A virus spread. Why the repairing and when will all of this. Just through the tax relief check out our podcast you can get it wherever you get your pod cast you can also find us at dot com slash science. You. Can. For can can trace poor Living Conditions or in demick and diseases such as malaria diabetes and tb who widespread. Health care facilities are generally under resourced and often decrepit. And yet so far the continent has avoided the worst of the demick d. There were fears that Living Conditions in urban communities in south africa and beyond would accelerate the spread of the virus for some experts are now asking what is to say in crowded conditions for some extra protection against comic night. Some scientists thought a useful population might be behind africas relatively no infection rates but as the pandemic continues analysts are more and more reluctant to put the continent successes down to demographics. Some researches have also hypothesized that the presence of certain parasites in the body are contrary to the higher survival rates. But theyre still trying to unravel the mystery. Africa has recorded a little over 1400000 cases of coronavirus thats less than a quarter figure of the figure for the United States alone almost half of the continents confirmed cases are in south africa but even there the death rate is surprisingly low and the country scientists are pushing to find a vaccine. To search for a lifesaving covert 19 vaccine is back on in johannesburg. Christians that survey today we dont think 88 sorry minutes to make sure that he had to stay there to actually discuss this thread pools and the steadiest thinking of. Oxford university partnered with South African blacks knology experts in june to begin producing a locally effective serum to vaccinate against the corona virus which was halted when a sister trial in the United Kingdom saw participant take ill. You. Think you can pick up a stick and i just kind of know when someone was sick in england i was worried because they didnt know what to be close. At least involved with this. Vaccination shy but after a few days i understood what it was about and im here particularly do you. Try. To go to sleep but still very kid the efforts form part of emergency measures to deal with the coronavirus pandemic in the worlds most Unequal Society its very important for us to know that these vaccines are safe and effective in a South African population who may differ greatly from from populations in in other parts of the world. South africa much like the rest of the continent has not experienced the covert 900. 00 death rate seen in parts of the developed world i. Discussed buffel some experts as to how a country with poor Living Conditions a high burden of diabetes tuberculosis and hiv aids was not overwhelmed by the pandemic. I said africa has a much younger population than many European Countries and younger people are less severely affected than older people in addition about 40 percent of those young people we estimate had a symptomatic infection and that might be because theyve been exposed to other coronaviruses that cause the common cold early on. Indigenous communities have a simple hypothesis and claiming south africa whether the covert 900. 00 storm its through the power of Traditional Medicine that is widely used throughout the country. For them the search for a modern vaccine in africa is futile and offensive. So you feel insulted that. People who come with me at the damages from the west could come in mindanao shores and want to think that you can just be vaccinated is problematic with that recognizing the fact that the infant systems of healing that exist in prison i do know in their midst. Amid this opposition the vaccine trial continues with fears a 2nd wave of covert 9000 infections could arrive in coming months. We need to try and diminish the impact of covert both from a health point of view but also from associate konami point of view and that can actually only be done if we have a suitable vaccine going forward. Only a few months old the vaccine trial is expected to run at least on the latter part of 2021. Im really hopeful that by this Time Next Year well have a vaccine available the studies are going well and we should be able to achieve. With almost 16000 deaths and over 650000 texans in south africa alone productive fairly on her team the arrival of a vaccine cant come soon enough. For corona virus deaths across africa lower than scientists would have expected especially when you consider there may have been many more cases than have so far been recorded a number of reasons have been put forward for that from africas young population to Traditional Medicines there is another more unusual hypothesis some scientists believe parasitic worms could be protecting some africans from the full effects of coffee 19 on this we can speak to dr kim hair off who is a parser taller just on University Thanks for joining us can you please tell us what this hypothesis is all about. You know get out of those. We have been working a long time on the middle of a parasitic diseases and the host response of the human immune response particularly against warms and one of the dominant features is that the wars ensure their survival for 10 years and longer in the body by suppressing the immune response for example. Which is a parasitic one sees it is spread through tropical africa with about 40000000. 00 people infected and here you have one larning in the skin amounting to somehow doods per square millimeter yet the. Immune response is sort of regulated that there is almost no inflammation in the majority of people and they sometimes dont need nobody have these so we know also that there is a spill or work of immune response to other. Immune responses for example negative is that some of it seems to look it works well as they should and this is also been very clearly aligned to this immune herd suppression and the motivation is more of us are well established and the hypothesis now is that this is overshooting immune reaction that carries with severe chronic 90 cases might be mitigated because the people who are were wars and have an immunosuppressed general. Status if this hypothesis does prove to be true other any implications for possible treatment coronavirus. Just long sought to carve out the beneficial parts of the immune response of a parasite immunosuppressive molt and voids the talking parasitic infections but this is very tricky you have to imagine that the parasite harbors a 10000 different proteins and even more other molecules that it can play with in order to interact and down regulating real systems not to speak about that of the infection of the locality and all these things its very complicated so far. Except for a few molecules that for example have been shown to dargon lote never comes a very specific color like perceptor sort of pollen you are in the immune system also playing a role in septic infections they can be addressed by small molecules but they are still in the brutal developments and we are not yet there are definitely the longer. Perspective 19 weve seen which seems to be moralists problem so we went be relying on the worms just yet stocks are aqim her are from bone University Thanks a lot for joining us thank you very much. And now is the part of the program where we pose one of your questions to ask science correspondent eric williams. If you inhale sars cofa too does the number of viruses you inhale make a difference in your symptoms. This is a really interesting question because it touches on a recent comment made by a top American Health official that universally masking up might be more effective than a vaccine at protecting us from covert 19 the idea behind that claim is that although masks dont prevent people from being exposed to the virus entirely by limiting exposure they could help reduce the number of people who develop severe cases of the disease and the theoretical equation is that light exposure leads to more asymptomatic cases ed and theres some evidence to back that idea up from settings like crew ships and meat packing plants where where people who were required to wear masks during covert 19 outbreaks on average less severe forms of the disease know the exact amount of virus that it takes to make someone really sick is a kind of a slippery concept called the infectious dose or viral disease and and theres no way to really tell for sure whether a higher infectious dose causes more severe symptoms or not at least not in humans thats because if you really want to test the either youre going to run into a major ethical problem youd have to intentionally infect people with varying amounts of the virus and basically wait to see what happens next but we have carried out studies like this in animals for example hamsters and they do indeed showed that there appears to be. A correlation between being exposed to more sores cove 2 and disease severity which is not really a surprise but of course other factors like like age and General Health also play a big roles and i dont columns. Science correspondent Derek Williams there and if youve got a question for derek you can submit it through you tube channel thats all from this call that 19 special if you do want more from us check out the dedicated coronavirus section of the d w website that dot com thanks for joining us and until next time take us. Into the conflict zone with jim sebastian. Welcome to this special edition of live conflict so over the last 4 years weve interviewed several senior lebanese politicians about felix or bill breakdown the very call of me and their state institutions what they told us provides an unusually clear insight into the recent elections in trucks of the crisis the conflict. Next on t. W. Waters cold cold anyone searching for gold to acquire a thick skin its like a piece right there you get stuck in there during the clinton era the finding in tradition holds back. How they do it what they find enough and why its a great way to conquer existence to feel ive already forgotten all my problems. Only. Seem 60 minutes. Oh. Sparrow see the sony console. That will never be. Caught connected to the highest levels of government. Why did journey. Shockey have to die. Was 3. Years later the reasons are still unclear. The case of jump. Start september 30th on w. Long before the massive explosion that tore into beirut last august lebanon had been following a path that led to only one way to selfdestruction. As the smoke rose over the city around 200 people lay dead 2006 injured victims of the up to do competent politicians who for generations allowed their citizens to sink into poverty and to spend. Explosion was a terrible symbol of that neglect because a highly volatile quantity of Ammonium Nitrate but it sat for years in a warehouse of port officials warned of the dangers posed warnings that were systematically ignored but would anything change in the aftermath would anyone ever be held to account for and sympathy arrived in the shape of frances emmanuelle macro only he brought an uncompromising message theres no blank check he told people if your Political Class fails we wont come to the level of say and fail it did days later the government resigned not only did the politicians have no answers they had like so many before the simply given up who would now fill the vacuum. Hello and welcome to this special edition of conflict zone over the last 4 years weve interviewed several senior lebanese politicians about the inexorable breakdown of vera qana me and their state institutions what they told us provides an unusually clear insight into the reasons for lebanons intractable crisis we saw it on says to some key questions what had gone wrong who was to blame for the sinking economy and how could the country move forward but instead of answers we got promises of progress of clarity and commitment even transparency that in most cases came to nothing in february 26th 18 i caught up with Gibran Bassil then the countrys foreign minister who acknowledged the central feature of lebanese politics in demick corruption as well as all the other contradictions that have made it impossible for the state to function. Yes we have corruption and our country but this is where we need to have strong leaders to fight corruption corruption and different factions playing politics with a nation that can ill afford it i mean even the patriarch spoke of the erosion of your state institutions at the moment as of course the collapse is real there are the states collapsing. It depends how you do how you define the course we still have at least a family and the bottom we still have values values of how we live how we think towards the other were well aware that this is fading completely in other parts even and strong and prosperous countries you dont see this kind of cohesion that we still have 11 or coalition you fail if you look at a presidency most years about cohesion is that almost 35 attempts to get a quorum in parliament you have managed to do it you havent passed the budget since 2005 you have a parliament is mandated 2013 and i had to extend it twice without recourse to the public you have to have a legislative election since 2000. And 7 we were given 6 complete paralysis of the political body has only had a guest on this but when im here im very much a balancing on the other the family being against it im not defending the politics and the ban on the politicians nor the you know one of the ministers you are living and defending something that belongs to all of us and humanity and defending the idea and the more that we stand the prism of diversity of living together accepting each other where we are different this is what im defending and this is where im saying the importance of lebannon if we have this model birth is the model of what do you choose you choose the rock up more than it was dash or you still have lebanon where people can still live together because what else can you get so you can get the dash model to how much of this living together was apparent when you see the people protest on the streets of weapon of this they have done over the last year and they get. Subjected to unacceptable violence by the Security Services. Can and tear gas but you know a lot of bullets you know i was among the protesters so i want to know whos of violence i let myself to the street because i refuse the situation to whos in china. Geniuses the government at this is in charge we are we are in jail theyre in jail of power because we cannot leave again youre a government that doesnt control your Security Services is that what youre telling us even with the security level we still find there for you compare us to other regions other countries around us in the region so again it is a situation that we have to fix how by not imposing. A solution that is ready a solution that idea basically by allowing the libyan east lets let them go to elections and allow them to truly 11 elections reported out since 2005 and we were against this we can continue on because you because your Prime Minister said the levels of force used against demonstrators was unacceptable hes the Prime Minister told you do anything about this yes he stopped it but theres a person who was prosecuted as a person telling you i was a prosecutor i was myself on the street nobody who was on trial where you 3 times 2 for the services because i would if you were the situation minister you refused the situation but people got beaten up people got hospitalized dozens of people were taken to hospital people were injured all those every lets not portray about on as a country where you have or you dont allow people to express the we have an excess of them or capacity and and level and people are allowed to speak out whatever your security organizations are out to this culture all the sound this happened again 11 of the bacon of freedoms in the region and this happened once we dont take this incident and extrapolate it on our minister they laugh when you claim to be a beacon of freedom when the allegations of torture carried out by your Security Services are widespread in june last year there was a leaked video showing members of your internal Security Forces torturing inmates in roomier prison north of beirut the interior minister confirmed that the video was authentic this is the kind of big. Because of tolerance and coexistence that you say you have where torture is widespread not the Human Rights Watch said this was just the tip of the iceberg. Call for the rule no we dont have the stomach this is an incident that happened there if you say the this is what happened in the guantanamo thats it means that in the us to live the torture this is an incident that happened once and confirmed that with this is not the case unless you know you know very well mr know it me this completely because we have so many things that we are not satisfied about alone but we dont turn it into being a place where people are tortured and yet the reports credible reports of torture have continued to surface in the 4 years since that interview was recorded no change there no change either in any of the sectarian carve ups and political patronage for the fact it and still act as immovable roadblocks to reform ever since the civil war the complex power sharing system spawned many factions and warlords who are empowered to enrich themselves at the expense of the people they share between them the spoils the top jobs the lucrative contracts and even as they watch the country disintegrate and default the last thing they wanted was to give back the money and relinquish their power in june this year the combative foreign minister at the time not if he was still repeating the same vegas sure and says the same good intentions but inconsistent let know where. Here intentions your Public Sector has been looted for decades by the same sectarian powers that still dominate as were you trying. To finish the phrase so im listening to you now you have to tell me what i have you finished perhaps you havent finished the question you think these warlords and power brokers like you have never letting me finish the answer youve bee