A group of several people are shown riding bicycles in the streets and wearing protective face masks.

Scientists work to understand immunity from the coronavirus

Full Episode

Bikers ride past a metro station after France began a gradual end to a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus, in Paris, France, May 13, 2020.

Charles Platiau/Reuters

We still don’t know whether people who’ve been infected with the novel coronavirus are immune from infection, and if so, for how long. But scientists are starting to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Madagascar is marketing a new herbal drink as a potential treatment — if not a cure — for the coronavirus. While the World Health Organization has warned against the use of untested treatments for the coronavirus, some African countries are ordering the new drink. And, it’s official: COVID-19 is feminine in the French language. It’s laCOVID-dix-neuf, not le. Like in most other romance languages, every noun in French has its own gender. 

In This Episode

Acquired immunity and COVID-19
Is Sweden’s ‘open for business’ policy working?
A person on an orange bicycle rides past a billboard of people with masks
Baltic ‘bubble’ looks to reopen regional travel
Special Coverage
An Afghan nurse observes newborn children who lost their mothers during an attack at a hospital, in Kabul, May 13, 2020.
Shocked Afghans ask why perpetrators targeted a maternity hospital and a funeral 
Special Coverage
Wearing a mask is mandatory in France, but it’s no loophole for the burqa ban
Palamagamba Kabudi, Tanzania's Foreign Minister receives a package from his Madagascar counterpart Tehindrazanarivelo Djacoba of the COVID Organics
Madagascar defends coronavirus herbal remedy 
Special Coverage
Residents of Mahiga-Meru village chase desert locusts using old aluminum cooking pots, iron sheets and twigs, in Laikipia County, Kenya, Feb. 25, 2020. 
Coronavirus — and locusts — threaten Kenya’s food security
Special Coverage
Visitors play Pachinko, a Japanese form of legal gambling, at Dynam Japan Holdings Co.'s Pachinko parlour in Koga, north of Tokyo, April 7, 2014. 
Some loud, smoky pachinko parlors defy Japan’s shutdown
Special Coverage
Whistlestop diplomacy in Israel
Coronavirus gets a gender
Scientists work to understand immunity from the coronavirus - The World from PRX