Tag: Worl Health Organization

Hepatitis outstrips AIDS, TB as killer: report

PARIS, France (AFP) — Virus-caused hepatitis has become a leading cause of death and disability in the world, killing more people in a year than AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, a report said Thursday. Deaths from infection, liver disease and cancer caused by viral hepatitis increased by 63 percent from 890,000 in 1990 to 1.45 million in 2013, according to a review of data collected in 183 countries. By comparison, in 2013 there were 1.3 million […]

Olympics: WHO committee says low risk of Zika spread

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — There is a “very low risk” of the Zika virus spreading further internationally as a result of the Olympic Games in Brazil, the World Health Organization’s emergency committee on the disease said Tuesday. The statement came as worry mounted that the mosquito-borne virus, which has spread across much of Latin America and which can lead to severe birth defects in babies, might spread further when the Olympics begin in August. “The […]