An outbreak of swine flu has left 33 people dead in two provinces of southwestern Iran in the last three weeks, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

IRNA quoted Deputy Health Minister Ali Akbar Sayyari as saying there had been 28 deaths in Kerman province and five in Sistan-Baluchistan and warning the H1N1 virus was likely to spread to other areas including the capital Tehran. 

Indian authorities were investigating possible negligence after 18 hospital patients died when rainwaters from massive floods in southern Tamil Nadu state knocked out generators and switched off ventilators.

The patients were in the intensive care unit at MIOT International hospital in the state capital of Chennai when floodwaters seeped into the room with the generators, cutting off power to the building and the ventilators earlier this week, state Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan said Saturday.

Canada will next year become the first country in the G7 bloc of leading economies to legalize marijuana, the government said Friday in a speech by the governor general.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had promised the move during the recent election campaign that swept his Liberals to power, after two previous administrations failed to follow through on a similar pledge.

Liberia has released its last two known Ebola cases from hospital and started the countdown to being declared free of the virus for a third time, authorities said on Friday.

The patients, released from a treatment unit (ETU) in the capital Monrovia on Thursday, are the father and younger brother of a 15-year-old boy who died on November 23. 

Human cells or embryos that undergo a process of gene-editing must not be used to establish a pregnancy, an international scientific panel said Thursday, urging strict limits on the controversial research. 

The statement by the organizing committee for the International Summit on Human Gene Editing was issued after three days of meetings in the U.S. capital to discuss the promise and dangers of new gene-editing techniques that make it possible to alter genetic traits and potentially end certain illnesses.

An unlicensed Cambodian doctor was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday after he was found guilty of infecting more than 200 people with HIV, including some who later died.

The case has shone a spotlight on the chronically underfunded healthcare system in the impoverished nation where many have to rely on self-taught or unlicensed medics to receive treatment.

HIV-positive Israelis will be conscripted into the military for the first time, the army said Wednesday, a move welcomed by gay rights groups as an important step against discrimination.

While Israeli Jews are required to do military service, people with HIV have long been exempt on medical grounds.

Efforts to get lifesaving antiretrovial drugs to HIV-positive patients in many sub-Saharan African countries are routinely failing at "the last mile", an international medical group said Monday.

Despite stocks being available, the drugs often do not reach clinics because of "cumbersome procedures, logistical challenges or lack of resources," Medicins Sans Frontieres said in a report released at the International Conference on AIDS and STI (sexually transmitted infections) in Africa in Harare.

The Brazilian health ministry confirmed Saturday that there was a link between cases of microcephaly, a head deformity, in babies and the Zika virus, transmitted by mosquitoes that spread dengue.

The outbreak of microcephaly in northeastern Brazil "is a unique situation in global scientific research," the agency said in a statement.

With Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg about to become a dad, the social network boosted the amount of time fathers can take off to bond with their new babies.

Beginning with the new year, dads working full-time for Facebook anywhere in the world will have the option of taking four months' paid leave.