A Nobel prize-winning scientist Tuesday played down "shock-horror scenarios" that a new virus strain will emerge with the potential to kill millions of people.

Peter Doherty, who jointly won the Nobel prize in 1996 for his work on how the immune system combats virus-infected cells, said the worst-case scenario was a new virus with a high mortality rate that was also highly infectious.

No new human cases of the H7N9 virus have been recorded in China for a week, national health authorities said, for the first time since the outbreak began in March.

One previously infected patient died in the week beginning May 13, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a statement late Monday, taking the total number of fatalities from the virus to 36.

It is impossible to predict the evolution of China's human H7N9 bird flu outbreak as researchers are still trying to understand the source of human transmission, the head of the World Health Organisation said Monday.

According to the latest official data, H7N9 avian influenza has infected 130 people in China, and killed 35, since it was found in humans for the first time in March.

Syria's pharmaceutical industry once catered to 90 percent of the population's needs, but a shortage of foreign currency has brought production to a near halt, a pro-regime daily reported on Monday.

The central bank previously provided local industries with foreign currency at preferential rates to help finance the import of raw materials.

The devastating effect of Alzheimer's disease on bilingual people has been thrown into focus in Canada, where the sudden loss of a second language can leave sufferers feeling like strangers in their own country.

Despite increasing evidence that bilingualism can actually delay the onset of dementia, those grappling with the ravages of the disease often find themselves isolated by the lack of essential services in their language of choice.

The hunt for an HIV vaccine has gobbled up $8 billion in the past decade, and the failure of the most recent efficacy trial has delivered yet another setback to 26 years of efforts.

With the next attempts expected to be years away, top researchers now say there is a "void" or a "gap" in current clinical trial efforts to test whether a vaccine may be safe and effective in people.

Aid organisation Oxfam warned on Monday that the warmer weather will increase health-related risks for hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, and appealed for urgent funds.

With temperatures set to soar up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), and as refugees continue to flee to Jordan and Lebanon, "the health risks must be urgently addressed," Oxfam said in a statement.

China's human H7N9 bird flu outbreak has cost the country's poultry industry more than 400 billion yuan ($65 billion) as consumers shun chicken, government officials said according to state media Monday.

The sector has been losing an average of one billion yuan a day since the end of March, the Beijing Times said, citing Li Xirong, head of the National Animal Husbandry Service.

Lawyers for the founder of French firm PIP whose faulty breast implants sparked a global health scare denied wrongdoing Friday as the court said it would deliver a verdict in December.

In closing arguments, the defence called for a lighter sentence than the four-years imprisonment requested by prosecutors.

Europe's medicines watchdog said Friday the benefits of acne drug Diane-35, also widely used as a contraceptive, outweigh the risk of developing blood clots in the veins -- when correctly prescribed.

The clot risk was "low", said a European Medicines Agency (EMA) ruling on a French-initiated review of the drug's safety.