Lung damage caused by smoking could cause an additional 18 million cases of tuberculosis and 40 million extra deaths from TB by 2050, according to a study published on Tuesday in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

The estimates derive from a mathematic model of smoking trends and smoking's impact on TB risk.

Brazil on Tuesday approved the use of an anti-obesity medication, sibutramine, which has been banned in Europe and the United States, officials said.

The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) said it would halt sales of weight-loss medications which are based on amphetamines, but allow sibutramine under heightened surveillance.

Eighteen people have died and 100 people have fallen ill since late July in the United States from eating cantaloupes infected with listeria, health authorities said Tuesday.

Illnesses have been reported in 20 states due to the cantaloupes which came from the Colorado-based Jensen Farms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its latest update.

The number of young people having unprotected sex in the West has risen sharply over the past two years, a survey said Monday, with health professionals concerned the safe sex message is falling on deaf ears.

The study by the Parenthood Foundation showed particularly sharp increases among sexually active teenagers in the United States and in European countries such as France who were failing to use contraception with a new partner.

Lying on a hospital bed in her laced violet nightgown, Derya Sert is the first woman in the world to receive a womb from a deceased donor, raising hopes for millions of women to bear a child.

Doctors at Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey's southern province of Antalya successfully transplanted a womb on August 9 to Sert, 21, who was born without a uterus, like one in every 5,000 women around the world.

A rare virus has killed three people and sickened nearly 100 in Japan, the Philippines, the United States and the Netherlands over the past two years, U.S. health authorities said Friday.

The culprit is human enterovirus 68 (HEV68), and its respiratory symptoms can be particularly dangerous to children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Canada's top court on Friday ordered the federal health minister to allow North America's first government-sanctioned drug injection facility in Vancouver's seamy Downtown Eastside to remain open.

The InSite clinic in one of Canada's poorest neighborhoods is the only place on the continent where addicts can receive medical supervision as they inject heroin illegally bought on the street.

Between public health and public finances, the Greek government Friday tried to split the difference, allowing smoking in some night clubs and casinos in exchange for paying a special tax.

A law passed last year had banned smoking in night clubs and casinos -- a move to discourage the cigarette habit in a country that holds the European record for smokers.

Men with colon cancer tend to have more advanced tumors than women of the same age, according to a new study that suggests screening guidelines may need to be adjusted for sex and age.

Currently, men and women age 50 and older are urged to get acolonoscopy to screen for growths or polyps that could form into tumors. Colorectal cancer is the fourth leading cancer killer worldwide, taking 610,000 lives per year.

Pfizer Inc. and a pharmacy standards group are teaming to warn U.S. consumers about the risks of counterfeit prescription medicines, which endanger the public and take money from both pharmacies and legitimate drugmakers.

Pfizer Inc., whose impotence pill Viagra is widely counterfeited, and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy on Thursday announced the start of an educational campaign to explain the dangers of counterfeit drugs and help people find legitimate pharmacies online.