World Health Organization

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WHO: Doctors Not Always No. 1 When It Comes to Care

Midwives, nurse practitioners can be as good, better

(Newser) - Not only do midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants do as good a job as doctors, they sometimes do better—and patients would agree, according to a World Health Organization bulletin. NBC News gives an example: When it comes to delivering babies, midwives use less drugs and perform fewer episiotomies...

Syria's New Woes: Polio, Flesh-Eating Parasites

Vaccination program breaks down

(Newser) - Syria's clerics last week gave the starving people of Damascus the OK to eat dog , and the bad news has not ended there. The World Health Organization now suspects polio has returned to the country. If verified, these would be the first recorded cases there since 1999. And it'...

40% of Bird Flu Victims Didn't Touch Birds: Report

Finding raises fears that it's passing human-to-human

(Newser) - H7N9 is growing no less mysterious: Roughly 40% of those infected in China's bird flu outbreak have never actually come in contact with poultry, according to a leading Chinese scientist, and the World Health Organization yesterday backed up that claim. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl acknowledged "there are people...

Bird Flu Spreads to Beijing
 Bird Flu Spreads to Beijing 
Apr 14, 2013 6:31 AM CDT

Bird Flu Spreads to Beijing

It was expected to, says WHO chief; still no human-to-human transmissions

(Newser) - Beijing has reported its first case of the H7N9 bird flu , as two new cases in a neighboring province were confirmed today, marking the official spread of the virus from the country's east. But the development was anticipated, says the head of the WHO office in Beijing. "We'...

Why This New Bird Flu Is So Scary

...and why it's not

(Newser) - Twenty-four people have now been infected with a new strain of bird flu in China, with seven dead, Reuters reports. The US is gearing up against the disease, with the CDC readying a diagnostic kit for states as well as China, the Wall Street Journal reports. So, how worried should...

New SARS-Like Virus Can Spread Person-to-Person

But doctors say coronavirus not dangerously infectious

(Newser) - Evidence is mounting that a new SARS-like virus identified in September may be capable of spreading in a person-to-person fashion, reports Reuters . The novel coronavirus, or NCoV, has now infected 11 people worldwide, killing five of them. Ten of those people had traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or Pakistan,...

'Incurable' Gonorrhea Hits North America

9 cases of drug-resistant STD reported in Canada

(Newser) - There's a new reason to stock up on condoms. An "incurable" (or at least, antibiotic-resistant) strain of gonorrhea has made its way across the pond to North America, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. At least nine Canadian patients have failed...

War on TB Has Backfired: Experts

WHO slow to tackle drug-resistant TB

(Newser) - For years, the World Health Organization has pushed countries to battle tuberculosis by treating those patients who could be most easily cured. The strategy has a major flaw: It's allowed drug-resistant forms of the disease to flourish, experts say. Now the WHO is reworking its strategy—but much damage...

New SARS-like Virus Does Not Spread Easily: WHO

One person has been killed so far, another critically ill

(Newser) - Good news from the World Health Organization, which is still investigating a new SARS-like virus : It's not easily transmitted from one person to another. Scientists think the virus, which has killed one person and left another critically ill, developed from animals. No new cases have been reported since a...

WHO Finds New Virus Similar to SARS

But don't freak out yet, expert says

(Newser) - Time to panic? The World Health Organization says it has identified a new SARS-like virus, but an expert says there's no reason yet to worry. The new coronavirus—a family of viruses that includes both SARS and the common cold—was identified in a 49-year-old Qatari man who had...

One Human Organ Sold Illegally Every Single Hour
One Human Organ Sold
Illegally Every Single Hour
WHO estimate
May 28, 2012 6:03 AM CDT

One Human Organ Sold Illegally Every Single Hour

Big money, growing demand fuel black market for kidneys and more

(Newser) - The illegal organ trade around the world is booming, with almost 11,000 organs bought on the black market in 2010, according to a World Health Organization estimate. That works out to more than one per hour, calculates the Guardian ; it takes a specific look at kidneys, which make up...

Vietnam Seeks Help With Deadly Mystery Illness

Asks WHO, CDC to investigate

(Newser) - Vietnam has asked international health experts to help investigate a mystery illness that has killed 19 people and sickened 171 others in an impoverished district in the central part of the country, an official said today. The infection has mostly affected children and young people. It begins with a high...

WHO: Prepare for 'End of Medicine as We Know It'

Antibiotic-resistant microbes pose increasing threat, says director

(Newser) - More and more microbes are evolving to resist antibiotics—and that means that all we thought we knew about medicine may soon change, says the head of the World Health Organization. "A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common...

Bird Flu Studies to Go Public Over Bioterror Fears

US warns of risk, but scientists say flu is bigger danger

(Newser) - Two months after leading science journals decided to self-censor articles about experiments to alter the bird flu virus and make it more dangerous, the WHO is recommending the journals publish the research after all, reports the New York Times . Well, publish it some time. The moratorium is in place for...

Malaria Kills Twice as Many as We Thought: Study

Health officials have been undercounting adult victims, researchers argue

(Newser) - Health officials have been vastly underestimating the number of people who die of malaria every year, because they've largely ignored its adult victims, according to a new report published in the Lancet . The actual death toll for 2010, according to its estimate, was 1.24 million, nearly twice the...

Almost Half of Abortions Are 'Unsafe': WHO

Globally, 49% are performed without clinical help

(Newser) - The number of women having unsafe abortions outside clinical settings is on the rise, according to a new report from the World Health Organization, published in the Lancet . While the overall global abortion rate has held steady at about 28 per 1,000 women, the percentage performed without trained medical...

Malaria Deaths Plummet 20% Over Decade

Dozens of countries poised to eliminate disease

(Newser) - Countries across the globe are making giant strides against malaria, the World Health Organization says: The number of deaths from the disease has dropped more than 20% over the last 10 years, and a third of the 108 countries where the illness is endemic could be rid of it in...

Relax, Your Cell Phone Won't Kill You

People are overreacting to WHO panel's report: Farhad Manjoo

(Newser) - While much of the techno-savvy world screamed "WTF?" at a WHO panel's announcement that cell phones might have something to do with cancer, Slate 's Farhad Manjoo simply LOL'd. "When you dig into this issue, the decision seems to be an over-cautious interpretation of the...

Deadly E. Coli Outbreak Is New Strain: WHO

Mutant form has never been seen before

(Newser) - The deadly outbreak of E. coli that has killed 18 in Europe so far is a new, never-before-seen strain of the bacteria, the World Health Organization said today. It looks to be a mutant strain formed by two different types of E. coli bacteria, which could be why the outbreak...

Cell Phones May Be 'Carcinogenic': Scientists

WHO cancer agency ranks them in same category as DDT

(Newser) - The evidence linking cell phones and other wireless devices to cancer seems to be getting stronger: An international team of scientists has concluded cell phones are "possibly carcinogenic to humans," reports AFP . After reviewing scores of published studies on the issue, the International Agency for Research on Cancer—...

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