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University of Tokyo researchers have developed a real-time statistical method to estimate death risk (i.e., the probability of death given infection) and identify risk factors of death during an infectious disease outbreak. Using this method, the researchers revealed that the death risk of the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) epidemic in the Republic of Korea for patients with an illness prior to MERS infection was as high as 48.2 percent for those over 60 years while it was below 15 percent for younger patients. This method will be useful when the death risk of a novel infectious disease has to be quantified using data from small numbers of patients during the course of an outbreak, providing information on which age groups to minimize exposure in hospitals, nursing homes and daycare facilities.

A new test detects virtually any virus that infects people and animals, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where the technology was developed.

Since armed unrest erupted more than four years ago in Syria, resulting in huge movements of the population inside the country and spilling into neighboring countries, WHO has taken a lead role – one that continues in the face of crippling funding shortfalls - to support the displaced.