News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A 39-year-old Saudi Arabian man died on Mar 2 of a novel coronavirus (NCoV) infection, marking the world's 15th case and 9th death from the mysterious virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – The global death toll from H5N1 avian influenza grew by two today when the World Health Organization (WHO) added a Chinese case dating back to 2003 and the Indonesian case reported yesterday involving a 16-year-old boy. Meanwhile, reports today say another H5N1 death has occurred in Indonesia, this one in a teen girl.

(CIDRAP News) – A 24-year-old Beijing man died of H5N1 avian influenza in November 2003, nearly two years before China reported any human H5N1 cases to the World Health Organization (WHO), according to Chinese scientists writing in today's New England Journal of Medicine.

The letter has renewed speculation about how many H5N1 cases might have been missed or not reported in China, especially before late 2005, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Tests have confirmed that a 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman who died in Indonesia last week had avian influenza, raising Indonesia's case tally to 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

The announcement follows China's report yesterday of its first two confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian flu on the mainland. The WHO has registered a total of 130 cases, including 67 deaths, since December 2003.

(CIDRAP News) – Reports today said three rare palm civets that recently died in captivity in Vietnam were infected with an H5N1 avian influenza virus, adding another species to the list of those susceptible to the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – The idea of stopping an emerging influenza pandemic would have seemed ridiculous until a few years ago, but today the world just might have a chance to do that, according to two flu experts who published opinion pieces this week.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today lifted its recommendation against travel to Hong Kong and China's Guangdong province, signaling that the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak is declining in its original strongholds.

Both places have fewer than 60 patients who are still infectious, and the average number of new cases per day has hovered at less than five in recent days, WHO officials said in a news release.

(CIDRAP News) – Recommended infection control precautions apparently failed to protect nine Toronto hospital staff members from contracting SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) while caring for a critically ill SARS patient, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

(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.