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The World Health Organization voiced alarm Thursday at the growing spread of H5N1 bird flu to new species, including humans, who face an “extraordinarily high” mortality rate. “This remains I think an enormous concern,” the UN health agency’s chief scientist Jeremy Farrar told reporters in Geneva. The current bird flu outbreak began in 2020 and has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, with wild birds also infected as well as land and marine mammals. Cows and goats joined the list last month — a surprising development for experts because they were not thought susceptible to this...

CASES of a "super flu" that leaves sufferers with "brains like porridge" are soaring, officials data suggests. In England, suspected cases of the bug climbed to 1,178 in the week ending December 10, more than triple the 370 confirmed a fortnight ago. Flu cases began rising significantly in October but still appear lower than last year, according to suspected cases from the notification of infectious diseases data (NOID) report. Around 402 patients were in hospital with flu last week, up two-thirds on the 243 the previous week and more than double the 153 a fortnight ago, NHS data shows. People...

Ramallah government spokesman Ibrahim Melchem: "Shatya instructs the health minister to cancel the agreement and return the vaccine doses it received from the occupation"

Magnitude 7.4 Date-Time Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 17:19:41 UTC Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 03:19:41 AM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones Location 26.866°N, 143.739°E Depth 14.9 km (9.3 miles) Region BONIN ISLANDS, JAPAN REGION Distances 155 km (95 miles) E of Chichi-shima, Bonin Islands, Japan 335 km (210 miles) NE of Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, Japan 1050 km (650 miles) SSE of TOKYO, Japan Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 13.5 km (8.4 miles); depth +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles) Parameters NST=377, Nph=377, Dmin=157 km, Rmss=0.84 sec, Gp= 22°, M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=A Source USGS NEIC...