Virus-caused hepatitis has become a leading cause of death and disability in the world, killing more people in a year than AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, a report said Thursday.

Deaths from infection, liver disease and cancer caused by viral hepatitis increased by 63 percent from 890,000 in 1990 to 1.45 million in 2013, according to a review of data collected in 183 countries.

Uruguay will this month start signing up smokers to buy marijuana from pharmacies in the world's first scheme for state-production and sale of the drug, an official source said Wednesday.

The leftist government has begun harvesting its own marijuana and aims to start selling it in mid-August, the source told AFP.

Apple on Tuesday announced that the coming version of software for iPhones will include an easy way for people in the US to become organ donors.

The California-based technology giant said that it collaborated with Donate Live America on a feature in an iPhone Health app that will let users sign up to donate eyes, organs or tissue after the release later this year of mobile operating system iOS 10

The Obama administration on Tuesday emphasized the need for funding to treat opioid and heroin addiction, releasing new statistics showing explosive growth in overdose deaths.

From 2010 to 2014, the number of heroin overdose deaths in the United States more than tripled, while deaths from opioid drugs such as fentanyl -- which killed the singer Prince -- almost doubled, according to a new report by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Haiti's Ministry of Health and the United Nations launched a new anti-HIV/AIDS campaign Friday, providing information and rapid testing to help thwart the spread of the epidemic.

Saudi Arabia's government has allocated 800 places to Sierra Leone for hajj pilgrims, lifting a two-year ban imposed due to the Ebola crisis, officials said Friday.

Ethiopia needs to toss out 69 million condoms that were paid for by international donors to fight the spread of AIDS because of their poor quality, local media reported Thursday.

Dutch anti-cigarette campaigners Thursday launched a lawsuit against the government calling for an end to spaces reserved for smokers in cafes and bars.

Global opium production plunged almost 40 percent last year but the world remains awash with heroin, the narcotic that still kills the most people worldwide, the United Nations said Thursday.

"Heroin continues to be the drug that kills the most people and this resurgence must be addressed urgently," said Yury Fedotov, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in a new report.

Like many autistic children, Julian Brown has trouble reading emotions in people's faces, one of the biggest challenges for people with the neurological disorder.

Now the 10-year-old San Jose boy is getting help from "autism glass" — an experimental device that records and analyzes faces in real time and alerts him to the emotions they're expressing.