Brightly-painted wards and colorful furnishings are matched by state-of-the-art equipment and pioneering operating theaters at a new children's hospital in Johannesburg honoring Nelson Mandela.

The death toll from Australia's "thunderstorm asthma" episode has risen to six and three others are in critical condition, authorities said Sunday, as they assessed the fallout from the unprecedented event.

China, the world’s biggest cigarette producer and consumer, aims to impose national smoking-control regulations by the end of this year, authorities said Tuesday.

The number of HIV-infected people taking anti-retroviral medicine has doubled in just five years, the U.N. said Monday, while highlighting high infection rates among young African women.

Camped on the baking concrete outside a gleaming transplant centre, Karachi's sick have come from miles around in desperate hope for a last chance at life. 

There, Dr Adibul Rizvi provides free medical care to hundreds of thousands of people each year, providing a much-needed alternative to Pakistan's public health sector, which critics dismiss as chaotic, corrupt and vastly under-resourced. 

Fatima was already struggling to find cancer drugs for her father when a devaluation of the Egyptian pound this month caused the imported medicine to disappear altogether.

"Before, I could still find it if I searched in several pharmacies. Today I can't," said the 34-year old teacher, who asked not to be named in full.

Tobacco use remains the most preventable cause of cancer, and 40 percent of diagnosed U.S. cancer cases may have a link to its use, health authorities said Thursday.

Lung cancer, acute myeloid leukemia, and tumors of the mouth and throat, voice box, esophagus, stomach, kidney, pancreas, liver, bladder, cervix, colon and rectum are all caused by tobacco use, according the report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Authorities in Delhi on Monday closed schools, halted construction work and shut down a major power plant after days of choking smog led to warnings of a health "emergency" in the world's most polluted capital.

A showdown over shawarma has come to Dubai.

A state-owned newspaper reported on Wednesday that nearly half of all shawarma stands in Dubai either will be shut down or have stopped selling the popular Mideast street food.

Cancer will kill 5.5 million women -- about the population of Denmark -- per year by 2030, a near 60-percent increase in less than two decades, a report said Tuesday.