As Syria begins large-scale vaccination efforts to combat polio, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe said in a statement today that the situation increases the risk of international spread of wild poliovirus, and aid groups called for a truce to help stem the disease.
At least 350,000 Pakistani children could not be given a polio vaccine because of opposition from militant groups during a national immunization campaign in September, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) officials told The News International, a Pakistani newspaper.
The WHO says 10 polio infections have been confirmed out of 22 suspected cases.
A rapid tuberculosis (TB) test that was endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO) speeded the start of treatment but did not reduce TB-related illness in a field trial in four African countries, according to a study released yesterday in The Lancet.
The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed China's latest H7N9 influenza case, in a 67-year-old farmer from Zhejiang province, and said the man is in critical condition.
The WHO said the patient, whose case was reported by the media yesterday, had contact with poultry. He got sick on Oct 16, was admitted to local hospital 2 days later, and was transferred to another hospital on Oct 21 as his condition worsened.
Saudi Arabia has reported two more Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases in the past few days, both in men living in the Riyadh region, according to a press account and a translated government statement.
The 61-year-old Qatari man who has Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) had contact with farm animals, including camels, before his illness, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in confirming his case.
More than half of 70 first responders surveyed did not know that occupants of an entire building need decontamination following an indoor release of Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, according to a study in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
In a randomized controlled trial in France, a statin drug failed to improve survival rates in patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), according to a report published online today by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Indonesia's Ministry of Health has confirmed the country's second H5N1 case this year, in a 28-year-old man from Bekasi.
The man died from the disease, according to a machine-translated health ministry statement today on FluTrackers, the Web-based infectious disease message board. The health ministry statement is dated Oct 3.
