Brazil must close ranks if it is to win the war against the pest that carries Zika, writes Liz Braga

The cases of babies born with unusually small heads continue to rise in Brazil where researchers said they had found evidence linking the increase to the mosquito-born Zika virus spreading through the Americas.

The world’s oldest person, a Japanese woman, died yesterday, a few weeks after celebrating her 117th birthday.

Médecins Sans Frontières says its warnings that the ebola epidemic was spiralling out of control and that it could not respond were dismissed as alarmist, writes Misha Hussain

I’ve lived in a tent in South Sudan for a year and spent hours at checkpoints in Iraq, but nothing prepared me for what ebola is doing in western Africa, writes Save the Children worker Sarah Murphy

Your spoiler free guide to tonight's telly.

An outbreak of Ebola has claimed almost 400 lives in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone this year, but isolating the sick and good hygiene can stop it dead, writes Alistair Short.

Records released by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) outline the various strands of investigation into the possible sources of horsemeat contamination, which has so far not led to any prosecutions.

A mentally ill Chinese man has been kept in a cage for more than a decade by his family after he beat a child to death, media reported, carrying images of him staring blankly though the bars.

Cork-based firm Lincor Solutions was among the companies to win new business on the Enterprise Ireland trade mission to Canada led by Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton.

Japan's health ministry is launching an investigation after it was estimated 14,000 people in the country die every year in the bath.

Ukraine’s Euro 2012 tournament director Markiyan Lubkivskyi today downplayed fears over a measles outbreak in the country.

Al-Qaida-linked militants have threatened more terror attacks that will “increase day by day” after a suicide bomber killed 72 people in Somalia.

QUICKLY greying Japan said it has a record 47,756 people aged 100 or older — most of them women.

China’s Red Cross made an urgent nationwide appeal for blood donors today after a sudden shortage halted some surgical operations.

Health workers said the number of people confirmed dead from cholera in Haiti is almost 200 with more than 2,300 sick.

A navy warship arrived in a remote corner of eastern Indonesia carrying tents and medical supplies today after flash floods and mudslides tore through mountainside villages, killing at least 68 people and leaving thousands homeless.

HEAVY rain unleashed flash floods and mudslides, killing 29 people in a remote corner of Indonesia which rescuers were still struggling to reach days after the storms began.

Wide-eyed and alert, three-month-old Haitian earthquake survivor Landina Seignon today appeared unaware of the interest her plight has attracted.

Landina Seignon has been through more than most three-month-old infants.

Belgium’s Ministry of Health has today confirmed the country’s first case of swine flu.

Japan’s industrial production plunged at a record pace in January, the government said today, as collapsing overseas demand forced manufacturers to keep slashing output and jobs. Household spending and retail sales also fell.

A line of Afghan schoolchildren walked past a military checkpoint as a bomb-loaded truck exploded, killing 14 youngsters in a heartbreaking scene captured by a US military security camera.

Vietnam may ban small-chested drivers from its roads – a proposal that has caused outraged in the nation of slightly-built people.

TAINTED milk formula has killed one baby and caused the development of kidney stones in dozens of others who may have drunk the same product, Chinese authorities said yesterday, in a grim reminder of a milk-powder scandal that killed 13 infants four years ago.

A passenger jet carrying 90 people, including a high school basketball team, crashed shortly after take-off near the Kyrgyz capital in Central Asia, killing at least 65.

A passenger jet carrying 90 people, including a Kyrgyz high school basketball team, crashed shortly after takeoff today near the Kyrgyz capital, killing at least 65, government officials said.

Thousands of Chinese earthquake victims fled areas near the epicentre today, fearful of potential flooding from a lake where water levels were reported to be rising dangerously.

The death toll from a viral illness that is infecting children around China has risen to 34, state media said today, as the number of reported infections jumped to nearly 25,000.

THE body of a British teenager raped and murdered on a beach in India was returned to Britain without some internal organs, it was confirmed yesterday.

Egyptian health officials today reported the deaths of two women from bird flu, bringing to 19 the number of fatalities since the lethal H5N1 strain first appeared in the country last year.

A 25-year Egyptian woman has died of bird flu after apparently contracting the disease from poultry, the Health Ministry said today.

A collapsing wall killed four children in northern Zambia during a stampede to collect free mosquito nets, local media reported today.

Sectarian violence continued to claim the lives of a large number of Iraqi civilians in Sunni Arab and Shiite neighbourhoods of Iraq’s capital, despite the coalition’s new Baghdad security plan, the UN said today.

Iraq has reported that about 12,000 civilians were killed last year – the third full year since the US-led invasion – with a dramatic rise in the last three months, when 5,000 died.

Singapore will hold a two-day exercise this week to test the city-state’s readiness for a flu pandemic.

An unidentified virus has killed five people in Namibia and infected another 17 who are in critical condition, the government of the south-west African country said today.

Gunmen kidnapped 10 people in two villages in northern Iraq today, but US and Iraqi forces rescued seven of them in a gun battle, police said.

Vietnam’s prime minister ordered all local governments and ministries to heighten vigilance against bird flu out of fear that some provinces have dropped their guard in the fight against the disease, state-controlled media reported today.

China reported its 10th human bird flu death today – a nine-year-old girl in the country’s south east.

Slovenia today said that Italian lab tests confirmed a swan found dead last week in northern Slovenia carried the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu – the country’s first case.

A woman in southwestern China has died from bird flu, bringing the country’s human death toll from the disease to seven, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.

Belgian officials said today they were investigating a possible human case of bird flu at a Brussels hospital.