A report from the Trust for America's Health non-profit group predicted Friday that half a million Americans could die and more than 2 millions could end up in the hospital with serious complications if an even moderately severe strain of a pandemic flu hits.

The group warns the United States only has 965,256 staffed hospital beds, an insufficient amount in the event a pandemic does hit

Two medical ethics experts believe that prisoner's medical records may have been used to the military's advantage in Guantanamo Bay, in order to find the best way to get prisoners to talk.

The Pentagon's top health official said the allegation is "an outrageous distortion" of what actually was going on at the prison camp in Cuba

Doctors in the south Indian city, Hyderabad claimed that they had carried out a multiple-bypass beating-heart surgery on Friday on a patient as he kept on listening to music, reported The Times of India.

The two-and-a-half-hour operation took place on Friday in Care Hospital in Hyderabad. Chief cardiac surgeon Dr Prateek Bhatnagar, who led the team of doctors, claimed it was the first 'fully-awake' coronary arterial bypass operation performed in India

The World Health Organization is concerned that a deadly strain of bird flu, that has already killed more than 50 people in Asian countries might mutate into a form that can be passed from one person to another and create a global pandemic.

WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley says so far there is no conclusive proof of human-to-human transmission. "We have found a couple of cases that were very suspicious, but we couldn't actually hammer that nail home

Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates pledged $250 million for a total of $450 million to a project he initiated in 2003 to get the world's top scientific minds to find remedies of the deadliest diseases.

He announced the contribution while delivering a speech as a featured speaker at the World Health Organization's annual assembly on Monday