WHO

WHO says it can’t assess risk of Russia plague death

The World Health Organization said Wednesday, Oct. 7, that it cannot carry out a full risk assessment of a suspected plague death in Siberia because Russia has not given it the whole picture. Washington is also pressing Moscow for details,…

WHO says life expectancy nearly back to pre-Covid level

Global life expectancy has almost returned to where it stood before the Covid-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization said on Friday, October 2, that the number of years people spend in good health is recovering more slowly.

WHO says only licensed Ebola vaccine should not be widely used in DRC outbreak

The World Health Organization has released updated emergency guidance on the use of the Ervebo vaccine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record has now claimed more than 3,000 lives. The guidelines come as…

Mobile phone data tracks Ebola spread in Congo for first time

Health officials fighting the Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have begun using anonymized mobile phone data to map population movements and predict where the virus could appear next — a technique never before deployed in an Ebola…

WHO recommends testing existing Ebola vaccine against Bundibugyo strain in DRC

Moderna has launched the first human clinical trial of an mRNA vaccine targeting Bundibugyo ebolavirus, the strain driving a deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has now killed more than 2,100 people and for which no…

WHO report finds vast gap in breast cancer survival

The World Health Organization published the first-ever global breast cancer survival estimates on July 8, showing that a woman's chance of surviving the disease depends heavily on where she lives and how much her country earns. The data, released alongside…

WHO declares cruise ship hantavirus outbreak over

The World Health Organization on Thursday declared the hantavirus outbreak linked to the cruise ship MV Hondius officially over, closing a two-month episode that infected 13 people, killed three, and triggered a global health alert spanning 33 countries.

WHO opens first clinical trial for Bundibugyo Ebola treatments in DRC

The WHO-sponsored PARTNERS clinical trial opened enrollment on Wednesday for patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marking the first effort to identify effective treatments for Bundibugyo virus disease amid an outbreak that has now killed more than 400 people…

Bundibugyo Ebola tops 1,100 cases as clinical trials near

Scientists trying to develop vaccines and treatments for the fast-growing Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in Central Africa are running into a basic problem: too little is known about the strain, and the response is being shaped by delayed detection, limited diagnostics…

WHO releases first clinical guidelines for all Ebola and Marburg viruses

The World Health Organization on Tuesday released its first comprehensive clinical guidelines covering all major filovirus diseases, including every known species of Ebola and Marburg virus, as a fast-moving outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain in the Democratic Republic of…

DR Congo’s World Cup warm-up moved behind closed doors over Ebola fears

The Democratic Republic of Congo's final World Cup warm-up match against Chile will take place behind closed doors in the French city of Orleans on Tuesday, as the Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC continues to cast a shadow over the…

Three U.S. states monitor residents from hantavirus cruise ship

Health authorities in at least three U.S. states are monitoring residents who traveled aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has killed three passengers and sickened several others during an…