YANGON: “Big Zaw” has known he was different since a teenage growth spurt sent him soaring above his neighbours in a remote Myanmar village. Now at seven foot eight inches, Win Zaw Oo is believed to be the country’s tallest man, and a recent rise to fame means he can seek treatment abroad for the health condition behind his towering height. Oo is set to undergo surgery in Singapore for a pituitary gland tumour, which causes the body to produce excessive growth hormones, because the procedure is too advanced to be carried out in Myanmar, where the health system was left chronically under-funded by the former junta.
Boy dies from bird flu
PHNOM PENH: A nine-year-old boy has died from bird flu in Cambodia, the 10th victim this year, the World Health Organisation said yesterday, warning that the kingdom’s deadliest outbreak of the virus could continue. The boy, from the northwestern province of Battambang, died in a children’s hospital in the nearby tourist hub of Siem Reap on Sunday night after falling ill last month, the WHO in Cambodia said in a statement. Tests confirmed the victim had contracted the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, he added.
Radioactive dust hits two
TOKYO: The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant yesterday said two workers were found to be contaminated with radioactive particles, the second such incident in a week involving staff outside the site’s main operations centre. Two dust monitors sounded alarms earlier yesterday outside the operations centre, where radiation levels are usually low enough to avoid the need for full face masks, Tokyo Electric Power Co said in an emailed statement.
Agencies
