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The World Health Organization said the health ministries of the three Asian countries still affected by polio are on target to wipe out the paralytic disease by the..

The pope entered an Italian hospital on Tuesday night suffering from what is presumed to be influenza, which can pose a serious threat to people with Parkinson's disease. That progressive brain disorder has plagued him for more than a decade. While the Vatican said his breathing problems had stabilized with treatment during the night, he remained in the hospital. The Vatican said Wednesday that the pope's breathing difficulties had been diagnosed as stemming from ''acute laryngeal tracheitis,'' an inflammation of the breathing tubes that lead from the mouth to the lungs. The pope was taken by ambulance from the Vatican to the Gemelli Polyclinic here late Tuesday night, in what his spokesman characterized as a ''mainly precautionary'' admission for ''breathing difficulty.'' From Tuesday night into the early hours of Wednesday morning, he received ''respiratory assistance therapies,'' which stabilized his condition, the Vatican said, and he was afterward able to sleep for ''some hours.''

While Dr. Crosby was at [Walter Reed], his interest in a link between anemia and a bowel disorder, sprue, led him and Heinz W. Kugler, to develop a device to remove tiny pieces of tissue from the small bowel, or intestine. The device became known as the Crosby-Kugler capsule, and its patent was assigned by Walter Reed to the two inventors. Dr. Emanuele Salvidio, a retired professor of hematology at the University of Genoa in Italy, who trained under Dr. Crosby, said that in 1957 Dr. Crosby was the first to theorize correctly that a type of anemia known as favism resulted from a deficiency of an enzyme, G6PD, among people who ingested fava, or broad, beans. Dr. Crosby wrote papers on the misuse of blood transfusions and the history of medicine, and he translated the poetry of Baudelaire into English from French in the book ''The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen: Poems.'' Dr. Crosby was married four times and had 7 children, 14 grandchildren and 13 step-grandchildren

Taken at face value, the complications the pope suffered are ''ominous and unusual,'' said Dr. William Schaffner, an American expert in influenza at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and is 84, is at high risk for a secondary bacterial pneumonia as a complication of influenza, and ''almost everyone would treat such a patient with combinations of intravenous antibiotics'' and an anti-influenza drug like Tamiflu, Dr. Schaffner said. Pope [John Paul I] has had influenza since Sunday, when he made his usual noontime appearance in St. Peter's Square, Father [Ciro Benedettini] said. Earlier on Tuesday, the Vatican announced that the pope's public appointments would be canceled for the next few days because of his illness. The last time sickness canceled a public appearance was in 2003 when the pope was ill with a stomach ailment

Anopheles sundaicus, one of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria, is of particular concern because it has spread disease before in the Aceh region of northwestern Sumatra, said Dr. Allan Schapira, a WHO malaria expert. This mosquito can breed in both fresh water and brackish water, and pools of salt water from the tsunamis have been diluted by fresh water from rains, underground water and freshwater streams, the agency said. Concern about malaria varies in tsunami-affected areas. For example, malaria is endemic in Banda Aceh, but Schapira said it had been 'practically eliminated' in the coastal areas of Thailand hit by the tsunami

Anopheles sundaicus, one of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria, is of particular concern because it has spread disease before in Aceh, in northwestern Sumatra, said Dr. Allan Schapira, a W.H.O. malaria expert. This mosquito breeds in fresh water and brackish water, and pools of salt water from the tsunamis have been diluted by fresh water from rains, underground water and freshwater streams, the agency said

The World Health Organization said Vietnamese officials had reported two more deaths from avian influenza, bringing to nine the number of confirmed fatal cases in the country over the last month

To do that, health officials are relying principally on rumors of clusters of cases from local inhabitants who are most likely to know when something is wrong. But many rumors, even those from doctors, turn out to be false alarms. Rashes suspected to be measles have turned out to be mumps and chicken pox. Dr. Brenton T. Burkholder, a WHO epidemiologist sent to Sri Lanka, said a false alarm about cholera came from foreign volunteer doctors 'who probably never saw cholera in their lives.' WHO wants to avoid using definitions so vague that people report cases of hemorrhagic fever that are measles while other people report measles as hemorrhagic fever. Doctors usually send stool, sputum and other samples to laboratories for tests to confirm their clinical impressions. But many laboratories in affected countries were damaged, if not destroyed, in the tsunami. So health teams are relying on a variety of portable laboratories that can be set up quickly to provide rapid results of tests under field conditions. In earlier disasters, doctors were frustrated because it took a week or more to receive test results from laboratories out of the affected countries. Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S. Navy are providing large mobile laboratories to affected areas in Indonesia, [Tom Grien] said. One frustration for public health workers is that they can seldom prove that they prevented an outbreak. Still, [Mike Ryan] said, 'success in all this will be to have no epidemics.'

In 2004, the number of African children paralyzed by polio more than doubled, to 1,037 from 447 in 2003, as the virus began spreading again in five countries that had been free of polio: Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast and Sudan. Three other countries -- Egypt, Niger and Nigeria -- have never stopped transmission of polio. The disease now threatens the Horn of Africa, Congo and the Arabian Peninsula, said Dr. David L. Heymann, the official in charge of the World Health Organization's polio eradication program. A year ago, polio transmission was limited to Egypt, Niger and Nigeria. The health organization, a United Nations agency, attributes the recent spread to the political and religious opposition in northern Nigeria that halted polio immunizations for a year, until last summer. The interruption led to the spread of the disease to 12 formerly polio-free African countries; these are the five where polio is now spreading and the seven where sustained secondary transmission has not been detected

The risk from waterborne diseases like cholera and dysentery is easing, Dr. [Bjorn Melgaard] said yesterday. But as rains dilute the salt water and create stagnant pools that could serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes, fears have arisen about a surge in viral diseases like dengue fever and parasitic diseases like malaria and filariasis. By detecting even a slight upturn in the number of cases, health officials hope to head off outbreaks of serious diseases. Health officials are also alert to reports of fevers that could signal meningitis, dengue and malaria. So far no significant outbreaks have been detected in any of the seven countries -- India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Thailand -- on the W.H.O.'s tsunami list. The agency has distributed well-accepted definitions for many communicable diseases. However, the W.H.O. wants to avoid using definitions so vague that people report cases of hemorrhagic fever that are measles while other people report measles as hemorrhagic fever. Doctors usually send samples to laboratories for tests to confirm their clinical impressions. But many laboratories in affected countries were damaged, if not destroyed, in the tsunami. So health teams are relying on a variety of portable laboratories that can be set up quickly