Three new Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases, along with five deaths in previously announced infections, have been reported in Guinea, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa reported today. The new cases raise the country's overall number of cases to 208 and number of deaths to 136; 112 illnesses have been lab confirmed. So far 25 EVD infections, 16 of them fatal, have been reported in Guinea's healthcare workers.
Tongan health officials have confirmed a first-ever chikungunya outbreak affecting more than 10,000 people, according to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) report today. The Polynesian archipelago nation is home to about 100,000 people.
Officials at the Pasteur Institute in Paris say the laboratory's loss of 2,349 "tubes" containing fragments of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus does not pose an infection risk, but they call the lapse an "unacceptable mistake," according to media reports.
Cases of chikungunya in the Caribbean have reached 19,682, according to data today from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), up from 18,493 cases a week ago.
A chikungunya outbreak in the Dominican Republic underscores the need for greater mosquito-control efforts.
The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed a new fatal case of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection in a 64-year-old man from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) late on Mar 21 reported three cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infections in adults from Riyadh.
The Caribbean now has 10,476 confirmed, probable, or suspected cases of chikungunya, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said late last week, up from 6,540 the week before.
Martinique and neighboring Caribbean islands have seen a major surge of suspected chikungunya cases this week, and two locally acquired cases in French Guiana mark the first indigenous cases in South America, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reported today.
Chikungunya, which has a foothold in the Caribbean, seems likely to spread to other parts of the Americas.
