Japan health officials confirm bird flu outbreak at a poultry farm in the western prefecture of Okayama, Japan. Tests showed the presence of H5 subtype influenza among chickens.
A team of medical ethics and public health experts say tough isolation measures, involuntary if need be, are justified to contain a deadly, contagious, drug-resistant strain of TB in South Africa and to prevent “a potentially explosive international health crisis.”
In a major public health victory, children?s measles deaths have fallen by 60 per cent since 1999, exceeding the goals of the United Nations, thanks to a new four-part strategy aimed at preventing the spread of the highly contagious disease, UN agencies and their partners have announced.
Japanese officials confirmed that bird flu caused the deaths of more than two-thousand chickens at a farm 900 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. The officials have not determined whether this particular strain of bird flu is the feared H5N1 or another less deadly form.
Local public health officials have confirmed a case of measles in an adult Snohomish County resident who acquired the disease in Asia. Also known as rubeola, measles is a potentially severe disease caused by the measles virus.
Cornell researchers studied a virus related to the avian influenza virus to see whether a hypothetical mutated form of H5N1 could infect people through drinking and wastewater systems.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore will begin a clinical trial in January to test the first cell culture-based pandemic influenza vaccine to see if it will provide immunity faster and more reliably than a vaccine produced in eggs. The new study is also the first test in the United States of a whole virus vaccine for avian influenza, which could produce a stronger response by the immune system.
Marion County Health Department confirms norovirus highly contagious virus for an outbreak of illness among nearly 400 customers of an Olive Garden restaurant outside Indianapolis. Tests on three employees and one customer were positive for norovirus.
With six out of 10 Pittsburgh-area elementary school students testing positive for strep throat in previous studies and another strep season approaching, Children?s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC wants families to take steps to avoid the painful and potentially dangerous infection.
Last week, in one of TV ad Actor Michael J. Fox appeared with his disturbingly uncontrolled movements. And, his opponents in the stem-cell debate accused him of either acting or purposefully not taking his medications, in an effort to gain sympathy, quoted by news agencies worldwide. Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Parkinson’s experts. In fact, Fox’s disordered movement — a condition called dyskinesia — was mainly due to his taking medication to help control his Parkinson’s, they said.