News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Flu activity remained low in the Northern Hemisphere last week, with only a few countries, such as Costa Rica and Cameroon, reporting spikes in the number of cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

Costa Rica is the only tropical country in the Americas to report increasing numbers of cases, which are primarily influenza A/H3N2, the WHO said.

(CIDRAP News) – Though global rates of the most deadly form of malaria are declining in Africa, the parasite's less deadly but more difficult-to-treat cousin, Plasmodium vivax, has a firm foothold in many parts of South Asia and Latin America, according to new mapping studies.

(CIDRAP News) – Egypt reported five H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in October, and the latest disease surveillance from Indonesia suggests that the highest incidence is in Bali, where three human fatal infections were recently reported, according to an overview from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

(CIDRAP News) – A few of the world's tropical countries are reporting active flu transmission, as the flu season continues in Australia and New Zealand, though activity is declining, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – The first cases in Haiti's cholera outbreak were confirmed nearly a year ago, and public health lessons from the experience and scientific clues about the Vibrio cholerae strain continue to emerge, including new details from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its research partners.