WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis killed 150,000 people in 2008 and infects between 400,000 and 500,000 people globally, according to World Health Organization estimates released on Thursday. WHO said the numbers suggest the hard-to-treat infection is spreading and said there is an urgent need for countries to set up labs to fight it. So-called MDR-TB is especially ...

The GAVI vaccine alliance, which is backed by software billionaire Bill Gates, said Thursday that it needed an extra 4.3 billion dollars to save millions of lives in poor countries over the next five years. The Global Alliance on Vaccines Initiative says it has helped boost immunisation levels since 2000 by funding new vaccination programmes for 256 million children ...

PARIS (Reuters) - Funding to combat malaria must be more than tripled if the mosquito-borne disease which kills nearly a million people a year is to be fought effectively, health campaigners said on Thursday. Presenting a report covering the past decade, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership said a jump in financing had helped to contain the disease but more needed to ...

The Veterans Affairs Department is taking steps for the first time to make it easier for veterans of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars to get disability benefits for malaria, West Nile Virus and other diseases. The VA has proposed a regulation change that lets ...