red alert. ah, this is a just route. this is a rid if occasion. i think we're going to have some epic fighting. with a warning meter is becoming a scarce commodity. things just getting dryer and dryer and we need more and more water is only earth dying of thirst. there is no water at all but global struggle for water thirst starts august 10th on d. w with blue sewage is dirty dot interesting. and a potentially useful early warning system and a pandemic, a pilot project in germany is working out just how useful in india, the pandemic has led people to grow more of their food locally. why?

well, think our teeth into that question later in this cove at 19 special but right now, come with us to the republic of congo, where research is studying the lives of guerrillas in the current pandemic as a risk that people will infect the great apes. it is 5 o'clock in the morning and robbie booker is already tracking through the congolese jungle. early mornings are the best time for the young environmental scientists to search full and study the guerrillas. after a one hour track, he spot some under strict precautions, he tries to observe them, study their behavior remarkably with the liquid, damascus to avoid contamination. dearborn contamination with the gorilla with corona virus. it's important that we protect the animals against the disease because we know that when the disease migrates from humans to animals and then possibly back to humans, it gets very complicated and alone. that would have been

a conflict up the north of congo. browser vol. is home to the western lowland gorillas. thousands live here. nowhere else in the world. can you find such a density of guerrillas? how dangerous as covert 19 for them? that's a question. robert cocker and his research group often debate, but they simply don't have an answer yet. after a silver back, i'd seriously sick with cove it in the u. s. su, they've been very careful. they keep at least 25 meters away from the gorillas and everyone here is vaccinated. in the early, 2, thousands, a bowler killed almost 5000 guerrillas. that disease was most likely transmitted by bats, possibly from eating the same fruits. that's why rubber cocker and a group of students from the university of brother val are also researching the areas massive back population. the current built on the phone, it's very important to follow up on that pathogens because there's

a local community that each bets and scientifically. we know that there's a risk of transferring disease from best to humans. we need to know and avoid that kind of transmission. and possibly also forecast what could become future diseases like your future corona, virus literature. one of you in the capital browser. well, there are several high risk places for the spillover of diseases from animals to humans. bush meat markets while sending endangered species like a realism chimpanzees is illegal. many other varieties of books may can be bought here. robbie the cock, i can understand that local residents hunt and push me to make a living. but he is opposed to bush meat markets where he says endangered species are also often sold illegally on the market to the popular come these markets that can be considered breeding grounds for diseases in those markets. viruses can be easily transferred from animals to humanist,

let alone up quickly. when someone contracts the disease, it quickly spreads to others adopted. it can easily escalate from epidemic to pandemic bonding. ok, that's the danger of those makins in masula to prevent future disease outbreaks among the guerrillas, the scientists have increased surveillance, creating an early warning system. the research base is the core of the congo conservation company. his research has financed by eco tourism. it also creates employment for the community, encouraging participation in conservation efforts. but they want to keep the number of tourists low. we don't want to pull, shuns a glorious to much and or so we don't want to have a kind of factory. and like a lot of people coming in coming in from indian, we wanted to keep bits or as was come as possible to be able. oh,

to manage that lives of park, and we've got so much an aspect we don't want to most tourism here. the congo basin is the 2nd largest rain forest in the world, often refer to as the earth, african lung. it absorbs more greenhouse gases than the entire continent emits. and it has a unique and diverse ecosystem. in the meantime, robbie, because getting ready for his next tract to the gorillas, he has a few more weeks for his research here before returning to the capital to write his master's thesis longs on his boss because it is. and i think i'll never get tired of seeing the gorillas fit for me. it's a dream, it's a dream to be here. to be able to go and see them as a dream. i can spend all day long watching them before me as well. that's the life i want to live for. lenny could come in rather the cocker once more congolese, to appreciate the environment and study natural sciences. in his master's course, there are currently only 4 students

ah, not far from cape town, live, one of the leading lights of south africa is academic wealth. stanon boss, university. care routine for search is, is on the hunt trend. new virus variance. late last year they discovered the on the current variant this is the room where the omicron variant of cupboard was 1st discovered. professor julio, the only vera of stellan bosh university in south africa, is leading a team, conducting the g nomic surveillance of deadly pathogens. and a 100000000 euro research facility. how got that? a lot of the war, the got very surprised how south africa can, can be a lead that on genomics available. but we, we were not surprised because we, we had to be lead the on genomics, avena thought, or the pot,

the agenda for the past 20 years. it was this experience that said south africa apart from the rest of the globe, scientific community in isolating, identifying and revealing omicron south africa may be a middle income country dealing with ramp and unemployment, stubborn poverty. and one of the highest rates of inequality in the world. but it, scientists are world leaders. they are leveraging the experience, gained from over 3 decades of managing one of the globes highest rates of h, i. v and aids to be among the 1st to discover the intricacies of cove at 19 and it's variance. one thing that people don't realize is that in addition to the only crop we alphabet, fact that, that the effect variance wasn't that bit. and was with our deep end guidance that the united king bed identified that alpha. so in reality, we have how choice,

then fight 3 of the 5 variants, all there was a hypothesis that a cluster of new coven 19 infections in johannesburg. south africa is economic capital were behaving differently than previous variance. he and his team worked around the clock to make the omicron discovery with hundreds of samples flown down to his lab over night. in mid november 2021. we did the every field from beginning to the and the 36 hours, which, which was a lot of pressure. but, but we, we, we had that very clear line of communication and that wasn't reviewed by all the top sciences. and this was crucial because that's what allow and not only the water to and the fan that in both the, against the only crumb would save life. and that's what we did dying south africa.

we had a very small number on that. on the, on the con wave, and we think that's how a very quick scientific results to help that one to alpha have a lower level of death. but the discovery did not come without its costs. south africa economy took an immediate head. the government extended lockdown measures in response to the announcement while travel bands to and from the country were immediately imposed by the majority of the global community. and the team's lives were also put in immediate danger. we received many, many, many press menu that threats at given time. we had to put like security in the entrance to the university because we could carry our work and the big lesson to their what is that they should make mechanisms that don't in the lives counters to identify new pathogenic. otherwise, we're going to have more than more, and then we can find them that that's not identifies the

stress of all microns discovery has taken its toll. but professor to olivera believes that as professional pressure increases, so should efforts to stay sane and healthy, both mentally and physically. so the to relax in this kind of environment, you have to think almost every tool that we have in the kinds of mental health basket. so in our lab we lost a lot. we tell jokes we play a lot. yeah. i do a lot of exercise, especially nature heights in the mon thing. go a lot to the be and alpha for me and meditation work. wow. every morning i wake up around 5 am and do a session of meditation before the day after almost 30 years as a genome sequencer professor. the olivera believes the future of his profession lies in computing. and that anybody who wants to follow in his footsteps needs to

be dedicated and patient the men, the advice, sure young people that to went to become a scientists, i genomics scientists it is true is to invest a lot of time, not only on their own land in the lab techniques, but landing air decoding yet computer coding yes, software development. because this days, all the data that we producing does lab is completely automated. and after 27 years in south africa, he has no plans to move abroad. even though he may have been thrown into the global spotlight and his genomics surveillance skills are in high demand elsewhere, i always had a fashion to walk on science that can help to save life and felt the african africa integrate play from that. and that's why with the volta local follow time,

shoot, walking with fire, but also informed welcome it on how bad the to respond to it. the damage, not only thought would be true of it, but i'll throw on there to them that, that called millions that the corona virus may have made professor d olivera famous beyond the borders of south africa. but he remains committed to his humble approach to solving some of the world's most pressing health problems. i do you have questions about the korean of iris ah, science, janice, derek williams will answer them and bring you up to date with the latest we fetch. send them to gave it which isa at d, w dot com all farish saline. once to ne, have there been human challenge trials where vaccinated people were exposed to new variance? human challenge trials or

h. c. t's are trials where healthy test subjects are intentionally exposed to pathogens in a tightly controlled setting. um, they're very useful when it comes to providing solid data on questions like how much of a virus it takes to really make you sick, for instance, or, or how much protection vaccines really provide. trying to figure out stuff like that from real world data is tricky and it involves making educated guesses, m h, c. t's can remove a lot of that guesswork. but of course, intentionally infecting volunteers with diseases that could take a serious or, or even a deadly turn is an ethical minefield. so, h, c. t's are not entered into lightly. i'm aware of only one human challenge,

trial involving covey. 19 so far, which took place in 2021. in the u. k. i'm in it. 36 healthy young adults had drops of fluid that contained a controlled amount of sars covey to scored it into their noses. half of them later it tested positive for coven, 19, and 16 of them showed symptoms. none classified as serious, although 5 of the subjects did continue to report problems with smell and taste. i'm 6 months later. the study helped clarify questions about, for instance, how quickly symptoms begin to develop post infection and, and when viral load pigs. um, but there was one major drawback. it's that the strain of virus used in the study was isolated from a patient quite early in the pandemic. so before or is colby too began to seriously

mutate. since then, we've seen a series of new variance as the virus changed and, and pretty fundamental ways becoming a whole lot more transmissible in the process. so although the study provided great data, it was pretty much outdated. by the time the results were published, new human challenge trials would have to more or less start all over using the variance that currently dominate the coven 19 landscape. and then they'd likely be outdated in 6 months or so, which finally brings me to the answer to your question. um no, i couldn't find any h. c. t's in progress where vaccinated people were being exposed to new variance. and the reason why is that with the virus still mutating quickly and, and unpredictable ways that they just wouldn't make much sense. boom,

reliable day sir, and needed to respond quickly to a new kind of virus wave. and we can find that information in how soon is a pilot project in germany shows that monitoring our waste water can give us useful information on the pandemic. the waste water in the holy been sewage treatment plant in berlin comes from around 1000000 people. the system process is almost 250000 cubic meters a day. imagine 1300000 bathtubs filled to the brim. berlin waterworks asked huck. and as shawn believes, what most people consider unpleasant and dirty can give valuable information about the corona virus pandemic. and as appa says, i thought i'd say the waste water is really a gold mine for us because not everyone goes to the test center of isaac. but everyone does go to the from tell and ultimately provides data that we can use

satellite develops. that's because infected people excrete viruses when they go to the bathroom long before they become ill themselves or in fact others. so why not just see how much are renee that is? genetic information from viruses arrives at the sewage treatment plant and how the numbers change that could flag waves of infection. and as, as music was a mix, it's a very, very big mix. that was the problem at the beginning. first of all, we had to make sure that we removed all the other contaminants from the waste water to really be able to isolate the renee. this gave me it's working very well now, and the hope was that we'd be able to get a realistic picture of how the infection is spreading has been cut almost 2 years ago. susanna, lucknow of the university of darmstadt, found out that wastewater samples can be used to determine how quickly and how strongly the corona virus is spreading in a region. at that time, she was in the laboratory, looking for an early warning system for waves of corona virus. she struck gold with

the waste water. the process caused a stir at the time in the netherlands in spain, and in the u. s. it's much cheaper than doing hundreds of thousands of individual corona virus tests. 20 german municipalities have been taking part in the waste water monitoring pilot project since the end of last year, significantly more have applied to be part of it. the berlin waterworks are also involved samples are taken twice a week, had several sewage treatment plants in the german capital, the participants in the germany wide pilot test to then send the samples to all of oratory for analysis. in order to get results as quickly as possible, berlin, waterworks even bought their own analysis device laboratory head auto bertelsmann says that she was able to predict every single wave at the beginning of the year when the number of infections in germany rose rapidly. isn't an art, we're kind of not just and monitoring service involved. we're kind of an early warning system and can really predict

a wave. and when it's coming in the lace bonner vasa, the english for he has og, using the data from around the end of last year, would have been man shows that the wastewater analysis delivers results $10.00 to $14.00 days faster than the incidence figures based on individual pcr tests these in here, blood sucking you can see below smites here. this is the data we processed from the p c r machine in our any copies per liter. if i click here, now here we had $1500000.00 virus particles per liter and waste water heater. and now if you pay attention to the green line, the green line is the incident number of the human samples. and so you can see the green peak always length. i hind the blue spikes, se vertically, they're blowing co over in my winter here, noise. and when viewed over a longer period of time, the peaks in the blue waste water data can be seen earlier than the incidences which are based on individual pcr tests. what's more, the laboratory can also determine which virus variance are represented. and to what

extent one good there will react quickly if a more dangerous variant began to prevail over less harmful variance. as he who desiring while i am saying that it definitely makes sense to go beyond the pilot phase and make this part of the routine. and not just for controlling corona viruses but also for example, influenza viruses, polio viruses, and gastro intestinal tract viruses. so you set up a waste water monitoring system to get an overview. what's going on with it? now? what infections should we expect? fiona, miss relation? the pilot program will soon be completed. now the german authorities have to agree to nationwide wastewater monitoring. it shouldn't be about the money for around $500.00 euros. you can get insights into a reliable trend of infection development for hundreds of thousands of people. very early on. just by looking at the waste water.

agriculture uses a lot of water bots. as a result of the pandemic projects in the indian states of carola, are increasingly relying on local cultivation. technology allows the scarce water available for adam farming to be used more efficiently. it's planting season and v j comb. our dance is placing green chili peppers into the soil. the plastic sheeting traps the moisture inside. he has worked as a farmer for 6 years. v j dance is originally from rural a, some in northern india. but he has learned these farming techniques here and the city of futile von, on thought, put them in corolla on the south western coast. if a yeah b belatoya i make if i need to just help my dad before i came here, there's up, up, up, up, hell got up of like a big a be as good. now i've learned a lot about farming and about the technology malware less, but i think you already made it no matter where i go. i don't have to worry you. go

mitigate. no one has told me what to do since i already know malemad medicine does bundle mc. i'm got a psych don't viji das works for include agro ventures, a small company on the cities outskirts. it provides farming and technical training to people to set up farms on unused urban land launched in 2016. the company integrates technology with traditional farming practices, such as growing vegetables, adapted to the soil, and using only natural pesticides. founder at gel saline wants to get more city dwellers to grow their own food to better cope with future shortages during the founding, the exposure to local produce was far greater than before, simply because of the fact that your resources were limited. so that has changed the balance tremendously. and that single aspect, this ward, i believe, will be the future that i would of this business. before the coven 19 pandemic did

. over on the poor m, like other colonel on cities imported most of its food from neighboring tumble. now do but the important vegetables were often heavily contaminated with chemicals. that's why the state is now promoting urban rooftop farming. more than $20000.00 people are already taking part in the program. urban agriculture could be a sustainable solution to feed growing populations and rapidly urbanized india. but unlike and corolla scaling up could be a challenge, especially in major cities like delhi, bengal noodle and china. all of which are running dangerously low on ground water levels. but experts say there could be a solution unlike dear, earlier, conventional method of getting blends using a board or maybe a hose. no, we have microevolution methods like micro sprinklers, other than that but,

but again, is that government is supporting those programs also and that number of go private companies also bring your good models that can be fitted into this. so that want to shortlist for our problem can be forwarded to a great extent. urban farming also creates a green buffer against carbon emissions and helps to filter air pollution. but a lot of people living in cities can't afford the fresh homegrown food. i think the helping hands organizations supports people with autism from low income families, with the help of glue and agro it, converted an acre of arid land on its lot into a vegetable patch. the autistic people learn everything about farming and can take their harvest home. working with them in the land, the organization discovered that farming also has therapeutic value. they are actually a carrying case. they blake,

in all our team building skill set and the way they are in working together. why debbie holl west. so understanding the concept m a co adding certain skills said i'm dog communication and now the 80 us oh, farming is really helpful. and john saline mainly sells the vegetables to middle and upper middle class families and corolla. now he hopes to reach even more people and promote the benefits of urban farming by setting up a co working space in the middle of the farm. this worked from farm initiative lets people do their office work surrounded by greenery and even raised their own vegetables. if they wish we would like to have people come over here as a regular way of life. understand as to how farming is and create that farm connect and bond so that they are able to nurture in their minds. you know, a dream of

a future from it's working and corolla where more and more people are turning to urban agriculture. and v j comb are does as long hope to set up his own vegetable farm in his home state of awesome. that was the coven 19 special for another week. thanks for watching and see you next time through blue. ah ah ah

ah ah ah, with 1000000000 trees plan, tana global reforestation program, save our climate ideas and time constantly simple. but is

it? which trees are suitable? and above all, where should these new forms occurring in 30 minutes on d, w and dr. facts, most boss of the water at least 4 months. yeah. they're experiencing some with there's plenty of sea water, but desalination is energy intensive and expensive. a burling base to start up shows us. it doesn't have to be this way, global 3000 in 90 minutes on d. w. o . aah! departure into the know. today this means flying to

a foreign planet. in the 16th century, it meant being a captain and setting sale to discover a route the world famous c. voyage of ferdinand magellan. part of a race full power between spain and portugal. a race leads to military interests erased, linked to political and military facilities. but also linked to making financial changes and adventure full of hardships, dangers and death. 3 years that would change the world forever. my jillions journey around the world. start september 7th on d w. ah

. this is dw news live from berlin, nancy pelosi vas, china will not isolate taiwan. the u. s. high speaker says beijing won't succeed in cutting taiwan or from the rest of the world as china puts on a huge show of military force around the island. also on the pro.