WHO issues emergency travel advisory

A nurse in Hanoi has died from a mystery flu-like virus that has infected scores of people in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore and sparked a global warning from the World Health Organization. The death is the second reported in Asia in three days. A 50-year-old American businessman died in Hong Kong on Thursday after being flown from Hanoi with respiratory problems.

THE WORLD HEALTH Organization (WHO) warned in Geneva on Saturday of a “worldwide health threat” as a killer pneumonia spread from east Asia to other parts of the globe.

Releasing a rare “emergency travel advisory,” the United Nations health agency said an ill passenger had been taken to an isolation unit in Germany on Saturday after being removed from a plane en route to Singapore from New York.

A WHO spokesman said there were also reports that two people had died in Canada, taking the death toll to eight since the first outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), an atypical pneumonia, was detected in China in February.

Reuters MSNBC