With the World Health Organization (WHO) set to name a new director-general in May 2017, the editors of The Lancet sat down with the six candidates running to replace Margaret Chan, MD, MPH, as the head of the world's only multilateral health agency.
The 2014-15 outbreak of H5N8 avian flu in Europe and then North America was likely driven by long-distant migrant birds and an unusually "promiscuous" clade, a study published today in Science found.
Malaria deaths in Africa have dropped by more than half in the past 15 years, but some countries still struggle with high malaria mortality rates, according to a study yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In addition, the WHO reports 2 new H5N1 cases in Egypt.
Health officials in Abu Dhabi yesterday announced the detection of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in quails in the western part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a report from Xinhua that cited the UAE's state news agency.
The infected birds were found in Al Gharbia, and emergency management teams have taken response steps, including increasing surveillance and alerting farmers in the area, according to the report.
Animal health officials in Ivory Coast reported a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a commercial chicken farm in Abidjan district, located in the southern part of the country, according to a report today from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) posted two reports yesterday detailing three new outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu in Nigerian chickens. Nigeria—along with fellow West African nations Cameroon and Ghana—are struggling with H5N1 in their poultry populations.
Recent outbreaks in Iraq and Lebanon pose a risk to other nations because of political instability and a host of other factors.
Yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO) described five recent cases of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, providing more evidence of the risk that camel contact poses in transmitting the disease.
Given past patterns, the FAO warned countries that border the Caspian and Black Seas, as well as Western Europe, to be on high alert.
