The European Union said Saturday it was ready to increase assistance to the World Health Organization (WHO) if an outbreak of polio is confirmed in war-ravaged Syria.

U.N. agencies are stepping up efforts to vaccinate children in Syria against a host of diseases and the WHO has received reports of 22 cases of acute flaccid paralysis (Agence France Presse), possibly caused by the poliovirus.

A Catholic bishop exposed some parishioners to hepatitis while giving communion in five different churches in late September and early October, the diocese said Friday.

Bishop John Folda said exposure to the disease was accidental in a statement apologizing to parishioners.

French lawmakers on Thursday approved a tax on energy drinks such as Red Bull over health concerns, amid growing claims that high-caffeine products are hazardous to young people.

Last month, the country's food safety agency recommended that children and teenagers avoid having popular drinks such as Red Bull, Monster and burn, and that these not be consumed with alcohol or during intense physical activity.

The Sudanese government has agreed to let United Nations workers vaccinate tens of thousands of children against polio in the violence-wracked South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, the world body said Thursday.

United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan Ali al-Zaatari said the vaccination campaign would begin on November 5.

A transgender U.S. woman who claimed to be a surgeon and reportedly injected adhesives and cement into a woman's bottom was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail.

Oneal Ron Morris, 32, accepted a plea deal for one count of illegal practice of health care in what became known as the "toxic tush" case, in Miami Gardens, Florida.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended tighter controls Thursday on how doctors prescribe the most commonly used narcotic painkillers, in a bid to stop abuse.

The move would allow widely abused opioid analgesic drugs containing the narcotic hydrocodone to be controlled strictly as powerful painkillers such as OxyContin.

Cholera has killed nine people and infected 100 others this month in Namu village in Nigeria's central Plateau state, a senior health official said Wednesday.

"Over 96 persons have been infected by cholera and hospitalized... while nine persons have lost their lives as a result of the outbreak of the disease," state epidemiologist, Raymond Yuryit, told journalists.

Doctors now have convincing evidence that they put HIV into remission, hopefully for good, in a Mississippi baby born with the AIDS virus — a medical first that is prompting a new look at how hard and fast such cases should be treated.

The case was reported earlier this year but some doctors were skeptical that the baby was really infected rather than testing positive because of exposure to virus in the mom's blood.

Strokes are increasingly hitting younger people and the incidence of the crippling condition worldwide could double by 2030, warns the first global analysis of the problem.

Though the chances of a stroke jump dramatically with age, the growing number of younger people with worrying risk factors such as bulging waistlines, diabetes and high blood pressure means they are becoming increasingly susceptible.

A Honduran dengue fever epidemic has killed 27 people so far this year and infected some 31,960 individuals, health officials said Wednesday.

A total of 18 men and nine women have died in one of the country's worst bout of the disease in terms of fatalities, according to Bredy Lara, director of surveillance for the health ministry.