Clinics of Columbia Park Medical Group (CPMG) in the cities of Andover, Columbia Heights and Fridley, Minnesota are giving free revaccination 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

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the possibility that the H5N1 virus could be transmitted from person to person, based on findings that the father of a 24-year-old man who died of bird flu in eastern Jiangsu Province, China early this week was also infected with the deadly virus.

The condition of the 52-year-old father, who was identified only with his surname, Lu, is now being closely monitored after he showed symptoms of H5N1 on Monday and was confirmed on Wednesday to have the virus

A 24-year-old man in east China was confirmed to be the 17th bird flu victim who died Sunday, making it the country's latest fatality from the H5N1 virus, report said.

According to Jiangsu provincial health department, the victim was hospitalized last Tuesday after he was diagnosed with pneumonia

Obese patients demanding for elective surgery want to be given equal chances to go under the knife compared with their normal-weight counterparts.

Overweight British patients said they should not be discriminated against or worse, made to pay for their own operation on account of their size

A strain of the adenovirus, which is a mutated version of a common cold virus, has caused 10 deaths in the last 18 months, U.S. health officials said Thursday.

The virus, which can cause severe and sometimes fatal lung disease, has caused at least 140 illnesses in New York, Oregon, Washington and Texas, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)