News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in the Philippines recently announced that a worker who had contact with sick pigs tested positive for antibodies to the Ebola Reston virus, a pathogen that was discovered about a month ago for the first time in pigs.

Eric Tayag, head of the National Epidemiology Centre, said the case represent the first known pig-to-human Ebola Reston virus transmission, according to a Jan 24 Associated Press (AP) report.

(CIDRAP News) – A Chinese man in Hubei province has contracted the H5N1 avian influenza virus, while the pathogen has struck poultry in Sudan for the first time, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today expressed closely guarded optimism that SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) can be contained.

"Experiences in a growing number of countries indicate that the disease can be contained, thus supporting WHO's overall objective: to prevent SARS from becoming widely established as another new disease in humans," the organization said in its online update.