Argentina on Wednesday approved in-vitro fertilization for same-sex and heterosexual couples in the national health care system, in theory ending problems many had with affording the procedures.

The move comes as barriers to gay marriage and adoption have fallen in a number of countries across mostly Catholic Latin America. Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize gay marriage in 2010.

An Oregon company is recalling a frozen berry mix sold to Costco and Harris Teeter stores after the product has been linked to at least 49 hepatitis A illnesses in seven states.

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., is recalling its frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend, packaged under the Townsend Farms label at Costco and under the Harris Teeter brand at those stores.

The UN's food agency on Tuesday said obesity and poor nutrition weigh heavily on the global economy and told governments that investing in food health would bring big economic as well as social returns.

Lost productivity and spiralling health care bills linked to obesity cost the world economy around $1.4 trillion a year (1.1 trillion euros), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

Eight people initially thought to have contracted a SARS-like virus in Italy tested negative on Tuesday after a second round of controls, according to Italy's Superior Health Institute (ISS).

An infectious diseases clinic in Florence on Monday said around 10 people had tested positive for the virus, but added that the results would have to be double checked at the Health Institute.

A gastric bypass or other type of weight-loss surgery can help diabetics who are moderately obese but more proof is needed before promoting them on a wider scale, a study said Tuesday.

"Bariatric surgery for diabetic people who are not severely obese has shown promising results in controlling glucose," said Melinda Maggard-Gibbons, the study's lead author and a surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles.

New research from sunny Australia provides some of the strongest evidence to date that near-daily sunscreen use can slow the aging of skin.

Ultraviolet rays that spur wrinkles and other signs of aging can quietly build up damage pretty much anytime a person is in the sun — a lunchtime stroll, school recess, walking the dog — and they even penetrate car windows.

A seriously ill woman denied a medical abortion has had a successful cesarean section to deliver a baby that doctors have given little chance of surviving, El Salvador's Health Ministry announced late Monday.

The 22-year-old woman, known only as Beatriz for privacy reasons, underwent the operation in the afternoon after 27 weeks of pregnancy, the ministry said. Her baby girl was born without a brain.

Hidden away from the prying eyes of crowded Hong Kong, in school toilets, karaoke bars and public parks, young people are snorting a powerful and addictive drug -- ketamine.

Cheap and abundant, with a supply flooding across the border from the mainland, abuse reached such levels in the late 2000s that the city was dubbed the ketamine capital of the world.

Around 10 people in Italy have tested positive for a SARS-like virus but have presented no symptoms and have not been quarantined, an infectious diseases specialist told the ANSA news agency on Monday.

"They have not been isolated because they are not presenting with any symptoms," Alessandro Bartoloni of the Infectious Diseases clinic at Careggi hospital in Florence was quoted as saying.

Drugmaker Sanofi is abandoning two drugs in the late stages of development after trials revealed they weren't more effective than other therapies.

One drug, iniparib, was given to lung cancer patients in combination with chemotherapy and compared to treatments of chemotherapy alone. The company said Monday iniparib did not improve the patients' survival rate.