World Health Organization

A major dust storm engulfed northern China and Beijing on May 4, prompting authorities to cancel dozens of flights and urge children and the elderly to stay indoors. Buildings were shrouded by the greyish haze in the capital while residents who ventured out covered their mouths and noses with masks and bandanas.

A mysterious illness with Ebola-like symptoms which appeared in southeast Liberia is now in the country's capital, local authorities say. Both the government and the World Health Organization (WHO) put the revised death toll from the illness at 12.

Turkey is set to become the first country to develop a vaccine for the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdağ said May 1, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

Akdağ said the ministry has been working on the vaccine for the past seven to eight years with Erciyes University.

The use of artificial tanning beds by minors under 18 years of age should be banned by the end of this year, the Ministry of Health has announced.

A similar measure is in place in Australia and Brazil, while World Health Organization has classified these devices as a top-ranked source of cancerogens.

The United Nations failed on April 6 to produce a resolution for the second time in two days regarding the Syrian gas attack on April 4, which killed at least 86, many of them children, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun near Idlib, in the northwest of the country, because of objections by Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

Autopsy results show that chemical weapons were used in the April 4 attack in Syria's Idlib, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has stated.

A suspected gas attack in northwestern Syria that killed scores of civilians was carried out by regime forces, according to initial findings by Turkey, which said there were no chemical storage facilities in the area as claimed by Damascus.

Victims of a suspected chemical attack in Syria appeared to show symptoms consistent with reaction to a nerve agent, the World Health Organization said on April 5. 

"Some cases appear to show additional signs consistent with exposure to organophosphorus chemicals, a category of chemicals that includes nerve agents," WHO said in a statement, putting the death toll at at least 70.

Russia stood by its ally Damascus on April 5 ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting to address accusations the Syrian government launched a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians.

The European Court of Justice has published its decision related to the lawsuit against Bulgaria on violation of Directive 2008/50 on ambient air quality and cleaner air in Europe., according to BNR.