The World Health Organization (WHO) said today that it and partner groups working on earthquake response in Nepal are deploying extra medications and equipment to prevent the spread of diarrheal diseases such as cholera, which can spread when disasters damage and contaminate the clean water supply.
Groups estimate that at least 2.8 million people have been displaced, with many living in 16 makeshift camps.
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Apr 25 appointed Peter Jan Graaff to lead the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), taking the place of Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania, who had held the position since late December. Ould Cheikh Ahmed succeeded UNMEER's first chief, Anthony Banbury.
Saudi Arabia today reported two more MERS-Cov cases in different cities, after a weekend with no new cases.
German researchers yesterday reported evidence that enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), which caused a widespread outbreak of respiratory illness in American children last fall, also circulated at low levels in Germany at about the same time.
The ongoing string of MERS-CoV cases in Saudi Arabia continued with a report of three more late yesterday, along with three more deaths, according to the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Today the MOH reported no new cases but noted two more deaths in previous cases. The latest reports raise the total cases this month to 71, with 30 deaths.
The number of US measles cases since Jan 1 has reached at least 154, an increase of 13 in the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly update, and 118 of those cases are linked to Disneyland in California.
A new case of MERS-CoV and one death in a previously reported case bring totals since June 2012 to 900 and 383, respectively, in Saudi Arabia, according to a report today from the country's Ministry of Health (MOH).
Of 26 notifiable diseases analyzed for 2007 through 2011, rates were higher in American Indian/Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) than in whites for 14, and for certain diseases the rates in that minority population were dramatically higher, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.
China reported its second H7N9 avian flu case this year, with both cases in Guangdong province near Hong Kong, according to a report today from Xinhua, the country's state-run news agency.
A Kansas resident who died this past summer was infected with a new virus that may have been carried by ticks, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) reported in a press release yesterday.
