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 »
CHICAGO A study of nine pregnant women from the United States who traveled to countries where the Zika virus was circulating shows a greater-than-expected number of fetal infections and brain abnormalities, U.S. health officials said on Friday. Two of the wome... More »
Pregnant women should consider not traveling to the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil due to the risk of Zika virus infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. CDC also said women considering becoming pregnant, and their male part... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO Even as athletes grow increasingly concerned about the outbreak of the Zika virus in Brazil, the organizing committee for the August Olympics in Rio de Janeiro said it will charge national delegations to have mosquito screens on athletes’ rooms.... More »
U.S. health officials are investigating 14 reports of the Zika virus that may been transmitted through sex, including to several pregnant women, raising new questions about the role sexual transmission is playing in the growing outbreak. In two of the suspecte... More »
BRASILIA World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan said on Tuesday Brazil is doing a good job tackling the Zika virus and ensuring that the Olympic games it will host in August will be safe for athletes and visitors. Chan said Brazil’s gov... More »
AUSTIN, Texas Two major Texas health centers have developed what they are calling the country’s first hospital-based, rapid test for the Zika virus that can produce results in a matter of hours, the hospitals said on Tuesday. Researchers at Texas Children’s Ho... 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 »
NEW YORK The United States Olympic Committee told U.S. sports federations that athletes and staff concerned for their health over the Zika virus should consider not going to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in August. The message was delivered in a conference call i... More »
NEW YORK/BRASILIA Experts on microcephaly, the birth defect that has sparked alarm in the current Zika virus outbreak, say they are struck by the severity of a small number of cases they have reviewed from Brazil. Consultations among doctors in Brazil and the ... 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 »
BOGOTA More than 3,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday, as the disease continues its rapid spread across the Americas. Brazil is investigating the potential link between Zi... 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 »
RECIFE, Brazil For scores of women in the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the joy of pregnancy has given way to fear. In the sprawling coastal city of Recife, panic has struck maternity wards since Zika – a mosquito-borne virus first detected in the ... More »
The E. coli outbreak that affected dozens of Chipotle Mexican Grill customers in nine states last year is expected to be declared over as soon as Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the government’s investigation. Investigator... More »
BOGOTA More than 2,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country’s national health institute said on Saturday, as the disease continues its spread across the Americas. The virus has been linked to the devastating bir... More »
Rio de Janeiro Last January, long lines formed outside health clinics in Recife, a city in Brazil’s northeast hit hard in recent years by outbreaks of dengue, a painful tropical disease. Doctors were on guard because federal health officials and the World Heal... 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 »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on Friday with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff about the spread of the Zika virus in the Western Hemisphere, the White House said. “The leaders agreed on the importance of collaborative efforts to deepen our know... More »
Airlines, hotels and cruise operators serving Latin America and the Caribbean are facing growing concern among travelers spooked by the mosquito-borne Zika virus. The outbreak of the virus, linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, comes as a re... More »
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for the rapid development of tests, vaccines and treatments to fight the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects and could spread to the United States in warmer months.... More »
United Airlines will allow customers who hold tickets to regions impacted by the Zika virus to postpone their trips or receive full refunds, a spokesman said on Tuesday. United, the second-largest U.S. airline by capacity, said the offer corresponds to virus-h... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for the rapid development of tests, vaccines and treatments to fight the Zika virus, following a briefing on the spread of the mosquito-transmitted disease, the White House said. The World Health Organiz... More »
WASHINGTON A Virginia resident who traveled outside the United States has tested positive for the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, state health officials said on Tuesday. The adult resident had recently traveled to a country where Zika virus transmission was o... More »
RIO DE JANEIRO As Rio de Janeiro prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors for upcoming Carnival festivities and the Olympic Games in August, the city is scrambling to expel one unwelcome new arrival: the Zika virus. It will be an uphill battle. Zi... 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 »
PARIS France has detected the first cases of low pathogenic H5N3 bird flu and found more cases of highly infectious strains in an outbreak of the disease in the southwest of the country. Three cases of H5N3 bird flu were found at three different farms in the s... More »
DAKAR A one-month-old baby girl who was Guinea’s last reported Ebola case left hospital on Saturday, delighting medical staff and putting the country on course to be declared free of the deadly virus. Guinea will become officially Ebola-free after 42 days if n... 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 »
MONROVIA Liberia has placed 153 people under surveillance as it seeks to control a new Ebola outbreak in the capital more than two months after the country was declared free of the virus, health officials said. Three Ebola cases emerged in Liberia on Friday. T... 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 »
GENEVA The world should stop vaccinating children against one of the three strains of the crippling polio virus as part of a drive to eradicate the disease once and for all, a group of health experts has advised the World Health Organization. There is no cure ... More »
(Reuters Health) – Although women make up roughly half of the world’s HIV cases, they remain largely excluded from clinical trials testing drugs, vaccines and potential cures for the virus, a research review confirms. In an analysis spanning several decades th... More »
UNITED NATIONS Liberia needs two years to regain its economic footing after it was battered by the Ebola epidemic, as it moves to boost access to electricity and infrastructure and diversify the economy, Liberia’s president said in an interview on Saturday. Li... More »
LOS ANGELES A brain-to-computer technology that can translate thoughts into leg movements has enabled a man paralyzed from the waist down by a spinal cord injury to become the first such patient to walk without the use of robotics, doctors in Southern Californ... 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 »
(Reuters Health) – A pill meant to prevent HIV infections in high-risk individuals appears to be working, according to two new studies. In one study, conducted in the San Francisco area, there were no new HIV infections among 657 people who took the daily pill... More »
FREETOWN Sierra Leone released its last confirmed Ebola patient from hospital on Monday and began a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the virus, medical sources said. The world’s worst known Ebola epidemic has raged in West Africa for more than 18 mon... 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 »
UNITED NATIONS Some $3.4 billion in pledges were made at the United Nations on Friday to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea stamp out Ebola and begin rebuilding health systems and economies devastated by the worst outbreak on record of the deadly hemorrhagi... More »
DAKAR Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone need a further $696 million in donor funding to rebuild their battered health services over the next two years in the wake of the deadly Ebola epidemic, senior World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Monday. WHO... More »
