Health Minister Wael Abou Faour urged the people on Monday to adopt a number of precautions when tackling the ongoing trash disposal crisis.

He called on them against burning waste that has overflowed in dumpsters, warning of cancer hazards it presents.

As he manoeuvres his taxi through the barely moving traffic of downtown Yangon, Myo Min Htaike's jaw methodically pounds a pulpy mass of nuts and tobacco, his teeth stained a dark blood-red.

Plying his trade in the seemingly eternal gridlock of Myanmar's now booming commercial hub, he is more than used to spending long days on the roads and "kun ja" -- better known as betel nut or quid -- is the one thing that keeps him going. 

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has unveiled a post-Ebola "battle plan" to help the west African country turn the page on the devastating epidemic.

"Beyond the immediate nine-month recovery period, we will commence a two-year plan during which we must resolve to restore Sierra Leone to the path to prosperity," Koroma said in a statement released Friday.

The latest Alzheimer's research has a clear theme: Change your lifestyle to protect your brain.

It will take several years for scientists to prove whether some experimental drugs could at least delay Alzheimer's disease, and an aging population is at risk now.

U.S. regulators on Friday approved a new cholesterol drug called Praluent, made by Sanofi and Regeneron, for people with certain genetic risk factors for heart disease.

The injectable drug is the first of its kind to gain approval on the U.S. market, and offers an alternative to popular pill-based statins.

Exercise may do more than keep a healthy brain fit: New research suggests working up a good sweat may also offer some help once memory starts to slide— and even improve life for people with Alzheimer's.

The effects were modest, but a series of studies reported Thursday found vigorous workouts by people with mild memory impairment decreased levels of a warped protein linked to risk of later Alzheimer's — and improved quality of life for people who already were in early stages of the disease.

European regulators on Friday gave the go-ahead for the world's most advanced malaria candidate vaccine, despite mixed results from a years-long trial on nearly 15,500 children in seven African countries.

The London-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement it had adopted "a positive scientific opinion for Mosquirix... for use outside the European Union". The drug is also known as RTS,S.

The U.S. military shipped live anthrax samples to dozens of facilities in the country and to seven other nations over the past decade, a government report found Thursday, blaming faulty specimen killing and poor testing.

In all, 86 labs have received live anthrax specimens since 2005, the report said, following up on an embarrassing mistake for the military.

Two inexpensive classes of drugs available in generic form each reduce the recurrence of breast cancer in post-menopausal women as well as death rates from the disease, a pair of studies reported Friday.

Taking the medications together may further boost anti-cancer benefits and help cancel out undesirable side-effects of one of the drugs, according to the research published in medical journal The Lancet.

A 560-pound (254-kilogram) man biking across the United States to lose weight hit a snag in Rhode Island.

The Newport Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1JfwEFz ) a bent rim on Eric Hites' bicycle has kept him in Tiverton since late last week, 90 miles (145 kilometers) from where his ride began in Falmouth, Massachusetts.