A rebel-held area of Syria has been hit by an outbreak of typhoid after power cuts hit water supplies and forced the population to turn to the Euphrates River, the U.N.'s health agency warned Tuesday.

Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman for the World Health Organization, told Agence France Presse that some 2,500 people had caught the disease in the country's northeast.

A person suffering from a SARS-like virus has died in Britain, hospital officials said on Tuesday, becoming the sixth fatality from the illness worldwide.

The patient was being treated for so-called novel coronavirus at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, and died on Sunday, the hospital said.

Children who watch excessive amounts of television are more likely to have criminal convictions and show aggressive personality traits as adults, a New Zealand study has found.

The University of Otago study tracked the viewing habits of about 1,000 children born in the early 1970s from when they were aged five to 15, then followed up when the subjects were 26 years old to assess potential impacts.

Swiss giant Nestle has become the latest food company hit by Europe's horsemeat scandal, announcing it is removing two pasta meals from supermarket shelves in Italy and Spain due to contamination.

The news came Monday as German discount chain Lidl pulled ready-made meals from the shelves of its Finnish, Danish and Swedish stores as it also confirmed the presence of horsemeat.

New Zealand announced plans Tuesday to force tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in plain packaging, becoming only the second country in the world after Australia to introduce the measure.

Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia said banning tobacco branding and selling cigarettes in drab boxes plastered with explicit health warnings "will remove the last remaining vestige of glamour from these deadly products".

A one-week-old baby in Indonesia has died from respiratory complications after being turned away from 10 hospitals, her street vendor father said Monday, adding he could not pay what some demanded.

Dera Nur Anggraini was born prematurely with her twin sister Dara on February 10, with a throat deformity that obstructed her breathing, said father Elias Setya Nugroho.

Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

Thousands of Spanish doctors, nurses and other health care workers, many wearing white lab coats, demonstrated Sunday in 16 cities against budget cuts and plans to partly privatize medical services.

Several thousand people marched to Madrid's central Plaza de Cibeles from 27 hospitals in the region, waving signs that read "Your health is being sold" and "Cutting back on health care is a crime".

Outraged by adverts urging women to bleach their skin, a spontaneous movement has emerged in Senegal arguing that black is beautiful -- and to act otherwise is to risk one's health.

The campaign sprang up in response to advertisements that appeared in the capital Dakar last year for a cosmetic cream called "Khess Petch", or "all white" in the local Wolof language.

Bulgaria on Saturday ordered lasagne dishes pulled from the shelves as they may contain horsemeat, adding another country to those affected by the Europe-wide scandal over mislabeled meat.

Bulgaria's food safety agency said it had ordered 86 kilograms of meat lasagne dishes to be withdrawn by a supermarket chain it did not identify.