The Syrian government on Monday pledged to vaccinate children against polio after 10 cases were reported in the northeast, and also accused rebels of attacking humanitarian aid convoys.

"We must make the vaccine available to every child in Syria, whether in a "hot" zone or a region controlled by the army," Faisal Muqdad, deputy foreign minister, told a news conference.

Pharmaceuticals giant Roche said on Monday that it had joined forces with fellow Swiss company Polyphor to develop an antibiotic to fight a superbug that has taken hold in hospitals.

Hospital-acquired infections are a major global concern, causing 25,000 deaths a year in the European Union alone.

Girls of all races are entering puberty earlier than ever before, and U.S. research out Monday suggests that obesity may a contributing factor, particularly in white girls.

Early puberty has been linked to a number of medical conditions, including increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer, as well as high blood pressure and depression.

A single dose -- rather than the recommended three -- of a vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease HPV may be enough to ward off cervical cancer, researchers said Monday.

The findings may lead to simpler delivery and lower costs, possibly increasing the number of young people who get vaccinated, said the report in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

At least 700 people, mostly women, have sought medical help for apparent drug intoxication in a village believed to be the largest marijuana producer in the Balkans, doctors said Friday.

All the patients, suspected workers in cannabis fields in the southern Albanian village of Lazaret, had similar symptoms and "serious disorders from cannabis intoxication," doctor Hysni Luka of the hospital in nearby town Gjirokaster told reporters.

Ten people would be preventatively treated for rabies after coming into contact with a kitten that died of the disease, which is potentially deadly to humans, French authorities said Friday.

The kitten of about two-months-old was adopted on October 25 from the streets of Argenteuil, about 15 kilometers northwest of Paris.

U.S. scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of HIV have made an important breakthrough after capturing the clearest image yet of a protein which allows the deadly virus to attack human immune cells, new research showed Tuesday.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have managed to obtain a detailed view of the atomic structure of the protein which envelops HIV, the virus which causes AIDS.

U.S-funded scientists said Thursday they have devised an experimental vaccine against a common childhood illness called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

There is currently no vaccine on the market for RSV, which is the world's second-leading killer of babies aged one month to one year, after malaria.

Japanese researchers said Thursday they had moved a step closer to an oral treatment for diabetes, offering hope of a breakthrough against a disease racking an increasingly obese world.

Scientists at the University of Tokyo said they have created a compound that helps the body to control glucose in the bloodstream.

Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with a particularly high rate of blindness. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks in part to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions.

Nepalese surgeon Sandut Ruit, who helped pioneer the technique, oversaw nearly 1,300 operations at two massive eye camps in 10 days in October, with dozens of local ophthalmologists looking on and helping.