Portugal on Wednesday tightened its abortion laws, adopting a bill aimed at making women pay to end a pregnancy and requirements for more stringent tests before the procedure.

The governing center-right coalition backed the move to introduce fees during a final, heated session of parliament that prompted jeers from opposition lawmakers.

A partially sighted British pensioner has had most of his vision restored thanks to a "bionic eye" -- a device that converts video images from a miniature camera installed in his glasses to his brain.

The University of Manchester announced the success of the operation on retired engineer Ray Flynn in a statement on Wednesday, saying it was a world first for the 80-year-old's particular condition.

A cure for HIV remains elusive, but scientists say the hunt is more hopeful than ever, based on the prospects of new research described at the International AIDS Society conference this week.

Scientists reported on progress on gene therapy and using antibodies to neutralize HIV, research into why some HIV-infected people are able to stay in remission off drugs after treatment, and a hypothesis that vaccines, yet to be invented, could be used to "shock and kill" the virus in HIV-infected people.

Six new wheelchairs are lined up near the entrance of the Beautiful Gate Handicapped People's Centre in the central Nigerian city of Jos.

The chairs' new owners -- all of them polio survivors -- crawl one by one to the three-wheeled machines with flip-flops on their hands, dragging atrophied, twisted legs and feet behind them.

New research suggests poor sleep may increase people's risk of Alzheimer's disease, by spurring a brain-clogging gunk that in turn further interrupts shut-eye.

Disrupted sleep may be one of the missing pieces in explaining how a hallmark of Alzheimer's, a sticky protein called beta-amyloid, starts its damage long before people have trouble with memory, researchers reported Monday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference.

The recent outbreak of the deadly MERS virus in South Korea has left the country's tourist industry in intensive care, with visitor numbers plunging more than 40 percent in June, according to data released Tuesday.

As the country scrabbles to come up with promotional campaigns to lure the tourists back, officials are warning that the cost in lost revenue could be close to $10 billion.

Cholera in war-torn South Sudan has spread to another state, with at least 39 dead since an outbreak was declared last month, the World Heath Organization (WHO) said Tuesday.

A total of 1,212 cholera cases including 39 deaths have been recorded, according to WHO figures, with the highly contagious infection spreading from the capital Juba in Central Equatoria to neighboring Jonglei state, one of the worst-affected areas by the 19-month civil war.

Despite evidence that taking powerful anti-HIV drugs can help protect uninfected partners from contracting the virus that causes AIDS, the therapy is far from becoming routinely prescribed, scientists said Monday.

The practice, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, means that a healthy person who engages in sex with an HIV-positive partner takes anti-retroviral drugs daily as a preventive measure to ward off HIV.

A French teenager born with HIV has been in remission for 12 years after stopping her medication, a world first that renews hope for the prospect of early treatment, researchers said Monday.

The young woman, now 18, is not considered cured, but is doing perfectly well off treatment, said the research led by Asier Saez-Cirion of the HIV, Inflammation and Persistence Unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

The U.N. appealed on Monday for $20 million to stem outbreaks of bird flu in West Africa, a region still weakened by the Ebola crisis.

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO) said it needed the funds (18.45 million euros) to respond swiftly to outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu, without which the poultry virus would spread beyond the region.