UK researchers have found a common childhood virus that can trigger DNA damage leading to bladder cancer later in life.

Tackling the virus early could open the door to preventing bladder cancer later, said the team from the University of York.

The study, published in Science Advances, revealed that after being contracted in childhood, the BK virus usually lies dormant in the kidney.

BK virus infections do not have obvious symptoms, but physicians have learned a lot about the virus from the experiences of kidney transplant recipients who have to take immunosuppressants to prevent the immune system from targeting their new kidney.

Vietnam's southern hub Ho Chi Minh City has reported a surge in hand-foot-mouth disease, with 32,637 cases recorded since early this year, up 64 per cent year-on-year, local daily Tuoi Tre reported Thursday.

From November 17 to 23, the city logged 1,547 cases, an increase of 15 per cent compared to the average of the previous four weeks, according to the municipal Department of Health.

Tang Chi Thuong, the department's director, said the Enterovirus 71 (EV71) pathogen had re-emerged in November, linked to severe hand-foot-mouth disease cases.

About 34 per cent of children aged under 5 are stunted, while 15 per cent are underweight, the government on Wednesday informed the Parliament, citing its ‘Poshan Tracker’ data.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur noted significant improvement in the malnutrition indicators in children across the country.

A total of 424 HIV carriers and AIDS patients are now living in Mongolia, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Monday.

A total of 36 new HIV cases were recorded in the first 11 months of 2025, the NCCD said in a statement issued in observance of World AIDS Day, marked annually on December 1.

The majority of the HIV-infected are aged between 20 and 44. About 99.7 per cent of the infections resulted from sexual transmission.

The first case of HIV infection in Mongolia was registered in 1992. Since then, 71 people have died of AIDS in the country with a population of 3.5 million, news agency reported.

Preventive measures and early testing are essential in the fight against HIV/AIDS, said Union Health Minister JP Nadda on World AIDS Day on Monday.

World AIDS Day is observed every year on December 1 to address the epidemic and the vulnerabilities faced by children and adolescent girls and young women, as well as to fight the stigma attached to the disease. The theme this year is "Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response".

Nadda also stated the need to fight misconceptions and stigma faced by people suffering from HIV.

An international team of scientists has found compelling evidence that early-infancy infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) significantly increases the risk of developing childhood asthma.

The risk is especially higher in children with a family history of allergy or asthma.

The study, published in the Science Immunology journal, suggests that protecting newborns against RSV could substantially reduce asthma cases later in life.

Bird flu viruses can replicate at temperatures higher than a typical fever -- one of the body's ways of stopping viruses in their tracks --, increasing the threat to humans, according to new research.

Human flu viruses, which cause seasonal flu, are known as influenza A viruses.

Fever protects against severe infection from human-origin flu viruses, with just a 2 degrees C increase in body temperature enough to turn a lethal infection into a mild disease.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Glasgow, UK, showed that while raising body temperature to fever levels is effective at stopping human-origin flu viruses from replicating, it is unlikely to stop avian or bird flu viruses.

 A team of Indian researchers has identified a rare USP18 gene mutation linked to recurrent neurological decline in children.

The rare USP18 gene mutation offers crucial insights into a neurological disorder previously documented in only 11 cases worldwide and now reported for the first time in India, according to the team from Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health, Bangalore, who conducted the research in collaboration with Ramjas College, University of Delhi, and Redcliffe Labs.

Pseudo-TORCH syndrome type 2 is a very rare inherited condition that affects how a child's brain grows and functions. Children with this disorder often show severe neurological symptoms that resemble congenital infections, but without any actual infection.

The number of babies born in South Korea increased for the 15th month straight in September, largely due to an increase in marriages, data showed on Wednesday.

A total of 22,369 babies were born in September, up 8.6 per cent from 20,589 babies born the same month last year, according to the data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics. The number of newborns has been on an upward trend since July 2024.

September's birth figure is the highest for any September since 2020, when 23,499 babies were born, reports Xinhua news agency.

A total of 191,040 babies were born between January and September, up 12,488 from the same period last year, marking the largest on-year increase for the first nine months of the year since 2007.

A new report released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) warns that the global HIV response has suffered its most significant setback in decades, urging reliance on solidarity, resilience, investment and innovation to achieve the goal of ending the AIDS epidemic.

Titled "Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response," the report highlights the severe impact of reduced international funding and a lack of global solidarity on HIV prevention efforts.

Abrupt cuts to international HIV aid in 2025 have worsened existing funding gaps, said the report, citing an estimate from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that indicates external health assistance is expected to fall by 30-40 per cent in 2025 compared with 2023, which will lead to immediate and increasingly severe disruptions to health services in low- and middle-income countries

Integrating palliative care into the public health system can help universalise access and improve healthcare, according to a study.

Palliative care is a branch of medicine that aims to prevent and relieve the physical, social, and spiritual suffering of patients suffering from chronic life-limiting illnesses and their caregivers.

The World Health Organisation defines palliative care as ‘an approach that improves the quality of life of patients (adults and children) and their families who are facing problems associated with life-threatening illness’.

Researchers in Australia have found that Parkinson's disease causes significant and progressive changes in the brain's blood vessels, changing the understanding of the disease.

While Parkinson's disease is characterised by alpha-synuclein protein deposits, the research demonstrated that region-specific changes to blood vessels in the brain underlie disease progression, news agency reported.

"Traditionally, Parkinson's researchers have focused on protein accumulation and neuronal loss, but we have shown the impacts on our cerebrovasculature -- the blood vessels in our brain," said Derya Dik, postdoctoral student at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA).

A natural compound found in long pepper can be an effective and cost-efficient agent against colon cancer cells, said researchers at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela on Tuesday.

Colon cancer is a disease in which the cells grow uncontrollably in the large intestine of the body, forming a tumour. It is one of the most common types of cancer globally. According to the World Health Organization, in 2022, nearly 1.9 million new cases and almost 900,000 deaths occurred due to colon cancer.

While various international cancer research studies have examined natural molecules’ activity towards a variety of cancers, the team at NIT Rourkela conducted a set of laboratory experiments to demonstrate the activity of Piperlongumine -- a natural compound -- as an alternative to chemotherapy.

Researchers in Australia have found that Parkinson's disease causes significant and progressive changes in the brain's blood vessels, changing the understanding of the disease, which may open up new treatment avenues.

While Parkinson's disease is characterised by alpha-synuclein protein deposits, this research has shifted understanding of the disease, demonstrating that region-specific changes to blood vessels in the brain underlie disease progression, Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) said in a media release on Tuesday.

"Traditionally, Parkinson's researchers have focused on protein accumulation and neuronal loss, but we have shown the impacts on our cerebrovasculature -- the blood vessels in our brain," said NeuRA postdoctoral student Derya Dik, who carried out the work.

The cardiac screening tools used currently may be missing out 45 per cent of people at actual risk of heart attacks, according to a new study.

The study, led by Mount Sinai researchers in the US, exposed a major flaw in patient care and showed that relying on risk scores and symptoms alone may not help prevent the risk of a heart attack.

The results, published in a brief report in the JACC: Advances, stressed the need to focus on the silently building plaque.

The Israeli Health Ministry said that an 18-month-old boy has died of measles, raising the death toll from an outbreak that began in early April to 10. Most of the victims were previously healthy, unvaccinated infants.

Tzafon Medical Centre near Tiberias said the child, who was not vaccinated, arrived at its emergency room in critical condition early Sunday and died despite resuscitation efforts.

According to data from the ministry, more than 2,000 measles cases have been confirmed in the current outbreak. Eleven patients are hospitalised, including two under intensive care.

Six members of a family, including two children, are in critical condition after accidentally consuming food cooked with acid in Ghatal, West Midnapore district, police said on Monday.

They are undergoing treatment at SSKM Hospital in Kolkata. Two of them are children. The incident took place in Ghatal of the West Midnapore district on Sunday.

The police said that Panchanan Mandal, the health officer of Ghatal Panchayat Samiti, rushed to the spot on receiving the information.

Local police and administration officials also went to the area to investigate how this incident took place.

The death toll from Ethiopia's Marburg virus disease outbreak has risen to five, the country's Ministry of Health has said.

In its latest update issued late Saturday, the ministry said the outbreak's case fatality rate now stands at 50 per cent. Two additional infections were confirmed after laboratory testing of seven suspected cases, bringing the total number of cases to 10.

As Ethiopia rolls out coordinated response measures to contain the country's first-ever Marburg virus outbreak, health authorities have conducted laboratory investigations on 53 suspected cases so far.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC), the national public health agency of America, has quietly taken up an anti-vaccine stand, hinting at the association between vaccines and autism. However, experts on Friday thwarted the claims.

Once a key opponent of growing global anti-vaccine sentiment, the change in CDC reflects an anti-vaccine stance by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which is also endorsed by President Donald Trump.

“The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism,” read the US CDC website.

India is undergoing the fastest ultra-processed food (UPF) sales growth, and the resulting dietary transition is surging obesity and diabetes cases, leading to poor health, according to a new three-paper Series published in The Lancet on Wednesday.

UPFs can be defined as food products mostly high in fat, sugar, and/or salt (HFSS), full of unwanted and harmful ingredients such as cosmetic additives like stablisers, emulsifiers, colorants, flavouring substances, etc. These are strongly linked to an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, depression, and premature death, among others.

The papers, by 43 global authors, showed that retail sales of UPFs in India surged from $0.9 billion in 2006 to nearly $38 billion in 2019 -- a forty-fold rise.

India is committed to reducing the burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a lung and airway disease that affects breathing, said Union Health Minister JP Nadda on World COPD Day on Tuesday.

COPD is a common lung disease that restricts airflow and is sometimes called emphysema or chronic bronchitis.

World COPD Day is an annual global initiative aimed at raising awareness about the preventable and treatable lung disease.

 A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Panjab University has developed a portable, automated optical device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of pesticide residues in water, food, and the environment that can pose serious risks to human and environmental health.

Conventional laboratory methods for detecting such residues, particularly the commonly used organophosphate Malathion, are expensive, time-consuming, and require skilled personnel.

The new research, supported by the Department of Science and Technology, under its ‘Technology Development and Transfer’ Programme, addressed the challenge by designing a field-deployable, user-friendly device that offers real-time, ultra-sensitive pesticide detection.

One woman worldwide dies every two minutes due to cervical cancer -- a treatable and preventable disease -- said the UN on Monday on the first official World Cervical Cancer Elimination Day.

The day -- November 17 -- was designated by the Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly (WHA78.8) to raise awareness of the disease, and to expand access to HPV vaccination, high-performance screening, and treatment services.

“Every two minutes, a woman dies from cervical cancer. Access to screening, vaccination, and treatment is key to ending this preventable disease,” the UN shared in a post on the social media platform X.

German researchers have identified a gene that can lead to schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

Until now, it was assumed that schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, or depression arise from an interplay of many different factors, including genetic ones.

The research, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, identified the GRIN2A gene as a key factor. The study demonstrated that changes in GRIN2A can lead to schizophrenia.

"Our current findings indicate that GRIN2A is the first known gene that, on its own, can cause a mental illness. This distinguishes it from the polygenic causes of such disorders that have been assumed to date," said lead author Professor Johannes Lemke, Director of the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Leipzig Medical Centre.

Ethiopia has reported the first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus disease -- a rare and deadly viral haemorrhagic fever -- with lab reports confirming nine cases, said the World Health Organization (WHO).

The disease, caused by the Marburg virus, is from the same family of viruses that cause Ebola virus disease. It has a case fatality ratio of up to 88 per cent and has no antiviral treatment or vaccine.

It is transmitted to humans from fruit bats and spreads among people through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or contaminated materials.

The symptoms include high fever, severe headache, muscle aches and fatigue, and many patients develop severe bleeding within a week of onset.

A teenage girl died due to dengue fever at the Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital and Research Centre (SIDH&RC), taking the official death toll in the province since October to 26, local media reported on Monday.

The statistics released by the provincial Health Department revealed that the 19-year-old girl was a resident of Sindh's Korangi. Sources revealed that the victim had fits when she was taken to the hospital, the reported.

Speaking to Dawn, a senior doctor at SIDH&RC stated: "She reported to us with dengue encephalitis, a rare and severe complication of dengue fever," adding that the girl died a day after being admitted to the hospital.

"We have discovered the secret of life," said American scientist James Watson in 1962, along with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick, as the trio shared the Physiology and Medicine Nobel Prize for the DNA's double helix structure discovery.

Famous geneticist Watson, who died at 97 as confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the US -- where he worked and researched for decades -- was associated with one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 20th century.

Although DNA was discovered in 1869, it took scientists until 1943 to discover that it made up the genetic material in cells.

To date, the structure of DNA remains a mystery.

A team of researchers from Japan has successfully treated spinal fractures in animal models using stem cells from fatty tissue.

The team from the Osaka Metropolitan University used stem cells extracted from adipose -- the body’s fatty tissue -- to treat spine fractures in rats similar to those caused by osteoporosis in humans.

These cells offer the advantages of being easy to collect, even from elderly individuals, and causing little stress to the body, suggesting a non-invasive way of treating bone diseases.

Bone regeneration and strength were significantly improved in rats transplanted with the adipose tissue (ADSCs).

While obesity is a known risk factor for heart disease, a new study showed that the ratio of a person's waist measurement compared to their height is more reliable than body mass index (BMI) at predicting the risk.

The finding, published in The Lancet Regional Health-Americas, could reshape how clinicians and the public assess cardiovascular risk, especially for people who don't meet the classic definition of obesity.

"Higher BMI, waist circumference, and waist-to-height ratio at baseline were all associated with higher risk of developing future cardiovascular disease -- until we adjusted for other classic risk factors, such as age, sex, smoking, exercise, diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol," said lead author Thiago Bosco Mendes, from the University of Pittsburgh, US

Vietnam's capital Hanoi has reported a rapid increase in dengue fever cases over the past week, with 486 new infections recorded from October 24 to 31, up 94 cases from the previous week, Vietnam News Agency reported on Monday.

According to the Hanoi Centre for Disease Control, the city recorded new outbreaks in 23 communes and wards, bringing the total number of active clusters to 32, with no deaths reported so far.

Since the beginning of 2025, Hanoi has logged 4,388 dengue fever cases, down 20 per cent from the same period last year.

Struggling with memory and stress issues? A bite of dark chocolate or a handful of berries may help boost your memory levels and also cut down stress, according to an animal study.

The improved memory and cognition may be due to flavanols, found abundantly in cocoa and berries, said the team from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan.

The study, published in the journal Current Research in Food Science, demonstrated that flavanol intake can trigger wide-ranging physiological responses resembling those induced by exercise -- functioning as a moderate stressor that activates the central nervous system and enhances attention, arousal, and memory. Flavanols also protect against neuronal damage.