The makers of the anti-viral flu treatment Tamiflu are to donate another two million courses of the drug to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it was announced today.

A DEADLY new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be “incalculable” unless the world is ready, the chief of the UN health agency said yesterday.

A deadly new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be “incalculable” unless the world is ready, the chief of the UN health agency said today.

The likelihood of a human flu pandemic is very high, US Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said as he begin a tour of south-east Asia to co-ordinate plans to combat bird flu.

INDONESIA confirmed its fourth human death from bird flu yesterday and said another person was suspected of having the virus as global alarm grew that the disease would mutate and become a pandemic.

The World Health Organisation and health ministers from 11 Asian nations today agreed on measures to improve their joint response if a region-wide natural disaster occurs, following last year’s devastating tsunami.

The UN health agency said today that it will do more to step up prevention and treatment of cancer in developing countries to help them fight a recent rise in deaths from the disease.

A GLOBAL treaty aimed at dissuading children from smoking and helping adults kick the habit came into force yesterday with the United Nations saying it could save millions of lives.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is donating €576m to support immunisation programmes in developing countries, he announced today.

AS world leaders gathered yesterday to coordinate aid for earthquake victims in Asia, doctors warned another 150,000 could die if basic needs such as water were not restored by the end of the week.

As world leaders gathered today to co-ordinate more than €2.8bn in tsunami relief, doctors warned of a looming catastrophe from ever-more serious health crises – gangrenous wounds that require limb amputations, scores of children with diarrhoea, pneumonia caused by exposure to dirty water.

Even as world leaders gathered today to co-ordinate billions of dollars in aid, doctors warned of a looming catastrophe from ever-more serious health woes - gangrenous wounds that require limb amputations, scores of children with diarrhea, pneumonia caused by exposure to dirty water.

Broken bones and infected wounds are the biggest health problem facing staff in overflowing hospitals in Indonesia’s shattered Aceh province, United Nations officials said today.

One person dies from a tobacco-related disease every six and a half seconds, the head of the UN health agency warned today, ahead of its annual World No Tobacco Day.

A GROWING number of the world’s new HIV/Aids cases are women, a “terrifying pattern” that widely used prevention measures are ill-equipped to stop, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said.

GLOBAL efforts to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases and reduce the number of women who die in childbirth will founder unless the international community boosts basic medical care in poor countries, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

A €5 BILLION campaign to provide three million HIV-infected people in poor countries with the latest drugs available by the end of 2005 was launched yesterday.

Two UN agencies are launching a €4.9bn campaign to provide three million HIV-infected people in poor countries with the latest drugs available by the end of 2005.

THE head of the World Health Organisation warned health specialists yesterday of a possible resurgence of the deadly SARS virus and urged countries to boost surveillance.