Kuwait has discovered its first case of the MERS coronavirus for a citizen who is in "critical condition," the health ministry said on Wednesday.

"The first case of coronavirus has been discovered in the country for a citizen who was moved to the Infectious Diseases Hospital in critical condition," the ministry said, quoted by the official KUNA news agency.

An outbreak of polio that has paralyzed 13 children in war-torn Syria is linked to a strain of the virus from Pakistan, the World Health Organisation said Monday.

The vaccination of children in Syria has been disrupted by the 31-month conflict between President Bashar Assad's forces and rebels fighting to topple his regime.

More Americans should take cholesterol-lowering medication, according to new guidelines released Tuesday by the American Heart Association.

"This is a dramatic change from the 2002 federal cholesterol guideline," said the AHA in a statement, noting that drugs called statins should now be prescribed to some 33 million Americans.

Switching to e-cigarettes could save millions of smokers' lives, a conference on the increasingly popular devices heard Tuesday, though some experts warned more research on the health effects is needed.

The merits of e-cigarettes were thrashed out at a one-day gathering of some 250 scientists, policymakers, industry figures and enthusiasts at the Royal Society in London.

Dozens of psychologists were starting work in the typhoon-raked Philippines Wednesday to help dazed survivors deal with the psychological fallout of one of the country's worst ever disasters.

The operation is an early attempt by health professionals to head off what they fear could be serious problems down the road, even as the physical scars from the tragedy begin to heal.

When cancer survivor Jarrod Lyle returns to golf after a 20-month layoff at the Australian Masters at Royal Melbourne on Thursday, he expects a number of teary eyes on the tee. His own among them.

The 32-year Lyle will play his first tournament since his second fight with myeloid leukemia — his first came at the age of 17. This time, he'll have his wife and young daughter with him when he starts a tournament that he's not sure he's physically ready to finish should he make the 36-hole cut.

New mothers in two areas of Britain are to be paid to breastfeed their babies, it was announced Tuesday, under a trial scheme aimed at boosting the practice in poor areas where it is "stigmatized".

Mums in Derbyshire, central England, and its neighbor South Yorkshire, will be offered shopping vouchers worth £120 ($200, 140 euros) if they breastfeed for the first six weeks, rising to £200 if they continue for six months.

U.S. billionaire Bill Gates on Monday vowed to help end the scourge of polio in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, still blighted by the debilitating disease.

"This is my fourth visit to Nigeria and every year I come I see us get closer to our goal of polio eradication," Gates said at a stakeholders' forum on the issue.

U.S. experts are raising the alarm over the spread of drug-resistant malaria in several Southeast Asian countries, endangering major global gains in fighting the mosquito-borne disease that kills more than 600,000 people annually.

While the communicable disease wreaks its heaviest toll in Africa, it's in nations along the Mekong River where the most serious threat to treating it has emerged.

The Saudi government said Monday that a camel has tested positive for MERS, in the first case of an animal infected with the coronavirus that has killed 64 people worldwide.

A camel owned by a person diagnosed with the disease had "tested positive in preliminary laboratory checks," the health ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.