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Austria has closed off two dozen border crossings with its neighbours Hungary and Slovakia in a big to contain the spread of foot-and-mouth disease and prevent it from entering the country. Slovakia declared an emergency situation on Tuesday after the disease was found on three farms. Hungary had the first outbreak of the highly infectious disease in 50 years on Wednesday, leading the country to deploy soldiers and launch disinfection measures to contain it in an area bordering Slovakia and Austria. The diseases, which poses no danger to humans, mostly affects cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals like swine, sheep and goats. Infected animals experience fever and mouth blisters as part of the symptoms of the disease. Outbreaks often lead to trade restrictions and culls of some livestock. Austrian health authorities are conducting rigorous checks at the few open border crossings with Hungary and Slovakia. Cars have to cross over an epidemic rug to prevent the virus from ...

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has advised taking vitamin A to fight measles. A Texas hospital is now treating children with toxic levels of the supplement in their bodies. This article may be potentially distressing to parents with children. West Texas has been gripped by a measles outbreak for the past several weeks and as a result of misinformation passed on by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., it now faces a second, related health problem: Vitamin A toxicity — or hypervitaminosis A — in infants and children. The situation appears to be the direct result of bogus medical information pedaled by the vaccine-skeptic secretary himself. Kennedy recently said that although the measles vaccine is the best defense against the highly contagious and potentially fatal infection, he emphasized that getting inoculated was a "personal choice." Kennedy, whom President Donald Trump appointed to be t...

Morocco has seen a 35 percent decline in new HIV infections between 2010 and 2023, according to a recent report by Frontline AIDS . This decrease stands in sharp contrast to trends across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where the overall number of new infections has risen significantly. The report attributes Morocco’s progress to a strong national commitment to HIV prevention, including the development of a comprehensive new strategy to combat sexually transmitted infections, despite challenges in healthcare access in rural areas. While Morocco has managed to reduce new infections, the report paints a much grimmer picture for the broader region. Egypt recorded an increase of more than 600 percent in new HIV cases over the same period, while Lebanon and Tunisia saw respective increases of 79 and 59 percent. Across the MENA region as a whole, new infections rose by 116 percent, with more than 22,000 cases registered between 2010 and 2023. This figure accounts for r...

EXPLAINER: How health advisories work in Nigeria On 10 March 2025, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) issued a health advisory after a 31-year-old doctor who returned from the UK died from Lassa fever . Nigeria had reported 113 deaths from Lassa fever in 2025, at time of publication. This was 18.7% of confirmed cases, across 14 states. The country has faced yearly outbreaks since 2015. (Read our factsheet on Lassa fever here .) In February 2025, the NCDC also warned Nigerians and other travellers of the Sudan strain of Ebola found in Uganda and other regions, even though no case had been reported in Nigeria at the time. In January, the health agency issued an advisory about the Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) - a respiratory virus that can cause anything from mild cold symptoms to serious illness,...

Hong Kong recorded 365 new HIV cases in 2024, with the youngest infected individual aged 14, health authorities have said. The Department of Health announced on Thursday that the city saw a decline in the number of new HIV infections for the ninth consecutive year. In 2024, health authorities received reports of new HIV cases from 297 males and 68 females aged between 14 and 89. A total of 312 people reported they were infected through sexual contact, with 216 cases involving homosexual or bisexual contact and the remaining 96 cases through heterosexual contact. The newly recorded cases last year put the city’s HIV infection toll since 1984 at 12,403, said Bonnie Wong, consultant for the Special Preventive Programme at the Centre for Health Protection’s Public Health Services Branch. “The prevalence of HIV infection among the general public in Hong Kong remained at 0.1 per cent, well below the global average, demonstrating the effectiveness of AIDS contr...

Authorities warn measles cases will rise Dozens of exposure sites listed READ MORE: Urgent health warning issued amid fears of disease outbreak Three new measles cases have been recorded in Western Australia , amid grave fears the outbreak will worsen. There are now eight cases of the highly contagious disease across the state, days after more than a dozen exposure sites were identified across the state's south-west, including Bunbury Regional Hospital. Two new cases were recorded at Bunbury Regional Hospital while the other has been confined to Perth 's Hakea Prison. More than 40 exposures sites have been listed across Perth and the state's south-west in the past three weeks. Health officials expect cases to rise. 'The bad news is that measles is really infectious, in fact it may be the most infectious disease known to humans,' WA Health acting director of communicable diseases Paul Effler said...