World Health Organisation

20 Feb 2013

Hong Kong is well equipped to face an epidemic after the experience of Sars 10 years ago, when health workers "fought in the dark" for weeks, experts in infectious diseases say. The outbreak of...

The lessons of Sars, 10 years on

20 Feb 2013

Ten years ago, on March 12, I sent an urgent e-mail to the World Health Organisation. I was in charge of Hong Kong's Department of Health at that time. We were screening more than 50 hospital...

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Second case of Sars-like virus in Britain indicates human-to-human infection

14 Feb 2013

The latest case brings the worldwide number of confirmed infections with the new virus - known as the novel coronavirus - to 11, of whom five have died. Most of those had recently travelled in the...

Sars-linked virus may have spread between people

13 Feb 2013

British officials say a mysterious virus related to Sars may have spread between humans, as they confirmed the 11th case worldwide of the new coronavirus in a patient who they say probably caught...

New Sars-like virus infects British patient in 10th case globally

12 Feb 2013

A new virus from the same family as Sars that sparked a global alert in September has been found in another patient in Britain, health officials said on Monday.

Opinion

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WHO's dominant flu strain right for Hong Kong 'only 60pc of time'

The World Health Organisation tries to predict the strain of influenza B that will dominate cases around the world every year - with accuracy of no better than 60 per cent for Hong Kong in recent...

Doing what's best for baby - not milk formula companies

Health experts are unanimous in their verdict: breast milk is the best food to raise a healthy baby.

Transparency clears the sky

Transparency is indispensable to good governance. In China opaque smog is often a symbolic reminder of lack of transparency on matters that are the legitimate concern of ordinary folk. Hazardous...

INDONESIA

Four-year-old dies from bird flu in Indonesia

A four-year-old boy has died of bird flu in Indonesia, the health ministry said on Tuesday, the 10th fatal case in the country this year.

The boy, from Bogor district in western Java, died...

HEALTH

WHO demands urgent smoking controls to curb number of deaths

The World Health Organisation has called for the urgent introduction of tobacco controls on the mainland to curb non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the biggest cause of deaths in China.

HEALTH

Pilot project on mainland helps identify more patients with TB

The World Health Organisation recommends that diabetes patients be screened for TB - because diabetes triples the risk of developing TB - and that TB patients also be screened for diabetes.