Cambodia officially banned selling and exporting locally-pumped human breast milk on Tuesday, after reports exposed how women were turning to the controversial trade to boost meagre incomes in one of Southeast Asia's poorest countries. 

The order comes after Cambodia temporarily halted breast milk exports by the Utah-based Ambrosia Labs, which claims to be the first firm to source the product from overseas and distribute it in the United States.

Medical NGOs mounted a new legal bid Monday to break a US pharma giant's hold on a hepatitis C drug whose price -- costing thousands of dollars for a typical course -- has unleashed a fierce patent battle.

The wail sliced through the stuffy underground medical center in a besieged town near the Syrian capital. Dania, 14, was writhing in pain ahead of her first ever dialysis session.

She was one of dozens of patients being treated for renal insufficiency inside a basement-turned-clinic in Douma, the largest town in the Eastern Ghouta rebel bastion near Damascus.

The United Nations has raised less than a third of the funding needed to prevent famine in Somalia, a spokesman has said, ahead of a Security Council meeting on the crisis in the drought-hit country.

The humanitarian crisis is worsening in Somalia with more than 300 deaths from cholera and diarrhea since the beginning of the year, according to U.N. figures.

Nine women are believed to have died in the United States from a rare cancer linked to breast implants, US health officials said Tuesday, with more than 350 cases of the disease recorded nationwide.

UNICEF on Wednesday condemned a company selling breast milk from "vulnerable and poor" Cambodian mothers to Americans, hitting out at the commercialization of nutrients needed by babies inside the kingdom.

A protein in the venom of potentially deadly funnel web spiders could minimize the effects of brain damage after a stroke, researchers in Australia said on Tuesday.

Strokes claim six million lives worldwide each year, and five million survivors are left with a permanent disability.

A Palestinian woman gave birth on Thursday to conjoined twin sisters who share a heart, her husband said, as he  launched an urgent search for funds to pay for their surgical separation abroad. 

Mozambique is battling a cholera outbreak that has infected 1,222 people and killed two, the country's health ministry said Tuesday, warning that it has been unable to slow its spread.

About 14 million fewer Americans will have health insurance next year under the new Republican plan as compared to the current system, Congress' nonpartisan budget analysis office projected Monday. 

"In 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under the legislation than under current law," the Congressional Budget Office said in its highly-anticipated report.