Category: Global

Crops and Climate Change Focus of New Regional Network

Research, industry and entrepreneurial leaders from across North Carolina met last week to set the stage for realizing an internationally recognized network of excellence in plant research. Their aim: Solving major challenges associated with climate change and its effects on crops and food.

Representatives of universities, industry, the public sector and nonprofits from the Triangle at the vision workshop held at the NCBiotech Center. This emerging collective of regional partnerships, called the Climate-Plant Innovation Network, will conduct cutting-edge basic and translational research in plant biology to improve productivity and quality of agriculturally and ecologically important crops and train a diverse workforce to contribute to these efforts regionally.

Jenny Lodge, Duke’s vice president for research and innovation, welcomed the more than 30 participants representing universities, industry, the public sector and nonprofits from the Triangle to the vision workshop held at the NCBiotech Center.

“Duke has a longstanding, deeply-held commitment to pursuing knowledge in service to society,” Lodge said. “There has never been a more pressing need than for us to tackle the grand challenge of how we take better care of the earth while feeding the world’s population than there is right now.”

Philip Benfey, Paul Kramer Distinguished Professor of Biology, and Duke biology professor Lucia Strader organized the event in partnership with the Office for External Partnerships.

“Our agricultural future is dependent on a continuing commitment to two key factors,” said Strader. “High-level basic biological research and dramatically increasing the translation of fundamental discoveries that have the potential to positively impact the world’s food and environmental security.”

The network — led by facilitator Susanne Kjemtrup of Phyta Biotech Consulting — engaged in a full day of discovery brainstorming activities, identifying its mission, overarching goals and path to success.

Five plant biology graduate students from Duke and NC State were invited to assist Kjemtrup with managing the workshop and contribute their ideas and insights from a trainee perspective. Such industry interaction opportunities for students are a core part of the Office for External Partnership’s mission.

The Climate-Plant Innovation Network plans to develop a community communication platform, establish a steering committee, prioritize the innovative ideas formed at the vision workshop and seek seed funding to develop a robust strategy within the next six months.

How Climate Change is Changing Latin America

Latin American countries generate less greenhouse gas than the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East, but are disproportionately suffering from the effects, through droughts, hurricanes and seasonal shifts. The World Bank estimates that 17 million people in Latin America will be forced to relocate within the next 30 years.

“No matter how we slice this, Latin America and the Caribbean have not been major contributors and still are not any of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to the climate effects that we're seeing globally,” said Professor Sarah Bermeo. She was one of three Duke scholars who discussed how climate change affects the region, and why it drives migration, for the Gilman Climate Leaders Virtual Seminar Series. 

The event series is hosted by Duke’s Energy Initiative and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and funded by the U.S Department of State.

Here are some highlights. You can also watch the full event here.

Sarah Bermeo, associate professor of public policy

ON DAMAGE DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

“We're seeing droughts and changes in rainfall … that are affecting the region, higher temperatures and heat waves which can be particularly deadly, especially if populations don't have the infrastructure in place to rely on air conditioning and other means to mitigate the impacts.”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREIGN AID:

“Latin America has historically not contributed that much to the climate change crisis that the globe is facing right now, but they're experiencing the impacts — and in some ways, they're disproportionately experiencing the impacts compared to countries like the United States. One way that we might be able to smooth things out is through foreign aid, to help them be better able to adapt to the impacts that they're seeing, as well as to develop in a way that mitigates their future emissions but is still cost effective.”

“A lot of donor countries want to really focus on climate change mitigation, because as countries develop in Latin America, if they develop more cleanly that benefits all of us. And the countries themselves are saying, ‘Here we are experiencing droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea level rise and fires right now. We need help adapting to this. We need money for that, we didn't cause this problem, but we're living with the effects.' ”

 

Gabriela Nagle Alverio, Ph.D student in environmental policy

ON HOW CLIMATE CHANGE IS INFLUENCING MIGRATION:

“Without climate change piling on, we would see not only less migration but a different dynamic of migration, and by that I mean that the speed that climate change impacts are occurring makes it very difficult for people to adapt.”

“Consider that for generations your family has been growing certain crops and has learned the rhythm of the seasons and has a system for how and when to harvest. And suddenly those seasons are changing. And it's not just one season shifting and then going back to normal, but shifting permanently and continuously. It's very difficult to be able to adapt to that kind of rapid change in a way that in the short term still leaves you able to sustain your livelihoods and feed your family.”

“When people aren't able to adapt in place, they're going to be forced to move. Consider that you didn't have food to feed your family, or your entire home was destroyed. You might feel like you had no other choice but to move somewhere else.”

“What we typically see is rural-to-urban migration, where people head to the major cities in their country. When they face barriers and struggles and violence in that city, then we tend to see people turning to international migration.”

 

Christine Folch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology

ON LATIN AMERICA’S WORLD-LEADING ROLE IN RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION:

“In the United States we get about 20 percent of the electricity we consume through renewable energy resources. We get almost two thirds of the electricity consumed by burning fossil fuels. … There is only one region in the world where this is not the case, and that is Latin America. More than two thirds of the electricity consumed in Latin America comes from renewable energy resources, chiefly hydropower.”

“And so what that means is that as we're thinking about a post-fossil fuel world, as we think about the politics and economics that come from a transition from relying mainly on fossil fuels to moving to renewable energy resources, the area of the world that can show us the good, the bad and the ugly about what that might look like is Latin America.”

ON HOW CLIMATE CHANGE HAS AFFECTED THE ITAIPU DAM, WHICH GENERATES HYDROPOWER FOR BRAZIL AND PARAGUAY:

“These last few years, this part of South America has experienced a drastic drought as a result of anthropogenic climate change and also more local deforestation and environmental interventions. So the part upriver of the dam, which might affect the water level, is experiencing rapid deforestation for cattle and soy (farming). And Brazil and Paraguay are two of the world's top soy exporters and two of the world's top beef exporters. So what happens when you cut down trees to allow for grazing or raised soy is that you affect the water quality and the ability to produce electricity. And so we've seen drastically lower numbers in terms of electricity generated, and this produces an incredible stress, and this year, the drought continued in 2022 the numbers are getting lower and lower.”

How Do You Talk to Children About War?

How Do You Talk to Children About War?

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Robin Gurwitch and other mental health practitioners knew they needed to help others begin to navigate the conflict.

“Even during this relatively short period, the war is already impacting adults here in the United States in a very real way,” says Gurwitch, a Duke University psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor and a senior advisor to the terrorism and disaster program of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

The center coordinates members of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network – which consists of 140 sites across the country.

The group quickly began pulling information together for “Talking to Children About War,” a resource for mental health experts and families. They convened on the phone and gathered details about traumatic consequences to children during disasters, reviewed existing materials and updated these to address the current war.

Children in the United States may have concerns about relatives in Ukraine and Russia or family members in the military, and the violence and displacement might find a way into everyday conversations.

“It’s part of the daily discussions, and it’s all over social media and the news. Because of that saturation, parents are really trying to help children navigate discussions, as well,” Gurwitch says.Robin Gurwitch, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University

Families from Ukraine fleeing the war are already arriving in the community. In anticipation of Ukrainian refugee resettlement, the network has already begun to translate existing mental health resources into languages more accessible for these populations, as they have done in the past for other international conflicts, says Lisa Amaya-Jackson, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke and the co-director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. The network has translated materials related to this war and refugee issues into Ukrainian, Russian and other languages.

Over the past two weeks, Tracy Henderson Bethel, project planner for the UCLA-Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, has been mobilizing groups of network members to respond in real-time within their communities across the country.

Lisa Amaya-Jackson, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke “While the Ukraine/Russia conflict is relatively new, our centers are serving children and families that immigrated before this conflict,” Henderson Bethel says.

Throughout this difficult time, children may be confused and may hear misinformation.

“As kids check in with caregivers, and caregivers check in with their children, we wanted to make sure that caregivers have ideas of how to talk to their children in a way they can understand and how to best support them,” Gurwitch says.

If you’re planning to discuss the war with a child, here are some tips Gurwitch offers:

  • Ask what they are hearing. Ask, “What have you heard about the war in Ukraine?” or “What are friends saying about the war?” By starting this way, Gurwitch says, you get to hear what they understand. Clear up any misinformation or misunderstandings they have, and make sure the child knows they are safe.
  • Check in on how they feel. Validate their feelings and don’t try to talk them out of any certain emotions. That doesn’t work for adults or children, Gurwitch says. Parents should support the child’s feelings to help them cope and eventually feel better.
  • Monitor media exposure, including social media. Very young children should not be watching this at all, Gurwitch advises. As children get older, if they’re watching news about the war, watch it with them. Then turn it off and talk about it. Check in about what they’re finding on social media, too. Find out what’s being discussed and maintain an ongoing conversation about what the child reads and hears. Also make sure the entire family is taking breaks from the coverage.
  • Look for signs of stress. Recognize that when children are stressed, they have big feelings, Gurwitch says, including worry, anxiety, anger, and confusion. They may be moody or irritable and may have problems with attention and focus, as well as sleep disruptions. This added stress can also affect performance at school. Parents should provide a little extra patience, a little extra help and little extra love and attention, Gurwitch says.
  • Get involved. We feel better when we help others, Gurwitch says. Some of her suggestions for activities to do together as a family: write a letter to a service member; donate food or gently used toys and clothes to families in need; or make a family donation to a relief organization.

The UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

RELATED READING FROM THE NATIONAL CHILD TRAUMATIC STRESS NETWORK

Resilience through unspeakable pain and strife

The Za’atari refugee camp, which sits in Jordan near the Syrian border, is the largest Syrian refugee camp in the world, home to almost 80,000 people.

Duke alumnus Andrew Leon Hanna follows the stories of three Syrian woman entrepreneurs living and working within the camp in his forthcoming book, 25 Million Sparks, which also zooms out to explore refugee entrepreneurship in more than twenty camps and cities across the globe.

“What I wanted to do was tell a story that told a picture of the true dignity, the power, the beauty, the creativity in the lives of refugees that that I've seen and that I was able to talk to through this book,” Hanna told Giovanni Zanalda, director of the Duke Center for International and Global Studies during a recent discussion of his work. Watch the event here.

The book features Yasmina, a wedding shop and salon owner creating moments of celebration; Malak, a young artist infusing color and beauty throughout the camp; and Asma, a social entrepreneur leading a storytelling initiative to enrich children’s lives.

A first-generation Egyptian-American, Hanna was inspired to tell refugee stories by his parents, who emigrated from Egypt before he was born and built successful lives and careers in the United States. 

Hanna said he wants to change media narratives that often depict refugees as victims or villains, without their full humanity. He said he was inspired by his subjects’ “ability to be resilient through the most unspeakable pain and strife and to create a community and an economy.”

Zanalda, who taught Hanna at Duke, said “the description of the daily life of the camp, the accounts of the positive impact of refugees in various communities in the US, Europe, and Australia contribute to familiarize readers with how refugees succeed in creating a ‘normal life’ under extremely difficult circumstances whether in camps or communities where they have been relocated.”

The book’s personal stories ought to be understood within the broader context of the global refugee crisis, Hanna said.

“There are a lot of refugee resettlement centers like the YMCA, where they're trying to help folks get off the ground in terms of housing, in terms of jobs, in terms of language services and tech training. I think that's one way to get involved is get plugged into those or if you're inclined financially to give to those,” he said. “But I think even on a deeper level, actually getting to know people … I think that's a beautiful way to do it.”

Hanna was senior class president, a Robertson Scholar, and the winner of the Terry Sanford Leadership Award while at Duke.

“I think what Duke helped me do was dream a little bit bigger,” Hanna said. “It helped me to think about what makes me come alive and just pursue that.”

Since graduating from Duke, Hanna has become the co-founder and CEO of DreamxAmerica, a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, and Siebel Scholar at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

25 Million Sparks will be published in May 2022 by Cambridge University Press and is available for pre-order. In its proposal form, 25 Million Sparks won the 2018 Financial Times and McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize.

The event was organized by the Duke Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS) and co-sponsored by the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy and Cambridge University Press.

Trustee Emeritus Paul Farmer, a Global Health Pioneer, Dies [Updated with March 12 Memorial Service Information]

Trustee Emeritus Paul Farmer, a Global Health Pioneer, Dies [Updated with March 12 Memorial Service Information]

Paul Farmer, a Duke alumnus and trustee emeritus who had a distinguished career as a leader in global health, has died in Rwanda at the age of 62.

All Duke flags on campus will be lowered through Wednesday in Farmer's honor.

Farmer was the Kolokotrones University Professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was also the founder and chief strategist of Partners In Health, an international nonprofit organization that works to address global health inequality around the world.

In a statement, Duke President Vincent Price said, “Like so many in the Duke community, I am shocked and saddened by the news of Paul Farmer’s passing. Paul was truly an inspiration, and he will rightfully be remembered for his pathbreaking work in global health and his selfless commitment to serving some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. His work saved countless lives; it also changed a great many lives for the better—the students he encouraged, the physicians he mentored, the friendships he forged the world over, and the family he loved.”

Duke alumnus and trustee Paul Farmer was the 2015 commencement speaker. Farmer, who resided in Rwanda, was profiled in Tracy Kidder's best-selling book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World.” The book was selected as the summer reading assignment for Duke's Class of 2008, and Farmer and Kidder spoke in Page Auditorium in connection with the book.

After graduating summa cum laude from Duke in 1982 with a degree in medical anthropology, Farmer spent a year in Haiti  – a decision that would set him on his life’s path. Farmer went on to earn both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University.

In 1987, Farmer, along with Jim Yong Kim and others, co-founded Partners In Health to strengthen public health systems in order to provide quality health care in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. Today, the organization has active sites in 12 countries across four continents.  

Farmer also served as the United Nations Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community-Based Medicine.

A member of the Board of Advisors of the Duke Global Health Institute, Farmer was a role model and example for many in the Duke community. “Paul inspired countless students and faculty to pursue careers in global health through his passion for social justice and equity,” said Michael Merson, M.D., the Wolfgang Joklik Professor of Global Health and the founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute. “He was an invaluable impetus and mentor for the establishment of our Institute, and we will miss him greatly.”

Farmer’s numerous honors included a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, from which he received the 2018 Public Welfare Medal. He received Duke’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2005.

A crowd in Page Auditorium awaits Paul Farmer to give the inaugural Lecture on Global Health, co-sponsored by the Duke Global Health Institute and the Duke University School of Nursing, April 21, 2008. Farmer served as a member of the Duke University Board of Trustees from 2009 to 2021. He gave the commencement address in 2015 – the year the graduation ceremony was held in the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

A frequent and popular speaker at Duke, Farmer participated most recently in a discussion sponsored by the Duke Global Health Institute on Jan. 26. In the 2022 Victor J. Dzau Distinguished Lecture in Global Health, Farmer reflected on his 20-year partnership with Agnes Binagwaho M.D., Ph.D., a longtime colleague who now serves as vice chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity, which she and Farmer co-founded. Speaking in front of students in Rwanda and a virtual audience of nearly 400, the two doctors discussed a wide range of topics, including the impact of COVID-19, failures in the global response to the pandemic, and the need for community-driven healthcare decisions and priorities.

In that event, Farmer was asked how students could prepare for careers in global health. He advised students to “talk to other people, listen to people and learn to have not just cultural competence, but cultural humility. And that fosters the kind of understanding that will help us move forward and tackle very big problems.”

Farmer is survived by his wife, Didi Bertrand Farmer, and their three children. Their daughter Catherine is a Duke graduate.

Making Migration Work for All

An unprecedented arrival of Haitians turned Mexico into one of the top three asylum destinations in the world in 2021. But streamlined management could turn the situation into an opportunity, both for Mexico and for the migrants, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees Representative in Mexico.

Giovanni Lepri told a Duke audience that while not all the migrants are seeking asylum, it’s currently the primary way for Haitians to pursue a legal status in Mexico.

“There should be alternatives,” Lepri said at a webinar organized by the Duke University Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS).

In 2021, the Mexican Commission for Refugees (COMAR), responsible for adjudicating asylum claims, recorded 131,414 applications. Almost half of them were filed by Haitian nationals or Haitians born abroad and naturalized there. Only 35 percent of them met protection eligibility.

“What happens with the rest?” Lepri asked.

The Local Integration Program – a UNHCR initiative that aims to transfer migrants with refugee status to parts of the country where housing, employment, and education are more accessible – is one possibility, Lepri said.

That program created a network of 260 companies, both international and Mexican, that integrate the refugees into the workforce. Lepri suggested it could be expanded to migrants who are not recognized as refugees.

Embracing this idea in practice, UNCHR and the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) created a pilot project which, in agreement with the Mexican government, seeks to identify people who want to stay in Mexico and who speak Spanish. The program extends to those select participants the same opportunities as those offered to recognized asylum applicants.

“It’s a win-win, because all those jobs are in the formal economy,” Lepri said. “They become taxpayers. If you take the 16,000 individuals in the integration program, every year they would generate $5 million in taxes to their community.”

“This is not charity, not an act of generosity. There is an economic impact,” Lepri said, adding that Mexico is an “open and welcoming country” and one of the 15 major economies in the world, with an active labor market. “Most of the Haitian migrants are in working age and they already speak Spanish. There are challenges, but also a number of opportunities,” he said.

Dr. Piotr Plewa, a Duke visiting research scholar who has written about the recent trend in Haitian migration to Mexico, moderated the event. He asked Lepri about the reason behind this spike, and the legal status of Haitian migrants in the South American countries they were in before heading north.

“We can’t have a one-size-fits-all answer,” Lepri said.  Brazil, for example, had a workforce shortage ahead of the Rio Olympics and the soccer World Cup, right around the time of Haiti’s earthquake, which prompted many Haitians to leave the country after 2010.

“There was an opening,” Lepri said, “and Brazil was very pragmatic in offering temporary visas not tied to an asylum process.” Then COVID happened, and a strong devaluation of Brazil’s currency impacted the value of Haitians’ remittances.

“In general, most of the Haitians who moved to Mexico had a legal status, but not as refugees or people seeking humanitarian protection,” Lepri said.

Plewa asked if the prospect of asylum in the U.S. could also be driving the migration.

“The indications we have from the work we’ve done with refugees say that Mexico can also be a country of destination,” Lepri said. Some 3,500 Haitian nationals who arrived in 2016, and settled right at the border between Mexico and the U.S., in Tijuana, in a community some call Little Haiti.

“They found possibilities in Mexico, even while being so close to the border,” Lepri said.

The change in U.S. administration and the perception of “an opening” might have prompted some to move North, Lepri said.

“This might have been one of the variables. But I don’t think it was the main variable,” he said.

The event was introduced by Giovanni Zanalda, Director of the Duke University Center for International and Global Studies and was co-sponsored by the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS.)

Watch the full webinar here.

Modern Day Gold Rush Turns Pristine Rainforests into Heavily Polluted Mercury Sinks

DURHAM, N.C. – If you had to guess which part of the world has the highest levels of atmospheric mercury pollution, you probably wouldn’t pick a patch of pristine Amazonian rainforest. Yet, that’s exactly where they are.

In a new study appearing Jan. 28 in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of researchers show that illegal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon is causing exceptionally high levels of atmospheric mercury pollution in the nearby Los Amigos Biological Station.

One stand of old-growth pristine forest was found to harbor the highest levels of mercury ever recorded, rivaling industrial areas where mercury is mined. Birds from this area have up to twelve times more mercury in their systems than birds from less polluted areas.

The spread of mercury pollution from gold mining has primarily been studied in aquatic systems. In this study, a team of researchers led by Jacqueline Gerson, who completed this research as part of her Ph.D. at Duke, and Emily Bernhardt, professor of Biology, provide the first measurements of terrestrial inputs, storage and impact of atmospheric mercury to forests and measurements of methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury.

Illegal miners separate gold particles from river sediments using mercury, which binds to gold, forming pellets large enough to be caught in a sieve. Atmospheric mercury is released when these pellets are burned in open fire ovens. The high temperature separates the gold, which melts, from the mercury, which goes up in smoke. This mercury smoke ends up being washed into the soil by rainfall, deposited onto the surface of leaves, or absorbed directly into the leaves’ tissues.

To measure this mercury, Gerson and her team collected samples of air, leaf litter, soil and green leaves from the top of trees, which were obtained with the help of a huge slingshot. They focused their collection on four types of environments: forested and deforested, near mining activity or far from mining activity. Two of the forested areas near mining activity are patches with small, scraggly trees, and the third is Los Amigos Biological Station, a pristine old-growth forest that has never been touched.

Deforested areas, that would have received mercury solely through rainfall, had low levels of mercury regardless of their distance to the mining activity. Forested areas, which accumulate mercury both on their leaves and into their leaves, weren’t all the same. The four areas with scraggly trees, two near mining activity and two further away, had levels of mercury in keeping with world-wide averages.  

“We found that mature Amazonian forests near gold mining are capturing huge volumes of atmospheric mercury, more than any other ecosystem previously studied in the entire world,” said Gerson, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

For all forested areas, Gerson and her team measured a parameter called leaf area index, which represents how dense the canopy is.

They found that mercury levels were directly related to leaf area index: the denser the canopy, the more mercury it holds. The canopy acts like a catch-all for the gases and particulates originating from the nearby burning of gold-mercury pellets.

To estimate how much of the mercury caught in the forest canopy was making its way through the food web, the team measured the mercury accumulated in feathers of three songbird species, in reserve stations near and far from mining activity.

Birds from Los Amigos had on average three times, and up to 12 times more mercury in their feathers than those from a more remote biological station. Such high concentrations of mercury could provoke a decline of up to 30% in these birds’ reproductive success.   

“These forests are doing an enormous service by capturing a huge fraction of this mercury and preventing it from getting to the global atmospheric pool,” Bernhardt said. “It makes it even more important that they not be burned or deforested, because that would release all that mercury back to the atmosphere.”

Small-scale artisanal gold mining is an important livelihood for local communities. Akin to the American gold-rush that ravaged California in the 1850s, it is driven by economic necessity, and disproportionally impacts indigenous communities.

“This is not something new or exclusive to this area,” Bernhardt said. “A very similar thing, with very similar methods, has already been done throughout many of the wealthy countries of the world where gold was available. The demand is just pushing mining further into new areas.” 

“There's a reason why people are mining,” Gerson said. “It's an important livelihood, so the goal is not to get rid of mining completely, nor is it for people like us coming in from the United States to be the ones imposing solutions or determining what should happen.”

“The goal is to highlight that the issues are far vaster than water pollution, and that we need to work with local communities to come up with ways for miners to have a sustainable livelihood and protect indigenous communities from being poisoned through air and water,” Gerson said.

Funding was provided to Jacqueline Gerson by Duke Global Health Institute Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Duke Global Health Institute Doctoral Scholar Program, Duke University Bass Connections, Duke University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Tinker Research Travel Grant Award, Duke University Center for International and Global Studies Research and Training Grant, Duke University Dissertation Research International Travel Award, Geological Society of America Grants in Aid of Research, Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Funding was provided to Emily Bernhardt by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund Grant and the National Science Foundation, through the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

CITATION: “Amazon Forests Capture High Levels of Atmospheric Mercury Pollution From Artisanal Gold Mining,” Jacqueline R Gerson, Natalie Szponar, Angelica Almeyda Zambrano, Bridget Bergquist, Eben Broadbent, Charles T Driscoll, Gideon Erkenswick, David C Evers, Luis E Fernandez, Heileen Hsu-Kim, Giancarlo Inga, Kelsey N Lansdale, Melissa J Marchese, Ari Martinez, Caroline Moore, William K Pan, Raúl Pérez Purizaca, Victor Sánchez, Miles Silman, Emily A Ury, Claudia Vega, Mrinalini Watsa, Emily S Bernhardt. Nature Communications, Jan. 28, 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-27997-3

Experts Urge Masking, Caution During Wait for Omicron Intel

Experts Urge Masking, Caution During Wait for Omicron Intel

DURHAM, N.C. — The new omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus has arrived just in time for the holidays, and health experts say it’s not yet clear whether existing vaccines will fight it off as successfully as they have previous mutations.

But more information is coming soon. Meanwhile, people should continue to mask, distance when they can, and make smart decisions about gathering in groups, health experts say.

Two Duke experts discussed these and other omicron-related issues Friday during a virtual briefing with journalists.

Watch the briefing on YouTube.

Here are excerpts:

ON TIMELINE FOR LEARNING ABOUT OMICRON

David Montefiori, director, Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development

“Multiple laboratories around the world are racing right now to isolate the virus and grow it up in the laboratory to do the initial test to give us an indication to what extent this variant might escape our vaccines.”

“The timeline: we will certainly see a lot of data before the holidays and I would expect to see some of those data coming out as early as a week to 10 days from now, some initial results. Those initial results will be testing serum samples from people who have received the various vaccines to see how well the antibodies in those serum samples are able to neutralize the virus in the laboratory. That is usually a fairly reliable predictor of how well the vaccines will be expected to work against a variant.”

Cameron Wolfe, infectious disease specialist

“South Africa has a really quite robust reporting system in terms of how they’re sharing data with the rest of the world, which really needs to be celebrated. One of the things we’re seeing already is an uptick in hospitalizations. And yet over the next week or two what we’ll be able to carve into that a little more – is that uptick simply because of a larger number of people falling sick, or particularly how many people within those severe cases … were unvaccinated individuals, how many cases were in previously infected individuals. And that gives you a real clinical sense then about how well natural and vaccinated immunity is holding up in the real world.”

David Montefiori

“These early laboratory tests that will be done do provide a fairly reliable indication of how we would expect the vaccines to perform against the variant, but you always need the clinical data to back it up. That is really the most important information.”

ON OMICRON IN THE US

David Montefiori

“There have been small number of cases in the U.S. and I expect that number to increase substantially in the coming days. We do not have a clear idea of how contagious this variant is. Is it going to be more contagious than delta and out-compete delta? We really don’t know. It’s just too early.”

 

ON VACCINES AND VARIANTS

David Montefiori

“We’re in uncharted territory here in terms of the ability of this virus to evade natural immunity and vaccine-induced immunity. We’re learning. It’s almost two years of a learning process now. We’re able to make predictions now that we couldn’t make before. But there’s still a lot of gaps in what we know.

We’re going to learn a lot from omicron that I believe will help us in the future as additional variants come down the pike.”

 

ON HOW VARIANTS IMPACT PATIENT TREATMENT

Cameron Wolfe

“We’ve seen so far with previous variants that vaccine and natural immunity has been very effective in mitigating severity. We’re still learning how that plays out here.”

 

ON PEOPLE DELAYING BOOSTERS DUE TO OMICRON EMERGENCE

David Montefiori

“We are still dealing with, primarily, the Delta variant in the world and especially here in the United States. Elderly people and people who are immune-suppressed … really need to get boosted. Their immune system needs that extra boost to give them really good immunity. We’re dealing with Delta and that boost is going to be really important for those people to protect them from the current, predominant variant that is circulating.”

“It is also likely to strengthen the immune response to the omicron variant. We do know the boost does strengthen the immune response against all the variants other than omicron, which hasn’t been tested. But all of the previous variants, it does strengthen the immune response to.”

 

ON RISING COVID INFECTIONS IN NORTH CAROLINA

Cameron Wolfe

‘We are in a Delta wave still in the United States. One hundred percent of the cases we’ve seen recently here at Duke have all been Delta. It’s not a new variant causing that peak. When you overlap what’s happening in December – we’ve had a congregant activity which was Thanksgiving. We’ve had the widest and most frequently-used travel weekend.

“It’s getting colder and I think we have to be realistic that when that happens, what do we do? We as a community hunker down and spend more time inside, in close-knit areas where we know COVID transmits readily. I suspect that has nothing yet to do with variant activity and everything to do with the fact that, frankly, we’ve eased our guard off a little bit.”

“It does pose a warning. Let’s be realistic about what’s coming up in the next couple weeks. We have Christmas parties that many workplaces are starting to think about again. We have Christmas and New Year’s holidays.”

 

ON COMPLACENCY AMONG VACCINATED

David Montefiori

“I think omicron and the possibility that it could become the next wave and dominate the pandemic, we don’t know that yet. But the possibility that it might should raise some concern and make people more careful this holiday season.”

“Be sure to wear your mask. Do social distancing as much as possible. Avoid large gatherings and hopefully prevent this variant from taking off and really causing a problem.”

“We should anticipate that this variant could out-compete delta. We don’t know that, but we should be cautious and … behave in a way that would mitigate the spread of that variant and your risk of being exposed to it.”

 

ON SUGGESTION THAT OMICRON CAUSES LESS SEVERE DISEASE

Cameron Wolfe

“I think that’s a little premature. Certainly there have been reports from South African physicians already who say most of the omicron cases we’ve seen so far have been mild. But we need to remember that’s true for delta, that’s true for beta and gamma and all other variants too. It’s worth remembering the majority of the cases early on that have been picked up in South Africa have often occurred in young, healthy folk where we wouldn’t expect really severe cases.”

It’s only when you get to really analyze a variant like this over many more thousands of infections and look at the way it impacts hospitalization, look at the way severe infection takes place, that we’ll learn to address the issue of severity.”

With delta variant and alpha for that matter, it took quite a few more weeks after we already saw the virus was more contagious and was spreading for us to look at hospitalization rates and see that yes, here it’s also causing more severe illness.”

 

ON FLAT US VACCINATION RATES

David Montefiori

“I think we definitely need to keep trying to get more and more people vaccinated. The way the pandemic has been going in the United States we have not reached that magic number of herd immunity.”

 

ON PLANNING FOR THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS

Cameron Wolfe

“The big, fundamental difference [from last year] is that we are heavily vaccinated. That is a far better position than we were in (last year).”

“We also know what causes transmissions risk. We also know what allows viruses to spread. It’s me being in close, indoor environments without airway protection that a mask affords. It would be unwise, I think, for us to assume that simply because we’re more vaccinated than we were as an individual or as a community, that will certainly lead this to go away.”

“In terms of planning … plan in a way that acknowledges what the event is and acknowledges what your risk is. If you’re planning an event, can you make an attempt to keep it relatively small?”

“We sort of have had two years of thinking about top-down government rules and pandemic restrictions. I think we’re moving into a situation where it’s going to need to be much more individualized.”

“It has to be an individualized approach. It has to be community-centric. Let’s not stick our head in the sand and think this is just going to go away.”

 

ON CLUES GATHERED FROM PREVIOUS BETA VARIANT

David Montefiori

“That ended up being a local outbreak despite the fact that the variant spread to many other parts of the world. South Africa is the only place where it really took off – and was a major problem for a while. We don’t know what is going to happen with omicron. Will it be a case like beta, and be primarily a problem where the initial outbreak occurred and not become a globally dominant variant? Or will it behave like alpha and delta did and swiftly become a dominant variant in the world?”

“We haven’t really seen a variant yet that has been a serious problem for our vaccines. We’re hoping that won’t be the case with omicron, but again, because there’s so many additional mutations, we just have to wait to get those answers.”

 

ON NEED FOR GLOBAL VACCINE RESPONSE

Cameron Wolfe

“Variants will continue to emerge at a pace that is somewhat proportional to the amount of virus that exists in our global community. It shouldn’t be news to people so far that we have had wide disparities and inequities in the way our vaccine has been distributed.”

 

Faculty Participants

David Montefiori, Ph.D.
David Montefiori is a professor and director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development at Duke University Medical Center, where he has studied the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against new variants of the virus.
 

Cameron Wolfe, M.D.
Dr. Cameron Wolfe is an infectious disease specialist at Duke Health and an associate professor at the Duke University School of Medicine. His areas of study include infectious diseases and biological and emergency preparedness for hospital systems.

The Challenges Ahead for Afghan Refugees, and How Duke and Durham Will Help them

Tuesday marks the first day in Afghanistan without United States troops after 20 years, and the country is now under Taliban rule. But the work is just beginning for the thousands of refugees who have fled the Taliban; more than 100 of them are expected to arrive in Durham soon.

Among those greeting them will be Duke faculty and students, who traditionally have played an important role in assisting the two refugee resettlement agencies in Durham that help guide the refugees’ transition to life in Durham.

The transition is rarely an easy one, for reasons both financial and cultural but also because of the circumstances of their departure and the concerns they have for their native country.

Shane Ellison “While the final U.S. evacuation planes have left Afghanistan, much work is yet to be done for Afghans seeking resettlement in the United States,” says Shane Ellison, supervising attorney for Duke Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic who specializes in refugee and asylum law.

“Many fleeing the violence are coming with a variety of immigration-related legal needs. From work authorization to assistance pursuing long-term immigration relief, access to counsel will be critical for most of the new arrivals.”

On top of this, US refugee agencies, including the Durham-based offices of World Relief and Church World Service, are coming out of four years of upheaval because of previous federal policies that defunded the agencies and tore down much of the infrastructure that is essential to providing a safe transition for refugees.

In the current situation, the rushed timeline for the evacuation of the Afghans is adding to the pressure of the resettlement agencies. Organizations remain short on donations and volunteers.

“U.S. resettlement agencies are scrambling to address these and other urgent needs, such as access to food, housing, and schooling for children,” Ellison said. “And this demand for services comes at a time when resettlement organizations are still recovering from years of budget cuts flowing from dramatically reduced refugee admissions during the Trump administration.”

Among the Duke groups that will assist the refugees is Duke Hello, a group organized by Deb Reisinger, an associate professor of the practice in Romance Studies. She is director of Duke’s Language Outreach Initiatives and a fellow at the Center for New North Carolinians. Through her work at Duke, Reisinger assists with Central African refugee resettlement in North Carolina, teaching courses that pairs Duke French language students with refugee families. A service-learning course also has students working directly with the refugee agencies.

Deb Reisinger “Durham has long been a welcoming community for refugees, with three agencies that facilitate arrival, job placement and English language education,” Reisinger said. These organizations provide key resources to individuals and families, from the moment they arrive at the RDU airport. Volunteers and staff pick up families from the airport and take them directly to an apartment that’s been furnished by volunteers. Within days, they attend healthcare appointments, kids are enrolled in local schools, and adults are placed in English language classes before beginning the job search.”

“My students and I have worked with hundreds of refugees over the past eight years,” Reisinger said. “We have learned so much, not only about the resettlement process, but about the challenges that refugees face as they adjust to life in a completely new culture. Whether they are navigating the health care system–which even many Americans do not understand–our educational system, or even the job search, there are a myriad of barriers to access and equity that make these processes even more difficult.” 

In addition, faculty and students from the Kenan Refugee Project at the Kenan Institute for Ethics will also assist the refugees.

This effort to assist refugees is part of an American tradition, Reisinger said.  She noted that the United States has a long history of refugee settlement and has welcomed more than 3 million refugees since the mid-1970s.

“Annual admissions ebb and flow, however, for 2020, the government proposed the lowest number in the program’s history – 18,000 – but the actual number of entrants was even lower, closer to 12,000 people,” Reisinger said. “This is a stark difference from the 70,000 to 80,000 refugees who had previously entered the country annually.

“What many people don’t realize is that our resettlement program has one of the most rigorous vetting programs in the world. The average person has to wait two years to be accepted and undergoes multiple background checks and interviews before coming to the United States,” Reisinger adds.

“In addition to language and cultural barriers, racism and xenophobia, refugees have to reckon with their own new identities, often losing professional or social status and having to adapt to values that may not reflect their own. Our culture focuses so much on self-reliance and on the individual. Many of the people I’ve met have expressed grief over losing community, whether that be shared meals, a vibrant neighborhood life or just welcome arms and a helping hand. We have such abundance and can share more than we know.”