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After bans, American women turn to an abortion hotline

The phone has been ringing nonstop for a year. Linda Prine, a New York doctor, repeats her advice on a loop: "Make sure you're drinking plenty of fluids;" "Take some ibuprofen;" "Everything's fine, you can relax."

The Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, which Prine co-founded, is now staffed by around 70 health care professionals on a voluntary rotational basis, providing advice and fielding questions from American women seeking to end their pregnancies.

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France to 're-shore' production of 50 key medicines

France will bring home production of around 50 crucial medications for which it currently depends on imports, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday, hoping to battle shortages of items like antibiotics and paracetamol.

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COVID-19 inquiry in UK asks whether 'terrible consequences' could have been avoided

A mammoth three-year public inquiry into the U.K. government's handling of the response to COVID-19 opened Tuesday by asking whether suffering and death could have been avoided with better planning.

Lawyer Hugo Keith, who is counsel to the inquiry, said the coronavirus pandemic had brought "death and illness on an unprecedented scale" in modern Britain. He said that COVID-19 has been recorded as a cause of death for 226,977 people in the U.K.

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In Canada, each cigarette will get a warning label: 'poison in every puff'

Canada will soon become the first country in the world where warning labels must appear on individual cigarettes.

The move was first announced last year by Health Canada and is aimed at helping people quit the habit. The regulations take effect Aug. 1 and will be phased in. King-size cigarettes will be the first to feature the warnings and will be sold in stores by the end of July 2024, followed by regular-size cigarettes, and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes by the end of April 2025.

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Sweden close to becoming first 'smoke free' country in Europe

Summer is in the air, cigarette smoke is not, in Sweden's outdoor bars and restaurants.

As the World Health Organization marks "World No Tobacco Day" on Wednesday, Sweden, which has the lowest rate of smoking in the Europe Union, is close to declaring itself "smoke free" — defined as having fewer than 5% daily smokers in the population.

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1 in 10 get long COVID after omicron, starts identifying key symptoms

About 10% of people appear to suffer long COVID after an omicron infection, a lower estimate than earlier in the pandemic, according to a study of nearly 10,000 Americans that aims to help unravel the mysterious condition.

Early findings from the National Institutes of Health's study highlight a dozen symptoms that most distinguish long COVID, the catchall term for the sometimes debilitating health problems that can last for months or years after even a mild case of COVID-19.

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Hundreds of millions of life years lost to pandemic

Nearly 337 million life years were lost in the two first years of the Covid-19 pandemic, as millions of people died prematurely, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

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UN says one billion threatened by cholera

A billion people in 43 countries are at risk of cholera, the United Nations warned Friday, and though the outbreaks could be stopped, the United Nations said resources were desperately lacking.

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Study: Simple measures can prevent million baby deaths a year

Providing simple and cheap healthcare measures to pregnant women -- such as offering aspirin -- could prevent more than a million babies from being stillborn or dying as newborns in developing countries every year, new research said on Tuesday.

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Ukraine, Sudan conflicts fuel alarming surge in tuberculosis

Top U.N. officials, health industry leaders and activists have demanded that the world invest more to develop new vaccines and tackle a surge in tuberculosis fueled by the impact of COVID-19 and conflicts including Ukraine and Sudan.

At a crowded meeting punctuated by activists chanting "End TB Now," there were speeches from many TB sufferers and a keynote by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, who spoke about how her father passed on tuberculosis to her two-year-old sister: TB claimed his life at the age of 60, but her sister, now 50, is a survivor.

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