At least seven A&E departments nationwide are unfit for their purpose, a major health service study revealed today.

OVER 140,000 Irish adults are living with diabetes and a further 200,000 are unaware that they have a condition which is set to balloon in Ireland.

A number of secondary pupils were being treated in hospital for a mystery virus tonight after being taken ill at a school in Kildare.

THE likelihood of serious measles and mumps outbreaks is increasing rapidly as immunisation levels reach dangerously low levels, a health board report has warned.

PARENTS have been advised to immunise all children over 12 months against measles following a fresh outbreak of the disease in the east of the country.

The winter vomiting bug is devastating the finances of the country's health boards, having already cost about €1 million per board, says the Department of Health.

The Eastern Regional Health Authority has launched a campaign to encourage parents to have their children vaccinated against measles.

A group of canoeists who were boating on the River Liffey near Dublin are feared to have contracted the potentially-dangerous rat-borne Weil's disease.