The World Health Organisation has confirmed that polio has spread to China from Pakistan. China had been polio-free for more than a decade. The UN's health agency warned there was a high risk of the crippling virus spreading further during Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca. Viv Marsh reports.

A statement by the UN's health agency said a strain of polio had been isolated in China that was genetically linked with the wild polio virus type 1 currently circulating in Pakistan. The organisation said at least seven people in China had contracted that strain, all of them in the far western region of Xinjiang, which has a border with Pakistan. Polio was last brought into China from India in 1999. China's last indigenous case was in 1994. Pakistan is one of a handful of countries where polio remains endemic.

Vote counting is getting underway in presidential and parliamentary elections in Zambia. Observers say voting was generally peaceful despite scattered violence in the capital Lusaka. Cars were set alight, and youths tore down posters of Zambia's President Rupiah Banda after some polling stations opened late. President Banda is thought to be facing a strong challenge from his main opponent, the Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata.

Prosecutors in Mexico say officials in charge of the prisons from which dozens of inmates escaped have been detained. Thirty-two prisoners staged an almost simultaneous breakout from three jails in western Veracruz state on Sunday. Prosecutors said the prison directors and their deputies were detained on suspicion of helping the inmates to escape.