Treatment combining low-dose chemotherapy and the targeted drug trastuzumab showed promise in women with early stage breast cancer of a type called HER2-positive, U.S. researchers said Wednesday.

Women receiving the treatment were highly unlikely to see their cancer return, said the study in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing a regimen that including the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel and the targeted drug under the brand name Herceptin.

The Vatican is increasing assistance to Western African countries hard-hit by the Ebola virus, setting aside 3 million euros ($3.55 million) to fund protective gear for care-givers, transport for sick patients and care for orphans left behind.

Vatican charity organizations and offices that deal with the developing world issued a joint mission statement Wednesday on beefing up the Catholic Church's response to the Ebola crisis in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The three west African countries worst hit by the Ebola epidemic should be leading the response against the killer virus, the U.N.'s new mission chief on the disease said Wednesday, condemning "a problem of coordination" in the fightback.

"The governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are the ones who are driving... this is about their people, this is about the fate of their countries, we should acknowledge that national leadership," said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the new head of the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).

A Japanese firm said Thursday it was recalling tens of thousands of pouches of baby food after an insect was discovered in one package, the latest food scare to rock consumers.

Asahi Holdings said its subsidiary would be calling back an estimated 120,000 bags of the meat-and-potatoes mix after one was found to contain a cricket, a small grasshopper-like insect.

A new gadget aimed at preventing heat-related deaths of infants in parked cars is on show at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Voxx Electronics's alert system is aimed at preventing absent-minded parents from leaving children alone in sweltering temperatures.

Could the Sun be your lucky -- or unlucky -- star?

In an unusual study published Wednesday, Norwegian scientists said people born during periods of solar calm may live longer, as much as five years on average, than those who enter the world when the Sun is feisty.

Experts will gather in Geneva this week to review progress on possible vaccines against the deadly Ebola virus, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The international health community is desperately trying to find a vaccine to fight the virus, which continues to rage in west Africa where it has killed more than 8,200 people.

U.S. pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson said Tuesday that it has started human trials on a possible vaccine against Ebola.

The Phase I testing is being carried out by the Oxford Vaccine Group at Britain's Oxford University. 

Syria is facing a "medical and humanitarian disaster" after nearly four years of war have gutted the country's healthcare system, leading to a return of eradicated diseases, a group of Syrian doctors said in Paris Monday.

A lack of doctors, supplies and drugs have plunged the country back into the medical dark ages, with polio and scabies back with a vengeance as many children are no longer vaccinated, while the majority of births take place at home.

People who eat more whole grains are more likely to live longer and avoid heart disease, but such a diet does not affect risk of dying from cancer, said a U.S. study released Monday. 

The findings by researchers at Harvard University appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine.