News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The global economic crisis and climate change are taking their toll on world health and may threaten the recognition and control of infectious diseases, Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said today at a global health forum.

CIDRAP News – President Barack Obama called today for a "complete review" of the operations of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the wake of the ongoing outbreak of Salmonella in peanuts and peanut butter.

– WASHINGTON, DC (CIDRAP News) – Health authorities must remain alert to new and renascent disease threats, experts warned this week at an international medical meeting.

(CIDRAP News) – The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has included avian influenza, Ebola fever, Rift Valley fever, and plague on a list of 12 diseases and pathogens that it believes may spread to new regions as a result of climate change.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report examining the results several developed nations and the European Union achieved when they consolidated oversight of food safety in a single agency, a step often advocated in the United State for solving some of the problems linked to contaminated imported and domestic food.

(CIDRAP News) – The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted today that climate change will increase disease outbreaks by a variety of mechanisms and threaten human health in other ways.

(CIDRAP News) – Brazil's health ministry said this week that it has asked the military to help combat mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, as the number of sick patients with the disease grew to at least 55,000 so far this year.

Though dengue fever is common in Brazil, officials have said this year's outbreak is the worst in recent memory, averaging 1.4 new cases per minute, according to a report today from CNN.

(CIDRAP News) – The United States could be the next country to experience an epidemic of dengue illnesses if the disease keeps aggressively expanding, senior officials from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) warned this week.

(CIDRAP News) – The dispute over the sharing of H5N1 avian influenza samples was high on the agenda as the annual meeting of World Health Organization (WHO) member countries began today in Geneva.