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· Four Turkish children died of the H5N1 avian flu virus in January. They were the first confirmed human victims of the virus in WHO's European Region, WHO said on 19 January. The four deaths in Turkey plus a sixth person, who died of avian flu in China, brought the toll of known human avian flu deaths to 80 globally.

· On 19 January WHO called on pharmaceutical companies to end the practice of the marketing and sale of "single-drug" artemisinin-based malaria medicines to prevent malaria parasites from developing resistance to the drug. The use of single-drug artemisinin treatment — known as monotherapy — hastens development of resistance by weakening but not killing the parasite. When used correctly in combination with other antimalarial drugs in artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs), artemisinin is nearly 95% effective in curing malaria and the parasite is highly unlikely to become drug resistant. ACTs are currently the most effective medicine available to treat malaria.

· WHO Director-General, Dr LEE Jong-wook underscored the areas that need urgent international and national action to fight avian influenza and prepare for an influenza pandemic at a conference in Beijing, China, from 17 to 18 January. The International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Influenza was organized by the Chinese Government, the European Commission and the World Bank.

· Public health and veterinary experts, development partners and representatives of Member States from WHO's African Region met in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo, from 12 to 13 January to discuss the threat of avian flu and a human pandemic flu. Although transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) has not been reported in the WHO African Region, cases of the low pathogenic avian influenza (H5N2) have been found in South Africa in 2004 and Zimbabwe in 2005 among ostriches.

· In a public opinion survey conducted by WHO, respondents from across the world said avian influenza was the top health issue in 2005 followed by HIV/AIDS and in third place tobacco. The same survey found respondents rate tobacco as the number one neglected health issue, with HIV/AIDS in second place and environmental health issues in third.

For more about these and other WHO news items please see: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2005/en/index.html