India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China also experienced new outbreaks of H5 N1 influenza in December. During the same period, four new human cases - in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia - were reported to the World Health Organization. A 16-year-old girl in Egypt and a 2-year-old girl in Indonesia have died.
Health officials say 2 recent incidents in which swimmers in Maryland were attacked by a rabid beaver should remind people that those "no swimming" signs are there for a reason. One rabid beaver, now dead, was responsible for an attack on a swimmer on Sun
An outbreak of measles has struck up to 21 children across South Yorkshire. All those affected are children aged between just three months and 12 years who have not had the MMR inoculation.
An outbreak of Q Fever is being investigated in the Cheltenham area. A total of 28 cases have been identified among local people, most requiring hospital treatment.
A hunt is on for 2 patients with a deadly form of tuberculosis who disappeared after the Cape High Court ordered they return to a South African hospital. The pair, diagnosed with extremely drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis, are presumed to be in hiding.
Sewage systems do not break down Tamiflu, which means the main weapon against bird flu could seep into natural waters and make certain viruses resistant to the drug during a pandemic.
While individual prizes can encourage research in specific areas, they cannot address the wider problem of high drug prices. The cost of new medicines has skyrocketed in the past 20 years
In a 13-month period in the UK there were six deaths and 112 cases of severe complications among children. Vaccinating all children is the only way to prevent severe illness and death from chickenpox.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved BinaxNOW as the first malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) authorized for use in the United States. Malaria RDTs, which detect circulating malaria-specific antigens, already are available in other countries
Diagnoses of new sex infections rose by 2% to 376,508 from 2005 to 2006, largely among young people and gay men, the UK Health Protection Agency repoerts.
Scientists are no further forward in developing a vaccine against HIV after more than 20 years of research says Nobel Prize-winning biologist David Baltimore.
The 1918 influenza strain developed two mutations in the hemagglutinin which allowed it to bind tightly to receptors in the human upper respiratory tract.
Ciguatera poisoning is caused by the consumption of tropical reef fish that have assimilated ciguatoxins through the marine food chain from toxic microscopic algae.