Pandemics | GlobalPost

WHO simplifies pandemic alert system after criticism

Agence France-PresseJune 10, 2013 13:31

The World Health Organization on Monday published a new plan on how to alert the world to possible flu pandemics, following harsh criticism of its handling of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009. The UN's health agency said it had simplified its alert system and redefined what constitutes a pandemic to put more emphasis on the risk it posed instead of just focusing on its spread. "The key point of the new guidance reflecting the lessons learnt (was to make it) very much risk-based," WHO expert David Harper told reporters in Geneva Monday.

Double dose of Tamiflu proves no better in severe flu

Thomson ReutersMay 30, 2013 19:16

LONDON (Reuters) - There are no benefits from giving patients with severe flu a double dose of Roche's drug Tamiflu, despite calls by some experts for the use of higher doses in the most serious cases. That verdict from the first randomized clinical trial to study the issue has implications for global guidelines on stockpiling drugs for a potential flu pandemic, researchers said on Friday.

H1N1 flu outbreak kills 17 in Venezuela: media

Thomson ReutersMay 27, 2013 17:45

CARACAS (Reuters) - An outbreak of H1N1 flu has killed 17 people in Venezuela and infected another 250, private media and local authorities said on Monday. H1N1, often referred to as swine flu, was a flu strain that swept around in the world in a 2009/2010 pandemic. "We're suffering a tail-end of the pandemic," a former Venezuelan health minister, Rafael Orihuela, told a local TV station, commenting on the widespread reports of 17 deaths in the South American nation of 29 million people.

Venezuela registers at least 3 deaths from swine flu

Agencia EFEMay 26, 2013 15:02

Caracas, May 26 (EFE).- At least 160 cases and three deaths have been registered in Venezuela from swine flu, officials said. "We have officially registered 11 cases and sadly have two people dead from this disease here in Aragua state as of now," Aragua Gov. Tareck El Aissami said. "We are taking all the epidemiological measures," the governor said. One death has occurred in Lara state, where 16 people have tested positive for AH1N1 out of 65 suspected cases, Lara Government Secretary Teodoro Campos said.

Badminton becomes a victim of China's bird flu outbreak

Agencia EFEMay 19, 2013 16:45

Beijing, May 19 (EFE).- Badminton, which is very popular in China, has become an indirect victim of the bird flu epidemic that has been affecting the country over the past several months, given that the extensive slaughtering of infected ducks has created a shortage of feathers, an essential raw material for the birdies used in the sport, media reports said Sunday.

Russia has 'no anti-AIDS strategy'

Agence France-PresseMay 16, 2013 12:01

There is no government strategy to fight the spread of AIDS in Russia, where the number of deaths caused by the disease continues to grow, a senior healthcare official said on Thursday. "We have no national strategy to fight against AIDS," the director of the Russian Federal Agency against AIDS, Vadim Pokrovsky, told a news conference. The rate of new HIV infections grew 12 percent in 2012 -- 69,849 new cases against 62,384 new cases in 2011, according to the government figures.

One in 10 South Africans HIV positive

Agence France-PresseMay 14, 2013 11:30

One in ten South Africans is HIV positive but AIDS-related deaths are falling as ramped-up treatment begins to have an impact, the country's official statistics agency said Tuesday. After years of dragging its heels on the HIV/AIDS crisis, since 2004 South Africa has developed the world's largest HIV treatment programme. New data indicate that drive is working. The disease will be responsible for 32 percent of all deaths this year. While still high, that is a dramatic fall from 48 percent in 2005.

Second case of deadly SARS-like virus in France

Agence France-PresseMay 13, 2013 16:39

French health authorities said early Sunday that a second person had contracted a deadly new SARS-like virus, after sharing a hospital ward with the first victim identified in the country. The virus, known as nCoV-EMC, is a cousin of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which triggered a scare 10 years ago when it erupted in east Asia, leaping to humans from animal hosts and killing some 800 people.

France fears more cases of deadly SARS-like virus

Agence France-PresseMay 13, 2013 16:34

French health authorities said on Thursday they feared the country's first case of a new SARS-like virus that has killed 18 people, mostly in Saudi Arabia, may have infected two other people. The 65-year-old man who returned to France from a holiday in Dubai was diagnosed with the deadly novel coronavirus, and is in intensive care in a hospital in the northern city of Douai, the health ministry said on Wednesday. "This is the first and only confirmed case in France to date," it added.

WHO says Cambodia can end HIV infections by 2020

Agence France-PresseMay 11, 2013 18:19

Cambodia is on track to become one of the few countries in the world to successfully reverse its HIV epidemic and may eliminate new infections by 2020, the World Health Organization said Friday. The Southeast Asian nation has reduced its HIV prevalence rate from a 1998 peak of 1.7 percent among people aged 15-49 to 0.7 percent in 2012 across the whole population, the WHO said in a joint statement with the Cambodian health ministry.