Disease

Zika Virus - Philippines

With the announcement of two additional autochthonous, or locally acquired Zika virus cases Friday in the Philippines, the Department of Health now puts the case tally at 19 this year.

Malaria - France, UK and USA

An international study, led by the University of Southampton, shows the UK and France experience the highest number of malaria cases imported from other countries.

Research led by WorldPop, based at the University, examined and mapped the movement of the disease from endemic countries (those where malaria is regularly found in the population) to around 40 countries defined as being malaria-free or non-endemic (such as the UK).

Findings, published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, revealed that countries with the highest average number of imported infections per year over the past decade were France (2,169), UK (1,898) and USA (1,511), followed by Italy (637) and Germany (401).

Infection movement was strongly skewed to a small number of ‘high-traffic’ routes, with malaria cases originating from West Africa accounting for 56 percent (13,947) of all cases detected in non-endemic countries.

Children Die of Malnutrition in Gauteng, South Africa

Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu revealed this in a statement on information based on the annual reported presented to the portfolio committee for the 2015/16 financial year on Friday.

“For the period under review‚ about 3040 new cases of severe acute malnutrition were identified‚ and out of those about 1512 children were admitted at different facilities and‚ unfortunately about 113 deaths were experienced as a result of severe acute malnutrition‚” Mahlangu said.

Gauteng is Africa’s wealthiest economic and industrial area.