Some AIDS expert have recently said that condoms and testing for HIV are not the solution to eliminating the disease in Africa and are just a waste of money, while others say that doing those things has helped but there is a need to do more.

An estimated 22.5 million people in Africa had HIV at the end of 2007. Health experts say about 1.7 million new people became sick with HIV last year while the disease killed 1.6 million people during the same period

Around 5,000 families who believe that a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, found in many vaccines causes the development of autism have filed claims with the U.S. Court of Claims. The families allege vaccines caused autism and other neurological problems in their children.

Autism is a developmental disability which usually appears in children during their first 36 months. Once an uncommon disorder in the United States, the incidence of autism is now occurring at epidemic rates

South Korea on Monday slaughtered and buried around 15,000 poultry in Seoul to prevent further spreading of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in the capital. Quarantine officials reported culling chickens, ducks, pheasants and turkeys raised in farms, restaurants, schools and homes in the capital.

Monday's culling resulted from a second case of bird flu confirmed in Seoul on Sunday, less than a week after the first one was detected. On Sunday, two outbreaks of the H5N1 virus were reported in poultry farms in Busan, country's second largest city, and Ansung

A graduate school of public health will open in September at the University of Toronto, which will deal with epidemic diseases. Leading epidemiologist Jack Mandel will the director of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

The school is named after Paul Dalla Lana, chairman and founder of the NorthWest Healthcare Properties, which provided the $20 million grant to fund the school

A large mumps outbreak in the United States in 2006 may have been caused by the failure of the vaccine, federal health experts reported Wednesday.

In a study reported in the April 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, authors urge a more effective mumps vaccine or changes in vaccine policy to eradicate the disease