■ Switzerland
AIDS is biggest killer
The World Health Organization said in its annual report that AIDS had become the leading single cause of death worldwide for people aged 15 to 59. The agency reported that 3 million people had died of AIDS in 2003, and that 5 million people had become infected with HIV that year. The agency's director general, Lee Jong-wook, called for a sharp increase in the supply of anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV. He said in the report, which is to be formally presented next week in Geneva, that less than 7 percent of the 6 million people with HIV in developing countries were thought to have access to treatment.
■ Russia
Putin visits Chechnya
In a rare visit to a war zone that has become Russia's quagmire, President Vladimir Putin made a quick trip Tuesday to Chechnya, and said its bombed and battered capital, Grozny, looked "horrible." His visit, two days after the assassination of his hand-picked president for the region, Akhmad Kadyrov, was an acknowledgment that the conflict from which he has tried to distance himself remained a critical problem for the Kremlin. After decreasing Russia's security forces in Chechnya over the last several months and trying to transform the decadelong separatist war into a local conflict, Putin on Tuesday announced a plan to bolster the local police force by at least 1,000 officers.
■ United States
Chlamydia prevalent
A surprisingly large number of young Americans are infected with the bacteria that causes the sexually transmitted disease known as chlamydia, according to a study released Tuesday. One in 25 young Americans carry the organism that causes the disease, and the rate of infection is particularly high among young blacks and in the southern US, researchers said. The findings are based on the most comprehensive study of the prevalence of chlamydia among Americans to date. The infection was six times greater in young black adults than in young whites, according to the study of more than 12,000 adults with an average age of 22.
■ Canada
New strain of bird flu
A new strain of bird flu has been found in British Columbia's Fraser Valley, different from anything seen in the area before, officials said. Scientists can't rule out the possibility the strain is the one responsible for the recent deaths of people in Asia, but they urged residents not to panic. "We don't know what it is," said Sally Greenwood, a spokeswoman for the British Columbia Center for Disease Control. She said it was not the H7 virus that had been identified in province, and that there was possibility it could come back as a H5 subtype.
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