Laboratory tests have confirmed resistance in three H7N9 bird flu patients to a common group of antiviral drugs including Tamiflu, said a study published by The Lancet on Tuesday.

The "apparent ease" with which resistance emerged in H7N9 viruses to the only available treatment is a cause for concern, said the Chinese researchers who conducted the study.

New synthetic psychoactive substances are making their way into Europe where the Internet is becoming a big challenge in the fight against illicit drugs, the continent's drug agency warned Tuesday.

Drug use in Europe remains high even though the consumption of cannabis and cocaine appears to be slowing, as is new heroin use, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said in its annual report.

Women who smoke and drink heavily are at a higher risk of early death than men who do the same, a study said Tuesday.

Data taken from a Europe-wide survey of some 380,000 people aged 40 and older, revealed that women faced a disproportional risk from the already well-known ill effects of heavy alcohol and tobacco use.

A Chinese province is likely to abolish mandatory HIV tests for teachers, the first region on the mainland to do so, state media said Tuesday.

HIV carriers are excluded from civil service jobs including teaching and policing in many provinces across China, leading to accusations of discrimination from rights groups.

An 81-year-old woman who had contracted a SARS-like coronavirus has died in Saudi Arabia, raising the death toll in the kingdom to 18, the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

"An 81-year-old woman who was suffering from kidney failure as well as other chronic illnesses has died" in the eastern Al-Ahsaa region of oil-rich Saudi Arabia after contracting the virus, it said.

South Korea's obsession with plastic surgery is moving on from standard eye and nose jobs to embrace a radical surgical procedure that requires months of often painful recovery.

A stream of celebrities boast on TV shows how it gave them a "new life," while advertisements extolling its cosmetic benefits are everywhere from street billboards to subway stations, magazines and popular Internet sites.

Research in teens adds fresh evidence that the 1980s "crack baby" scare was overblown, finding little proof of any major long-term ill effects in children whose mothers used cocaine during pregnancy.

Some studies have linked pregnant women's cocaine use with children's behavior difficulties, attention problems, anxiety and worse school performance. But the effects were mostly small and may have resulted from other factors including family problems or violence, parents' continued drug use and poverty, the researchers said.

Four separate teams of scientists have said they were unable to replicate a highly publicized study that last year touted a cancer drug's success against Alzheimer's disease in mice.

"We wanted to repeat the study to see if we could build on it, and we couldn't," said David Borchelt, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Florida, noting that "it was important to publish the fact."

The World Health Organization voiced deep concern Thursday over the SARS-like virus that has killed 22 people in less than a year, saying it might potentially spread more widely between humans.

"We have a high level of concern over the potential... for this virus to have sustainable person-to-person spread," WHO deputy chief Keiji Fukuda told diplomats gathered in Geneva for the World Health Assembly, the U.N. agency's decision-making body.

Finnish researchers unveiled new data Thursday to link the Pandemrix flu vaccine to a higher risk of the sleeping disorder narcolepsy in adults

Finnish researchers unveiled new data Thursday to link the Pandemrix flu vaccine to a higher risk of the sleeping disorder narcolepsy in adults.