A new vaccine being rolled out in the "meningitis belt" that stretches across north-central Africa has reduced cases of the potentially fatal disease by 94 percent, doctors reported on Thursday in The Lancet.

Researchers monitored the spread of type A meningococcal disease in Chad after the new vaccine, MenAfriVac, had been approved by world health watchdogs in 2010.

Somali-born activist and former supermodel Waris Dirie on Wednesday opens a center in Germany to treat victims of female genital mutilation, which she was subjected to as a child.

About 8,000 young girls are circumcised every day in Africa and the Middle East, and the Desert Flower Medical Center, located in a Berlin hospital, will offer reconstructive surgery and psychological help to those among the 50,000 girls and women in Germany who need it.

New research suggests it might be possible to spot early signs of multiple sclerosis in patients' spinal fluid, findings that offer a new clue about how this mysterious disease forms.

The study released Tuesday was small and must be verified by additional research. But if it pans out, the finding suggests scientists should take a closer look at a different part of the brain than is usually linked to MS.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a positive review of a breast cancer drug from Roche that could soon become the first pharmaceutical option approved for treating early-stage disease before surgery.

In documents posted online, FDA scientists said women who received the drug Perjeta as initial treatment for breast cancer were more likely to be cancer-free at the time of surgery than women who received older drug combinations. Although the results come from mid-stage trials of the drug, FDA scientists recommended accelerating approval of the drug.

President Enrique Pena Nieto's plan to tax sugary drinks to curb Mexico's obesity epidemic earned him praise Tuesday from New York's mayor and health advocates but soda makers slammed it as ineffective.

Pena Nieto wants Mexicans to pay an extra peso (almost 8 U.S. cents) for every liter of sweetened drink in a country that guzzles more soft drinks than any other and rivals the United States for the dubious honor of world's most obese nation.

Hard-hitting ads featuring first-person stories from former smokers prompted more than 200,000 Americans to immediately give up tobacco, said the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in a study published Monday.

Half that number are likely to stay off tobacco forever, according to the study that appeared in British medical journal The Lancet.

A U.S. study Monday measuring fathering habits and testicle size suggested that bigger may not be better when it comes to the day-to-day raising of small children.

The research involved 70 U.S. men of varying ethnicities -- most were Caucasian, five were Asian and 15 were African-American. All were the fathers of children aged one to two.

The broadest study of its kind has exposed an entrenched culture of coercive sex among men in six countries of the Asia-Pacific, researchers said on Tuesday.

Reporting in the journal The Lancet Global Health, investigators pointed to startling evidence from interviews with more than 10,000 men in Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea.

A study of mercury contamination from rampant informal gold mining in Peru's Amazon says indigenous people who get their protein mostly from fish are the most affected, particularly their children.

The new research detailed Monday by the Carnegie Institution for Science found mercury levels above acceptable limits in 76.5 percent of the people living in the Madre de Dios region, both rural and urban populations.

Philippines officials on Sunday warned the public against using unlicensed Chinese-made lipsticks and fake copies purporting to be legitimate brands as they may contain high levels of lead.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an advisory saying the products were being sold widely on the streets of many urban areas without the agency's approval.