The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency that requires an extraordinary response to stop its spread.

The deadliest recorded Ebola outbreak surpassed 700 deaths across West Africa as the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced dozens of new deaths reported in the last several days.

No one knows just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, and then arrived in Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man.

US government workers cleaning out an old storage room at a research centre near Washington have made a startling discovery — decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box.

The spread of polio to countries previously considered free of the crippling disease represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organisation has said.

The world is unprepared for a flu pandemic, health officials said at a conference in Malaysia, citing a lack of political commitment, funding and a vaccine to protect humans against bird flu.

Public health experts have warned that an H5N1 vaccine deal Indonesia has struck with a pharmaceutical company may jeopardise the world’s access to a pandemic vaccine, if the country becomes the epicentre of a global outbreak.

Parents lined up across Indonesia early today to take part in a polio vaccination drive that will target 24 million children, as health officials worried the crippling disease could spread to other Southeast Asian countries.

Africa is on the brink of the biggest polio epidemic in recent years, with the crippling disease re-emerging in Sudan’s conflict-ravaged Darfur region, the World Health Organisation said today.

THE World Health Organisation removed Toronto from its list of SARS-infected areas yesterday, saying Canada’s largest city had contained the virus.

THE World Health Organisation said yesterday the world should be free of the deadly SARS virus within the next two to three weeks, but warned the disease could emerge in China again next winter.

THE World Health Organisation removed Hong Kong from its list of SARS-infected areas yesterday, but warned the territory to keep up its guard against future outbreaks that might put it back on the list.

THE SARS threat could be over within months, but countries must remain vigilant to prevent the disease from resurfacing and combat other possible future epidemics, World Health Organisation officials said yesterday.

THE World Health Organisation said yesterday the global SARS outbreak may be nearing an end, and hard-hit Hong Kong reported no new infections or deaths for the first day since March.

The World Health Organisation removed Singapore from its map of SARS hot zones while researchers in the US said they may be able to develop a vaccine for the disease in three years.

UN HEALTH chiefs yesterday said the worst of the SARS outbreak appeared to be over in Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada, while Vietnam has become the first country to contain the highly infectious disease.

The worst of the Sars outbreak appears to be over in Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada, but the deadly virus is still spreading in China, the UN’s World Health Organisation warned today.

BEIJING and Toronto were declared pariah cities by the World Health Organisation yesterday which urged travellers to stay away.

Travellers should avoid Toronto, Beijing and China’s Shanxi province because of Sars, the World Health Organisation said today.

Thousands of volunteers in Hong Kong today began a massive cleaning campaign aimed at slowing the spread of SARS.

CHINA, accused by the World Health Organisation of dramatically under-reporting SARS cases in Beijing, dug in its heels yesterday, refusing to revise its toll and insisting it is dealing responsibly with the outbreak.

Asia reported eight deaths from Sars today as scientists in Europe confirmed the identity of the virus that causes the deadly disease and more questions were raised about its spread in China where it started.

After looking at secretive military hospitals in Beijing, the World Health Organisation today said its investigators will visit new parts of China amid a surge in cases of the deadly Sars virus in an inland province.

A MYSTERY respiratory virus which has claimed more than 90 lives may be carried by people without symptoms, making it impossible to contain.

The United Nations health agency today advised travellers to avoid visiting Hong Kong and the Chinese province of Guangdong because of a deadly outbreak of a mystery disease.