dispensed 204 packages of the medication over two months alone [Joseph Stepansky/Al Jazeera]
Escaping the ‘moral hazard’ argument
One of the biggest hurdles to adopting the vending machines has traditionally been public opinion.
Stewart said many Americans — including politicians and policymakers — feared that the vending machines would encourage drug use by making the practice safer. She calls it the “moral hazard” argument.
Even this year, officials echoed that line of thinking. Kentucky installed its first naloxone vending machine in 2022, but some local politicians remain opposed to their expansion into neighbouring counties.
“You’re basically promoting and enabling the people that’s got the problem with the drugs instead of maybe trying to help them get off the drugs,” Nelson County Judge-Executive Tim Hutchins told the TV news station WHAS11 in February.
Still, overdose deaths continue to rise in the US. Every year since 2021, more than 100,000 people have died from drug overdoses — double what was recorded in 2015.
The majority of those overdose deaths have been linked to opioids, with experts blaming the emergence of synthetics like fentanyl for sending the death toll skyrocketing.
Ryan Hampton, an activist and organiser who focuses on addiction, sees the increase in vending machines as evidence of the immediacy of the opioid crisis.
He fears the US continues to overlook “harm reduction” strategies as a tool to bring the death rate down. The term “harm reduction” is used broadly to describe methods that can help prevent overdoses or other knock-on effects of drug use, like disease transmission through needle sharing.
“For too long, harm reduction has been a stigmatised strategy,” Hampton said.
Instead, he explained that the US has invested more in a “prevention/interdiction” model that discourages drug use in the first place. The result, he added, has been few resources dedicated to stopping overdoses and other drug-related harms.
“What is being invested by no means meets the demand for the services or the scale for what’s needed right now,” he said.
“With the toxic drug supply that we’re faced with, harm reduction has to be a mechanism that we deploy in every setting that we can, whether that be in vending machines or community care settings.”
For her part, Stewart has noticed a shift away from perceptions that naloxone is an “enabler” for opioid use.
Rather, her research, which focused on Philadelphia, found that community members were open to the prospect of overdose-reversal medications being readily available in vending machines.
“One of the things we found from talking to these different stakeholders is that Narcan was universally accepted,” she added. “And I feel like this is a really promising finding because I don’t think Narcan was universally accepted five years ago.”
A package of Narcan sits among hair salon supplies in Washington, DC [Joseph Stepansky/Al Jazeera]
Lower tech, higher access
But the vending machines themselves are no silver bullet. Attention must also be paid to how they are deployed, said Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Injury Prevention Research Center.
As the co-founder of Remedy Alliance/For the People, an organisation that seeks to make naloxone more easily available, Dasgupta said he has seen unnecessary requirements be tacked onto how the vending machines are used.
For example, several jurisdictions have required the machines to be refrigerated. But Dasgupta called that requirement a costly “commercial misdirection”, unnecessary for naloxone’s storage.
“The better version of the vending machine paradigm is to go with lower tech [and] higher access,” Dasgupta told Al Jazeera.
He believes community input is key to designing programmes that reach the people whose needs are greatest. One start-up, he pointed out, is using old newspaper stands on city streets to distribute naloxone in Michigan.
“I think, with 100,000 people a year dying of overdose, something isn’t working,” Dasgupta said. “It’s time for new solutions. And the vending machines are part of a generation of new solutions.”
Other changes are also under way to make naloxone more easily accessible across the US.
In March, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first naloxone nasal spray for use without a prescription, which paved the way for drug stores, corner markets and gas stations to stock the product for over-the-counter use.
Hair salon owner LaShaun Love says she receives requests for Narcan in her shop weekly, if not daily [Joseph Stepansky/Al Jazeera]
A personal battle
Back in Washington, DC, community advocate McBroom found herself eyeing an empty vending machine in the hair salon of her friend, LaShaun Love.
Where once there had been snacks for sale, McBroom imagined rows of naloxone and other “harm reduction” items on the vending machine’s shelves, ready for anyone who might need them.
And the need is great in Washington, DC. The city saw 448 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2022, giving it one of the highest per-capita rates in the country.
Love, the salon’s owner, revealed she kept a cardboard box full of Narcan on hand, just in case.
“Normally, I keep one right here on my station and then another right up at the front,” she told Al Jazeera. That way, neighbourhood residents can have easy access.
“They’ll knock on the door and say, ‘Miss Shaun, you got any Narcan?’ Even ambulance workers have asked me for it.” Requests from the community come weekly, if not daily, Love added.
For McBroom, the fight to prevent overdoses is personal. Her own daughter Jayla died in 2021 at age 17, following a fentanyl overdose.
She hopes to see more vending machines integrated into the community, where they can have the greatest impact.
“The person who needs Narcan could be your family,” she said. “Wouldn’t you rather they were able to have access to something that could ultimately save their life?”
In what scientists call a “slow-moving disaster”, a “zombie deer disease” is spreading across the United States after a case was detected in Yellowstone National Park.
The lethal disease has no cure and is prevalent in deer and elk, but studies suggest that it may spread to humans.
Here’s what we know about the disease and whether people should be worried.
What is zombie deer disease?
Zombie deer is a chronic wasting disease (CWD) that first surfaces in deer, elk, reindeer, sika deer and moose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a national health agency in the US. It is unclear how the name “zombie deer” emerged.
It eats away at the brains of those animals and causes dementia-like symptoms, eventually leading to death. There are also no treatments or vaccines.
CWDs are spread by prions – a set of proteins that are almost indestructible and affect both animals and humans. They cause a type of rare progressive neurodegenerative disorder – which means it affects the nervous system and gradually worsens.
The World Health Organization has urged keeping agents of known prion diseases, such as animals infected with zombie deer disease, from entering the human food chain. However, there is no strong evidence that humans can get infected with CWD prions from animals.
What are the symptoms of zombie deer disease?
The prions of the disease cause cells in the brain and spinal cord to fold abnormally and start clumping.
Around a year after getting infected, animals start showing symptoms including dementia, wobbliness, drooling, aggression and weight loss.
Where has zombie deer disease been detected?
A deer carcass in Yellowstone National Park tested positive for the disease in mid-November, announced the National Park Service.
The CDC also reported that “as of November 2023, CWD in free-ranging deer, elk and/or moose has been reported in at least 31 states in the continental United States, as well as three provinces in Canada”.
Cases have also been reported in Norway, Finland, Sweden and South Korea.
The first-ever zombie deer disease case, however, was first discovered in Colorado in 1967, according to the US Geological Survey.
Chronic Wasting Disease has been confirmed in a Yellowstone National Park mule deer found near Yellowstone Lake.
What is the risk of zombie deer diseases spreading to humans?
So far, there have not been any reports of zombie deer disease transmitting to humans.
Experimental research on CWDs suggests, however, that it is a possibility, especially if humans eat infected meat. Currently, the CDC estimates that up to 15,000 animals infected with CWD are eaten each year.
Additionally, the temperatures needed to cook off its prions in meat are far above regular cooking temperatures.
Within animals, it spreads through their saliva, urine, blood or faeces. The prions can also remain in environments for a long time, according to the CDC.
Have diseases spread from animals to humans before?
It’s fairly common. In the 1980s and 90s, “mad cow” disease was found to have spread from animals to humans in the United Kingdom. A total of 232 people worldwide have died from the disease, according to the Food and Drug Administration based in the US.
From rabies to avian influenza, zoonotic diseases — that can spread from animals to humans — have long posed a major public health challenge that has been exacerbated as humans have encroached more and more into the natural habitats of a range of animal species.
COVID-19, the world’s most devastating pandemic in a century, is also widely believed to have spread to humans from animals in a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Nearly 7 million people around the world have died from COVID-19 in less than four years.
What precautions can people take against zombie deer disease?
The CDC has listed several precautions against eating meat infected with CWDs, such as:
Test hunted animals before eating the meat.
Avoid “deer and elk that look sick or are acting strangely or are found dead”.
Use latex or rubber gloves when removing the internal organs of hunted deer, while minimising contact with the brain and spinal cord tissue.
Do not use household knives or kitchen utensils when handling deer meat.
Determining whether a deer is infected can only take place after it is killed because testing requires samples of tissue deep within the brain.
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