Health & Science

• Thursday, August 14th 2025 - 21:56 UTC

  Violence against children in Brazilian Amazon worse than elsewhere in the country

  

  A report released Thursday by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety (FBSP) showed that Children and adolescents in the Legal Amazon were exposed to different types of violence with relevant particularities compared to the rest of the South American country.

• Tuesday, August 12th 2025 - 10:02 UTC

  President Orsi endorses Uruguay's new euthanasia bill

  

  Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi announced he was in favor of the revised “dignified death” bill about to be voted on in the House of Representatives. The proposed law would decriminalize euthanasia for mentally competent adults with incurable diseases or unbearable suffering. The new project is a modified version of a previous one approved by the House in 2022 but stalled in the Senate.

• Tuesday, August 12th 2025 - 06:40 UTC

  Antarctic researcher remains, working for Falklands’ Dependency, 66 years ago, found in receding glacier

  

  The remains of an Antarctic researcher have been discovered by a Polish team among rocks exposed by a receding glacier in Antarctica. They are identified by DNA as those of Dennis ‘Tink’ Bell, a 25 year-old meteorologist who was working for the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS), the predecessor of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). He died in a crevasse on a glacier at Admiralty Bay on King George Island, situated off the Antarctic Peninsula on 26 July 1959. His body was never recovered.

• Friday, August 8th 2025 - 09:59 UTC

  Emergency declared in Paraguay due to measles outbreak

  

  Paraguay's Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare has issued an epidemiological alert due to a measles outbreak in the northern department of San Pedro. The measure was adopted after an initial case was confirmed in a five-year-old boy, which has since led to three additional cases. All four confirmed patients were unvaccinated. The first victim was apparently in contact with people from abroad.

• Wednesday, August 6th 2025 - 10:02 UTC

  Covid-19: Frankenstein variant detected in Argentina

  

  The XFG variant of Covid-19, nicknamed “Frankenstein” because it is a recombination of two Omicron lineages, has been detected in Argentina, according to the latest edition of the Health Ministry's weekly National Epidemiological Bulletin (BEN), which cited cases from late June and early July, identified through genomic surveillance

• Wednesday, August 6th 2025 - 08:52 UTC

  Children's vaccination stagnating worldwide

  

  A new study supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, recently published in The Lancet, showed childhood vaccination coverage stagnated worldwide and even declined since 2010, which was made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. The research, which analyzed data from 204 countries between 1980 and 2023, found that while there was sustained growth in vaccination rates during the 1980s and 1990s for diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, and polio, this progress has now stalled.

• Tuesday, August 5th 2025 - 21:26 UTC

  Uruguay's population projected to decline over time

  

  A study released this week by Uruguay's National Institute of Statistics (INE) showed that the South American country's population will have dwindled by nearly half a million people by 2070, falling from approximately 3.49 million to 3 million, due primarily to a low birth rate, an aging population, and a net loss to emigration.

• Tuesday, August 5th 2025 - 08:32 UTC

  South Georgia, forty year old Antarctica iceberg breaking up and drifting north

  

  Almost four decades after breaking from Antarctica’s Filchner Ice Shelf, a still massive iceberg is showing its age. The berg, named A-23A, is shedding large chunks of ice as it drifts in the southern South Atlantic Ocean, about 2,400 kilometers north of its birthplace.

• Wednesday, July 30th 2025 - 20:31 UTC

  Uruguay: Concerning surge in syphilis reported

  

  Uruguayan health authorities reported a concerning surge in syphilis cases, with reported figures nearly doubling from around 3,566 in 2020 to between 7,035 and 7,091 in 2024. This increase is reflected in the incidence rate, which jumped from 101 to 196 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Males are disproportionately affected, and over 50% of diagnoses are in the 18-29 age group. Social inequalities exacerbate the problem, with vulnerable populations having limited access to healthcare and essential resources.

• Monday, July 28th 2025 - 19:58 UTC

  Brazil out of FAO's Hunger Map

  

  Brazil was not included in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' (FAO/UN) State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 (SOFI 2025) presented Monday (28) during the 2nd United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS+4) in Ethiopia.