As part of a project, certain intensive-care units in New York and South Carolina hospitals are having copper fittings tested to determine if drug-resistant bacteria survive better on hospitals' ubiquitous stainless steel than on copper.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 1.7 million Americans are infected each year when hospitalized and about 100, 000 of them lose their lives. For long, scientists have urged better hygiene in an attempt to control hospital spread of germs, however increasingly medical firms are leaning on anti-germ coatings to help

A four-year-old boy became the latest casualty of bird flu in Vietnam, bringing to five the number of people to have died from the avian virus this year in the region, health ministry officials in Vietnam confirmed Thursday.

Tran Hung, Vietnam's health ministry administrative office director said, "He tested positive to the H5N1 virus late last week. It is the first human case of H5N1 in about four months in Vietnam

Health experts in England have called on parents to have their infants, particularly those under a year old, to receive their vaccinations to avoid serious illness such as pneumonia and meningitis.

Data showed that one in six children remain unvaccinated and health officials warned that it could lead to an increase in the number of teens and adults who suffer permanent disability due to pneumococcal infection

Clinics of Columbia Park Medical Group (CPMG) in the cities of Andover, Columbia Heights and Fridley in Anoka County, Minnesota are giving free revaccinations to 4,500 patients who received ineffective vaccines from October 2006 to August 2007.

The CPMG on Tuesday sent letters to the affected patients telling them to get new shots against rotavirus, hepatitis A and B, pneumonia, tetanus, typhoid and rabies at the said clinics on Dec. 15, 20 and 29

Parents will likely be alarmed to learn that common baby's vaccine will be recalled due to contamination risks, but officials clarified that there is nothing to be worried because there is no known health threat.

More than 1.2 million doses of the vaccine Hib, which fights pneumonia, meningitis and other infectious diseases are being recalled