The fight against HIV AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria will cost some $87 billion (67 billion euros) between 2014-16 if the three scourges are to be kept in check, a report showed Monday.

The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said it estimated $87 billion was needed to "provide essential services for effective treatment ... to vulnerable populations."

South Africa's health minister on Monday launched a new single dose anti-AIDs drug which will simplify the world's biggest HIV treatment regime to just one life-saving pill a day.

The three-in-one combination anti-retroviral (ARV) was secured at a record-low price and will cost the state 89 rand a month ($10, eight euros) per patient.

There may be nearly four times as many people infected with the tropical disease dengue globally than was previously believed, according to a new study.

The World Health Organization has estimated there are about 50 million to 100 million cases of dengue, also known as "break-bone fever," every year. But new research puts the number at around 390 million — though about two-thirds of those people have only mild illness and don't need medical attention. The study was published online Sunday in the journal Nature.

There is no proof that the H7N9 bird flu virus is being transmitted between people in China, the World Health Organization said Monday, despite several members of a family falling ill in Shanghai.

China announced just over a week ago that the virus had been found in humans for the first time, and the number of confirmed cases has since risen to 21, with six deaths.

A former top Kosovo health ministry official on trial for organ trafficking on Friday admitted that illegal kidney transplants were carried out at a Pristina clinic, but denied covering them up.

Ilir Rrecaj told an EU-led panel of judges that the "transplants happened, but there was no licence for (them)" at the Medicus clinic.

The United Nations on Friday presented a list of recommendations, including a strict hygiene culture and keeping different breeds of animals apart, to try to curb the spreading of the H7N9 flu virus which has killed six people in China.

"With the virus harder to detect, good biosecurity measures become even more essential to reducing the risk of virus transmission to humans and animals," said Juan Lubroth, the chief veterinary officer of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

After a decade-long battle over access to emergency contraception, a federal judge ordered U.S. regulators Friday to make the morning-after pill available over the counter without age limits.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman ruled that a 2011 decision by the chief of U.S. Health and Human Services to require teens under 17 to obtain a prescription was "politically motivated" and "scientifically unjustified."

A second Chinese city culled birds Saturday to prevent the spread of H7N9 avian influenza, which has killed six people in the country, as Shanghai's live poultry markets remained shut.

China has confirmed 16 cases of the H7N9 strain, the health ministry said, since announcing a week ago that the virus had been found in humans for the first time.

British scientists have used a custom-made 3D printer to make living tissue-like material that could one day serve medical purposes, according to findings released Thursday.

The material is made up of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films, that can carry out some of the functions of human cells.

Shanghai ordered all live poultry markets in the city closed on Friday after culling more than 20,000 birds to curb the spread of the H7N9 flu virus, which has killed six people in China.

The latest fatality was a 64-year-old farmer who died in Huzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, local officials said according to the state Xinhua news agency.