Saudi Arabia reported another MERS case today, raising the count for the first 3 days of March to a dozen, 11 of which occurred in Riyadh.
Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) is not associated with an increased risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection (STI) among teen girls, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The number of disease outbreaks linked to the drinking of unpasteurized milk has risen at an alarming rate, quadrupling from the period 1993-2006 to 2007-12, as more states allow the legal sale of raw milk, according to a study today in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The toll in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) Ebola outbreak reached 62 cases and 35 deaths as of Sep 9, including 7 fatal cases in healthcare workers, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday.
The new numbers compare with 53 cases and 31 deaths reported on Sep 2. The outbreak involves a different Ebola virus species from the one circulating in West Africa and is a separate event.
China has confirmed a fatal H7N9 avian flu case in a 66-year-old woman, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said today.
The woman is from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the country's far northwest. The only other reported H7N9 case in the region, in a 53-year-old man, was confirmed last week. All other mainland H7N9 cases have been in eastern provinces, hundreds of miles away.
In 2013, just 57% of girls and 35% of boys had received 1 of 3 doses of HPV vaccine.
Although some studies have suggested that the quadrivalent (four-strain) human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine may raise the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE), which is a blood clot that lodges in a vein, a Danish study released today in JAMA of more than 500,000 girls and women who received the vaccine did not find an increased VTE incidence.
The overall epidemiologic status of Guinea's Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak is improving, with 4 of the 6 locations that have reported cases passing the 21-day incubation period with no new cases, according to an update from the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa. Two incubation periods need to pass before the outbreak can be declared over in a particular location.
Tongan health officials have confirmed a first-ever chikungunya outbreak affecting more than 10,000 people, according to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) report today. The Polynesian archipelago nation is home to about 100,000 people.
Editor's Note: The H5N1 item was corrected on Apr 1 to accurately reflect the date of Laos's previous H5N1 outbreak.
H5N1 avian flu has returned to Laotian poultry after a hiatus of almost 4 years, striking a village flock of more than 5,000 birds, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reported today.