A micrographic study of liver tissue seen from a Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) patient seen in this undated photo obtained by Reuters, July 6, 2017. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Handout via REUTERS Five people have been stricken with the ra... More »
Democratic Republic of Congo declared its two-month Ebola outbreak officially over on Saturday after 42 days without recording a new case of the disease. More »
FILE PHOTO: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen inside Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, on February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo Studies using gene sequencing equipment to trace the path of Zika through the Americas show the virus arrived a y... More »
Pope Francis leads the Wednesday General Audience in Saint Peter’s square at the Vatican, May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Max Rossi Pope Francis praised scientists working on treatments for genetic diseases on Thursday but condemned any use of human embryos in medical r... More »
FILE PHOTO: A health worker sprays a colleague with disinfectant during a training session for Congolese health workers to deal with Ebola virus in Kinshasa October 21, 2014. REUTERS/Media Coulibaly The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Sunday a sec... More »
Health experts have identified two more suspected cases of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo, a day after the government declared an outbreak of the disease that has killed one man, the U.N. health agency said on Saturday. More »
At least one person has died from the Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, signaling a new outbreak of the disease which killed thousands in West Africa. More »
FILE PHOTO: Protesters demonstrate against U.S. President Donald Trump and his plans to end Obamacare outside the White House in Washington, U.S., March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo The Trump administration will continue to pay subsidies for low... More »
China reported 47 human fatalities from H7N9 bird flu in March, the national health authority said on Wednesday, compared with 61 deaths in February. More »
FILE PHOTO — Shopping carts are seen outside a new Wal-Mart Express store in Chicago July 26, 2011. REUTERS/John Gress/File Photo A Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) supplier has recalled frozen pizzas available in 11 U.S. states due to concerns about possible liste... More »
Malaysia has reported an outbreak of a highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus in the northern part of the country, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday, citing a report from the Malaysian agriculture ministry. More »
A quarantine researcher checks on a chicken at a poultry farm in Xiangyang, Hubei province, China, February 3, 2017. Picture taken February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer Bird flu infection rates on Chinese poultry farms may be far higher than previously thought, b... More »
Marathon Pharmaceuticals LLC said on Monday it was “pausing” the launch of its Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug after U.S. lawmakers questioned why the company priced it at $89,000 a year when patients had been able to import it for as little as $1,000. More »
Germany has culled 776,000 farm chickens, turkeys, ducks and other types of poultry since November to combat bird flu, its agriculture ministry said on Monday. More »
Hundreds of domestic cats have been quarantined in New York City after contracting a strain of highly contagious avian flu at shelters operated by a major animal rescue organization, and the virus also infected at least one veterinarian, officials said. More »
Local authorities in France confirmed on Monday an outbreak of severe bird flu in the Deux-Sevres administrative department in the west of the country, an area previously unaffected by a recent spate of bird flu cases. More »
Chickens are seen at a poultry farm on the outskirt of Hefei, Anhui province, China November 20, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo Wuxi city in China’s eastern Jiangsu province will suspend poultry trading starting from Dec. 29 amid avian flu concerns, the cit... More »
Packaged foods maker TreeHouse Foods Inc on Sunday recalled certain macaroni and cheese cup products containing cheddar cheese seasoning, saying they may be contaminated with salmonella. More »
A Novartis logo is pictured on its headquarters building in Mumbai April 1, 2013. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash/File Photo An experimental cancer therapy being developed by Novartis AG eliminated an aggressive form of blood cancer in 82 percent of children and young a... More »
A woman stands near a poster explaining about the Zika virus at the Ministry of Health office in Jakarta, Indonesia September 2, 2016. REUTERS/Iqro Rinaldi/File Photo The World Health Organization on Friday declared that Zika no longer constitutes an internati... More »
Worker fumigates along a street in Yangon, Myanmar November 18, 2016. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun Myanmar is largely unprepared for an outbreak of Zika, experts say, with the health ministry slashing anti-virus measures due to lack of funds, overworked doctors skippi... More »
Scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine have used the CRISPR gene editing tool to repair the gene that causes sickle cell disease in stem cells from diseased patients, paving the way for a potential cure for the disease, which affects up to 5 mill... More »
A nurse takes the temperature of a patient showing chikungunya-like fever symptoms at a health centre in Villa San Francisco on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera By Magdalena MisLONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – “Lazy mosq... More »
Patients going for surgery should bathe or shower beforehand but their surgical site should not be shaved, and antibiotics should be used to prevent infections before and during surgery, but not afterwards, the World Health Organization said on Thursday. More »
Scientists launched a global initiative on Friday to map out and describe every cell in the human body in a vast atlas that could transform researchers’ understanding of human development and disease. More »
J. Fraser Stoddart, one of the winners of 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, raises his glass for a toast at Northwestern University in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, U.S., October 5, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young A trio of European scientists has won the 20... More »
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen at the Laboratory of Entomology and Ecology of the Dengue Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 6, 2016. REUTERS/Alvin Baez/File Photo State officials in Florida on Frida... More »
Shadows of journalists are reflected on a wall next to WHO’s logo at a news conference in Beijing, China, March 29, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon By Nita BhallaNEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Eleven countries in South and East Asia on Friday agreed to ... More »
Scrub typhus, a deadly disease common in southeast Asia and spread by microscopic biting mites known as chiggers, has now taken hold in a part of South America and may have become endemic there, scientists said on Wednesday. More »
Swiss drugmaker Roche’s logo is seen at their headquarters in Basel, Switzerland January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann Swiss drugmaker Roche (ROG.S) said on Monday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) fo... More »
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen inside Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo Federal health officials on Friday warned pregnant women not to travel to trendy Miami Beach after Florida confirmed that the mo... More »
An edes aegypti mosquito is seen inside a test tube as part of a research on preventing the spread of the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases at a control and prevention center in Guadalupe, neighbouring Monterrey, Mexico, March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Danie... More »
Togolese authorities said on Saturday they had slaughtered 11,500 chickens in response to an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu at two farms in the capital Lome and the town of Adetikope, about 25 km north of Lome. More »
Artist Shaun Crawford draws illustrations of mosquitos for an educational brochure about Zika, in New York, New York U.S. August 18, 2016. REUTERS/Robert Mezan A picture is worth a thousand words – or at least that is the philosophy behind a New York clinic th... More »
MIAMI U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton urged federal lawmakers currently on summer recess back into session to pass a crucial funding bill to combat the Zika virus as she visited a health clinic at the heart of a local outbreak in Miami o... More »
CHICAGO The state of Florida, the first to report the arrival of Zika in the continental United States, has yet to invite a dedicated team of the federal government’s disease hunters to assist with the investigation on the ground, health officials told Reuters... More »
ORLANDO, Fla./MIAMI Florida authorities on Friday reported the first sign of local Zika transmission in the continental United States, concluding that mosquitoes likely infected four people with the virus that can cause a rare but serious birth defect. Governo... More »
CHICAGO As U.S. public health officials try to determine whether Zika has arrived in the country, doctors are establishing guidelines on how to care for the rising number of babies whose mothers were infected with the virus during pregnancy. Florida said it is... More »
MELBOURNE World number one Jason Day has hit back at critics of the golfers who have elected to skip the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Golf’s return to the Olympics for the first time since 1904 has been soured by the withdrawals of a number of top men’s players, m... More »
WASHINGTON The White House announced on Wednesday measures aimed at advancing President Barack Obama’s precision medicine initiative, including plans to speed the development of tests used to identify genetic mutations and guide medical treatment. The U.S. Foo... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil’s Health Minister Ricardo Barros said on Friday there is no scientific basis for postponing the Olympics because of the Zika virus, explaining that lower temperatures and fewer mosquitoes reduced the chance of infection in August when the... More »
GENEVA/NEW YORK With debate growing over the safety of holding the Olympics in Brazil amid the ongoing Zika virus outbreak, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee on Zika will meet in the coming weeks to evaluate the risks tied to going on with th... More »
NEW DELHI India’s biggest cigarette maker ITC Ltd said it would resume production at its factories “consequent upon” a favorable court order, two weeks after it decided to shutter its plants over the government’s stringent new packaging rules. India ordered th... More »
MONROVIA A five-year-old boy tested positive for Ebola in Liberia just days after his mother died of the virus in the second flare-up to hit West Africa in recent weeks, the health ministry said on Sunday. A 30-year-old woman died of Ebola in Monrovia last wee... More »
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N), which is trying to recover from a series of food-borne illness outbreaks, temporarily shut a Massachusetts restaurant after four employees fell sick. The restaurant in the town of Billerica, outside Boston, was closed for a ... More »
LONDON A Scottish nurse, who recovered from Ebola but then suffered life-threatening complications from the virus persisting in her brain, was discharged from hospital in London on Sunday. The Royal Free Hospital said in a statement that Pauline Cafferkey was ... More »
The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago: 1947 – Scientists researching yellow fever in Uganda’s Zika Forest identify the virus in a rhesus monkey 1948 – Virus recovered from Aedes africanus m... More »
Global health officials are racing to better understand the Zika virus behind a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year and has since spread to many countries in the Americas. The following are some questions and answers about the virus and current outbr... More »
LONDON Scientists in Britain have found how drug-resistant bacteria build and maintain a defensive wall — a discovery that paves the way for the development of new drugs to break through the barrier and kill the often deadly “superbugs”. In recent decades, bac... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO The worst health scare in recent history is not keeping Brazilians from their annual Carnival revelry, with millions of partiers swarming streets and some making fun of the mosquito that spreads Zika and other viruses. Street processions, block ... More »
PARIS Travelers coming back from any outbreak zones of the Zika virus will need to wait at least 28 days before giving blood to avoid any risk of transmission, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Sunday. Zika, which is rapidly spreading through the... More »
MANCHESTER, N.H. Two Republican U.S. presidential hopefuls said on Saturday they would implement quarantines of travelers if necessary to stop the spread of the Zika virus. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who garnered international attention in 2014 when h... More »
PERTH – Australia will intensify testing for the Zika virus in Queensland state where Aedes mosquitoes are found, authorities said on Saturday, adding that two new cases among local residents were the result of travel to affected countries. Queensland’s govern... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO One major hurdle is thwarting efforts to measure the extent of the Zika epidemic and its suspected links to thousands of birth defects in Brazil: accurate diagnosis of a virus that still confounds blood tests. Genetic tests and clinical symptoms... More »
Companies and scientists are racing to create a Zika vaccine as concern grows over the mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to severe birth defects and is spreading quickly through the Americas. Zika is now present in 23 countries and territories in the A... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO Olympic and tourism officials in Brazil downplayed risks for foreign visitors from the mosquito-borne Zika virus on Monday, even as the health ministry warned pregnant women to consult doctors before visiting the country amid a widening scare. A... More »
FREETOWN More than 100 people have been quarantined in Sierra Leone after coming in contact with a woman who died of Ebola last week, highlighting the potential for the disease to spread, just as the deadliest outbreak on record appeared to be over. The World ... More »
WASHINGTON Scientists aiming to take the bite out of malaria have produced a strain of mosquitoes carrying genes that block its transmission, with the idea that they could breed with other members of their species in the wild and produce offspring that cannot ... More »
LONDON, The World Health Organization’s failure to sound the alarm until months into West Africa’s Ebola outbreak was an “egregious failure” which added to the enormous suffering and death toll, global health experts said on Monday. A specialist panel convened... More »
CHICAGO Standing at the meat counter at a Mariano’s grocery store in Chicago, a half-dozen customers bantered with the butchers about the recent World Health Organization report linking processed meat to colorectal cancer. “Give me two pounds of bacon,” said R... More »
LONDON, Anyone who goes down with flu in Europe this winter could be asked to enroll in a randomized clinical trial in which they will either be given a drug, which may or may not work, or standard advice to take bed rest and paracetamol. Those who agree could... More »
(This version of the story corrects number of troops in paragraph 1 to 1,000 from 10,000- headline altered to reflect change) PADAMARAN, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesia said on Friday it will send more than 1,000 troops to fight fires in southern Sumatra, as s... More »
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline temporarily closed a North Carolina factory on Tuesday after testing at a cooling tower found bacteria that causes deadly Legionnaire’s disease. The Legionella bacteria were discovered during routine inspections at the site in Zebulon... More »
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline closed its North Carolina factory on Tuesday after testing at a cooling tower found bacteria that causes deadly Legionnaire’s disease, a company spokeswoman said. The Legionella bacteria was discovered during routine inspections at th... More »
LONDON/GENEVA The world is on the verge of being able to protect humans against Ebola, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as a trial in Guinea found a vaccine to have been 100 percent effective. Initial results from the trial, which tested Merck... More »
