The World Health Organization (WHO) told its member nations it was declaring a swine flu pandemic Thursday, as infections continued to climb globally. This is the first global flu epidemic in 41 years.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday raised the alert level for the ongoing swine flu outbreak to 5, meaning it believes a global pandemic is imminent.

On Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the swine flu alert level to 4. Level 6 would mean a pandemic.

Melbourne, Australia — August 29, 2008— While jams and other consumer products are strictly regulated and are required to pass stringent tests before they can be sold, tobacco has no restrictions and manufacturers can, and do, add anything they want into the product.

Europe must adopt the World Health Organization (WHO) standard on fine particulate matter pollution if it is to significantly curb needless premature deaths, concludes research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

An open-access commentary in the December 2007 issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology examines a recently launched a global initiative by the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat healthcare-associated infection by improving hand hygiene in health care.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a new mechanism, described in this week's PLoS Medicine, for issuing urgent guidelines to health professionals in a public health emergency such as an infectious disease outbreak.

Health experts say tobacco consumption is hitting alarming rates in China. World health officials estimate that one-third of the male population under the age of 29 is likely to die from tobacco-related illnesses. But officials in the communist government have said the country - the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco products - cannot afford to stop smoking.

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) today jointly called for greater funding and use of vaccine vial monitors, simple tools which warn if dosages have been damaged by heat, on the tenth anniversary of their introduction into immunization programmes.