WHO Director-General Margaret Chan declared polio's spread this year to be a public health emergency, and she spelled out temporary steps for curbing the threat.
Testing of nasal and eye swabs of camels in Oman found 5 of 76 samples positive for Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and genetic sequencing showed that they were closely related to human viruses in the region
H5N1 avian flu has struck two chicken factory farms in North Korea's capital of Pyongyang, killing more than 46,000 birds, according to a report posted yesterday by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
In the first outbreak, all 46,217 birds died of the disease in three holding pens for layer hens on a farm at the Hadang chicken factory. The outbreak began Mar 21. Samples from the birds tested positive on Mar 26.
Food from restaurants was associated with almost twice the number of disease outbreaks and more than double the illnesses as food prepared at home, according to data compiled by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a food safety watchdog.
Six more cases of Heartland virus infection have been identified since the world's first two cases were detected in the summer of 2012, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and two states reported today.
In separate announcements today, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported two more Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of them fatal, raising the global MERS count to 200 cases.
The Drexel University student who died last week from serogroup B meningococcal disease had the same strain that has infected Princeton University students, suggesting that the outbreak strain is still present at Princeton, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.
For the fourth day in a row, no new lab-confirmed H7N9 influenza infections were reported from China, but the World Health Organization (WHO) in two separate updates today provided more details about four case reports it received from China on Mar 7 and Mar 8.
UNICEF announces that IPV will be available to low-income countries for as little as $1 a dose.
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.
