Health News Summary: Japan finds first swine fever case; Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Japan finds first swine fever case in 26 years, but not African fever

Japan's agriculture ministry said on Sunday it had confirmed the country's first outbreak of swine fever in 26 years and suspended exports of pork and wild boar meat. The fever, a different kind from the African swine fever that has broken out in China, was found in a farm in central Japan's Gifu city, the ministry said.

Merck's Keytruda clocks up new win as EU approves chemo cocktail

Merck & Co's key cancer drug Keytruda has been approved for use in Europe in combination with chemotherapy in previously untreated lung cancer patients, marking a further advance for the product after uncertainty about its EU prospects a year ago. Keytruda is the first such immunotherapy medicine to be approved in Europe for first-line use with chemotherapy in patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease.

Cholera outbreak kills 10 people in Zimbabwe

A cholera outbreak has killed 10 people in Zimbabwe's capital Harare after they drank contaminated water, a city health official said on Sunday. Harare city council has struggled to supply water to some suburbs for more than a decade, forcing residents to rely on water from open wells and community boreholes.

Consort, Opiant to develop nasal spray for opioid overdose treatment

Britain's Consort Medical Plc said on Monday it had agreed to develop a nasal spray for treating opioid overdoses with specialty pharmaceutical company Opiant Pharmaceuticals Inc. California-based Opiant earlier this year was awarded a $7.4 million grant by the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse for the development of a nasally-applied version of overdose treatment nalmefene.

Roche faces UK pricing row over multiple sclerosis drug Ocrevus

Roche faces a fresh row over drug pricing in Britain, following a decision by the body responsible for medicine use within the state health service not to approve its drug Ocrevus for treating a highly disabling form of multiple sclerosis (MS). In June, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) endorsed Ocrevus for relapsing-remitting MS - the most common type of the disease - but it has now rejected it for the rarer and more severe primary-progressive form of MS.

Ebola fight has new science but faces old hurdles in restive Congo

When Esperance Nzavaki heard she was cured of Ebola after three weeks of cutting-edge care at a medical center in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, she raised her arms to the sky with joy and praised the Lord. Her recovery is a testament to the effectiveness of a new treatment, which isolates patients in futuristic cube-shaped mobile units with transparent walls and gloved access, so health workers no longer need to don cumbersome protective gear.