Health authorities went on high alert today following Iraq’s first reported case of the deadly bird flu virus, culling hundreds of thousands of birds and warning farmers across the country to inspect their flocks.

Health authorities went on high alert today following Iraq’s first reported case of the deadly bird flu virus, warning farmers across the country to inspect their domestic and commercial birds.

China reported its second confirmed human death from bird flu as it prepared to test a vaccine on people amid increasingly drastic measures to contain outbreaks of the disease in poultry, state media said today.

THE World Health Organisation yesterday moved to dampen fears over predictions quoted by one of its own officials that a pandemic stemming from the bird flu virus ravaging parts of Asia could kill as many as 150 million people.

The World Health Organisation today moved to dampen fears over alarming predictions quoted by one of its own officials that a pandemic stemming from the bird flu virus ravaging parts of Asia could kill as many as 150 million people.

An Ebola-like mystery ailment that has killed at least 39 people in Angola over the past three months is primarily targeting children under five, the UN health agency said today.

SINGAPORE health officials said yesterday that additional tests have revealed that a laboratory technician has SARS in what would be the first new case of the contagious disease since it was contained two months ago.

THE SARS outbreak is “over its peak” around the world, including in the hardest-hit country, China, a World Health Organisation official said yesterday.

A World Health organisation spokesman today confirmed that the agency is reconsidering the travel warning it issued last week for Toronto, Canada’s largest city, due to Sars.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) today accepted a leading scientist’s findings that the Sars bug, which is causing panic worldwide, is more deadly than first thought.