The European Commission (EC) upheld a ban on pigs and pig products from Slovakia after an outbreak of swine fever there last week.

"The ban on the movement of pigs, pig semen, ova and embryos from Slovakia to other European Union (EU) member states and third countries is maintained, pending the completion of epidemiological investigations," an EU statement said

Health authorities in Madagascar have sought help from three United Nations agencies to contain an outbreak of the deadly Rift Valley Fever that has killed 17 people and infected 59 others.

A UN press statement said Friday that officials in Madagascar have asked the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health to undertake a joint mission to the country to support their efforts to contain theviral hemorrhagic disease

The Egyptian government reported the country's 21st death from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu on Saturday. The man died in the northern Delta region, the North African nation's health ministry said.

Mohamed Idris, from Baheira, had been at a hospital in Egypt's second largest city Alexandria with reported respiratory problems and a high fever. He did not respond to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, Deputy Minister Nasr Al Sayed told the official government news agency MENA

Brazil is considering calling on Cuba to send doctors and has mobilized its military to join the nation's public health workers in battling a deadly outbreak of the mosquito-borne viral illness, dengue fever, which has killed 67 people and infected more than 45,000.

For the past few years, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil has been at the center of a resurgence of the disease in South America

A dengue fever outbreak in Brazil has killed 54 people and infected more than 43,000 in Rio de Janeiro state since January, health officials said Thursday. The number is nearly double the 25,107 cases reported in all of 2007.

The toll for the first three months of this year exceeds the total from all of 2007, state officials said adding that another 60 deaths were being investigated to see whether they resulted from the tropical disease. The disease is transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes