Deadly brain eating amoeba kills 10 in Pakistan

A brain-eating amoeba has killed at least 10 people in Karachi, Pakistan since May, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.

Naegleria fowleri has a fatality rate of more than 98 percent. It is transmitted when contaminated water enters the body through the nose and cannot be passed person-to-person.

The 10 confirmed cases have all occurred in the southern port city of Karachi, said Dr Musa Khan, head of the WHO's Disease Early Warning System in Pakistan.

It is unclear if all cases have been reported as residents may not be familiar with the disease and Pakistan's hospitals are severely overstretched.

The amoeba travels from the nasal membranes to the brain. Symptoms are initially very mild, including a headache, stiff neck, fever and stomach pain. Death usually occurs five to seven days after infection.

Read details: Business Recorder

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New SARS-like virus found, says WHO

A new virus belonging to the same family as the SARS virus that killed 800 people in 2002 has been identified in Britain in a man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.

The United Nations health body, which issued a statement through its "global alert and response" system, said tests on the patient, a 49-year-old Qatari man, confirmed the presence of a new, or novel, coronavirus.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses which includes the common cold and SARS.

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"Given that this is a novel coronavirus, WHO is currently in the process of obtaining further information to determine the public health implications," the statement said.

Read more: GMA News

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WHO issues Measles Warning to Europe

[ BBC Health ] 2 Dec

WHO cautions European countries against spread of measles and has asked them to act now to tackle measles outbreaks.

The WHO report says there were over 26,000 measles cases in 36 European countries from January to October 2011. Already, Western European countries reported 83% of those cases, with 14,000 in France alone.

In England and Wales, there were just under 1,000 confirmed measles cases in that period - compared with just 374 in the whole of 2010.

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