BioNTech to use tech to target malaria

BERLIN (AP) — Pharmaceutical company BioNTech said Monday that it wants to use the mRNA technology behind its coronavirus vaccine to target malaria. The Germany-based company, which developed the first widely approved coronavirus shot together with U.S. partner Pfizer, aims to begin clinical trials for a “safe and highly effective malaria vaccine” by the end of next year.“We are already working on HIV and tuberculosis, and malaria is the third big indication (disease) with a high unmet medical need,” BioNTech’s chief executive, Ugur Sahin, told The Associated Press. “It has an incredible high number of people being infected every year, a high number of patients dying, a particularly severe disease and high mortality in small children.” According to the World Health Organization, there were about 229 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2019. The global body estimates that 409,000 people died from malaria that year, with children under the age of 5 accounting for 67% of deaths.

UN: Casualties on the rise in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — More women and children were killed and wounded in Afghanistan in the first half of 2021 than in the first six months of any year since the United Nations began systematically keeping count in 2009, a U.N. report said Monday. The war-torn country saw a 47% increase in the number of all civilians killed and wounded in violence across Afghanistan in the first six months of the year, compared to the same period last year, according to the report. “I implore the Taliban and Afghan leaders to take heed of the conflict’s grim and chilling trajectory and its devastating impact on civilians,” said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for Afghanistan.

Large meteor lights up skies in Norway

HELSINKI (AP) — Norwegian experts say an unusually large meteor was visible over large parts of southern Scandinavia and illuminated southeast Norway with a powerful flash of light for a few seconds as many observers were reported to also hear a roaring sound afterward. The Norwegian Meteor Network said that it had analyzed and reviewed several videos of the event Sunday and said the meteor first appeared about 90 kilometer north of the capital, Oslo, and continued its trail in a southwest direction before fragmenting in several flashes of light. “The meteor appeared at 1:08 a.m. on the night of July 25 and was visible for approximately for 5 seconds,” said the network said, which had posted a video on the phenomenon on its Twitter site.