The death toll from a viral illness that is striking children across China has risen by two to 30, health officials said Thursday, as the number of reported cases jumped to nearly 20,000.

China has ordered health care providers to immediately report all cases of a viral illness that has killed 28 children and sickened thousands in outbreaks across the country.

The risk of a human influenza pandemic remains real and is probably growing as the bird flu virus becomes entrenched in poultry in more countries, health officials warned on Tuesday.

China reported a jump Monday in the number of children sickened with hand, foot and mouth disease, saying more than 11,900 cases have been reported.

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.

A New York food company is recalling more than 286,000 pounds of meat and poultry because it might be contaminated with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes.

Patients who believe they suffer long-term problems from Lyme disease are claiming victory over a national doctors group who have questioned whether such a  condition exists.

Rising rates of the bacterial infection Clostridium difficile, known as C. diff, are sparking worries about a virulent form of the bug that can cause severe diarrhea — and death.

The biggest U.S. outbreak of measles since 2001 is unfolding in 10 states, with at least 64 people ranging from infants to the elderly becoming ill — most of them unvaccinated, U.S. health officials said.

Polio cases have nearly doubled this year in the West African nation of Nigeria as officials struggle to fight various natural strains of the virus as well as an outbreak set off by the polio vaccine itself three years ago.

A small biotechnology company trying to develop needle-free vaccines won a boost to its efforts on Tuesday with U.S. government approval to test a bird flu skin patch on more people.

About half of  the women in a surprising study acquired new anal infections with the human papillomavirus, known as HPV, indicating that the risk rivals cervical infection.

The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak.

From 1995 to 2004, deaths related to infection with hepatitis C virus rose by 123 percent in the US, according to a new report

Americans didn’t suffer more food poisoning last year over the previous year despite high-profile outbreaks involving peanut butter, pot pies and other foods.

Most of the college students who got the mumps in a big outbreak in 2006 had received the recommended two vaccine shots, according to a study that raises questions about whether a new vaccine or another booster shot is needed.

Chinese health officials have confirmed that a father caught bird flu from his son in December, according to a report released Tuesday.

Two people have died in Spain from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of mad cow disease, the health department at the regional Castilla-Leon government said on Monday.

A second oral vaccine to prevent a leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants won approval from U.S. health officials on Thursday.

Vietnam has started clinical trials for developing a human vaccine for the H5N1 virus, researchers said on Thursday in the Southeast Asian country that has recorded 52 deaths from bird flu.

Brazil’s government deployed the army in Rio Monday to fight an outbreak of dengue fever amid squabbling between politicians over who should handle an epidemic that has sickened more than 45,000 people this year.

People who carry a mutant gene can develop potentially fatal meningitis if they get infected with the drug resistant Beijing strain of tuberculosis, a study in Vietnam has found.

Intensive rice farming and large duck populations — not the number of chickens raised — may be the best predictors of where bird flu might develop in Southeast Asia, according to researchers reviewing outbreaks in Vietnam and Thailand.

More cases of suspected salmonella have been reported in the southern Colorado city of Alamosa. Jefferson County official Jim Shires says the number reached 216 on Sunday.