Hong Kong will quarantine 17 people after the city confirmed its first human case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu, officials said Tuesday.

The 17 are mostly relatives of the employer of a 36-year-old Indonesian domestic helper, who is in critical condition in a Hong Kong hospital after a visit to mainland China.

Turkish police have launched an investigation into online adverts posted by people allegedly so desperate for money they are offering to sell their kidneys, local media reported Monday.

The adverts were apparently linked to an organ trafficking ring which had been carrying out illegal kidney removals and transplants in Turkey as well as Egypt, India, Iran and Iraq and was busted by police in October.

Hong Kong on Monday confirmed its first human case of the deadly H7N9 bird flu, according to a report, in the latest sign of the virus spreading beyond mainland China.

A 36-year-old Indonesian domestic helper with a history of travelling to the mainland city of Shenzhen and coming into contact with live poultry has been infected and is in critical condition, Health Secretary Ko Wing-man said, according to the broadcaster RTHK.

A contraceptive pill for men has moved one step closer after Australian researchers successfully made male mice infertile, according to a study published Tuesday.

Monash University scientists genetically modified mice to block two proteins found on the smooth muscle cells which are essential for sperm to travel through the animal's reproductive organs.

A least a million Syrians are going hungry, as fighting and checkpoints prevent aid deliveries, the international Red Cross warned on Monday.

"A conservative estimate is a million people without food," said Simon Eccleshall, crisis management chief at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

The troubleshooter appointed by President Barack Obama to overhaul a bungled health care website rollout said Sunday that improvements had made a "night and day" difference in handling online traffic.

The White House has admitted previously that the launch of Healthcare.gov, where people can sign up for health insurance, was a debacle and the Obama administration pledged that the vast majority of potential customers would be able to enroll online by the end of November.

Safety fears over medication in mainland China are driving a risky illegal trade in cancer drugs in Hong Kong, experts say, warning of shortages in a similar scenario to the milk formula crisis that emptied shelves in the territory.

Hong Kong pharmacies are selling the drugs under the counter to mainland Chinese visitors who have lost faith in their own medical system and are dodging high prices, in another example of how demand from China can impact wider markets.

A class action over birth defects linked to the morning sickness drug thalidomide was settled in an Australian court Monday, with the British distributor agreeing to pay victims Aus$89 million (U.S.$81 million).

Lawyers representing some 100 Australian and New Zealand victims of the drug told the Victorian Supreme Court that settlement had been reached with Diageo, which owns now-defunct thalidomide distributor The Distillers Company.

Iranian state television is reporting that the number of HIV-positive citizens in the country has skyrocketed over the last decade.

On Sunday, state television quoted Health Minister Hassan Ghzaizadeh as saying there has been a nine-fold growth in the number of HIV/AIDS patients in the decade.

A new test for the presence of anabolic steroids has resulted in 260 positive cases which in the past would have been undetectable, a researcher from the Cologne anti-doping laboratory revealed on Friday.

The test can more effectively detect Stanozolol, the steroid found in the urine sample of Ben Johnson after he won 100m gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and Oral-Turinabol, a product used in the doping program of the former East Germany.