Health officials in a Montana county issued a health advisory after the mother of two elementary school student brought a dead bat into an elementary school for a demonstration and allowed about 90 students to touch it.

The mother reportedly found the dead bat in a cat's mouth, thought the bat was interesting, brought it into school and gave presentations on the bat in five classrooms, allowing students to touch the bat and giving them disinfectant wipes for their hands afterward

Alberta health officials and Roman Catholic Church leaders in the province have turned a vaccination issue into a public debate, when the Calgary Catholic School Division disallowed schoolgirls to receive vaccination against the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus or HPV.

The Calgary Herald reported that Bishop Fred Henry believes that vaccination against STDs is in effect allowing sexual promiscuity and premarital sex among Catholic schoolgirls

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is giving flu shots a greater push in an effort to stop influenza from becoming a pandemic. The CDC awarded $24 million that would finance 55 anti-flu projects in 29 state and local public health departments.

The center recommended flu vaccination for 30 million American children from 6 months to 18 years earlier this year, hiking the number of people required to get the influenza vaccination to 261 million or 84 percent of the U.S. population

While Medicare has assured there will be no rise in premiums in 2009 for majority of its elderly and disabled members, a study by Hewitt Associates projects a 9 percent rise in premium and out-of-pocket expenses for individual workers.

For companies, the cost of a health insurance policy will rise to 6.4 percent, which will hike the yearly bill to $8,863. For individuals, the premium is forecast to go up to $3,826 per annum. Meanwhile, Medicare contributions for seniors and disabled will be fixed at $96.40 for 2009

Federal health regulators have approved Merck and Co's HPV vaccine Gardasil to protect against rare vaginal and vulvar cancers in girls and women ages 9-26.

Gardasil, which targets four strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause most cases of cervical cancer, is already approved to help prevent a leading cause of cervical cancer in women of that same age range. Two of those HPV strains can also cause some vulvar and vaginal cancers