Researchers have found that its not how much fat a person has, but where that fat is located that determines whether someone is at risk for cardiovascular or metabolic diseases.

Physicians at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center conducted a new study using cardiac and CT scans to measure fat deposits in 398 white and black participants ages 47-86

African health ministers signed here Thursday a declaration to use a new meningitis vaccine to immunize 250 million people in Africa.

The Yaounde Declaration was signed by the ministers on the fourth day of the five-day 58th session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for Africa. Under the document, health authorities in 25 countries composing the "meningitis belt" in Africa will introduce the new meningococcal A conjugate vaccine (MenAfriVac) from 2009 to 2015 to control the brain disease epidemic in the region

Canada's health minister defended the government's position against safe injection sites at an AIDS conference here Wednesday.

The government supports needle exchanges as a legitimate intervention, but providing a site to facilitate the injection of illegal drugs is going too far, Tony Clement told the Globe and Mail in an interview here while attending the 17th International AIDS Conference

Although San Francisco's Department of Public Health was hit hard by budget cuts ordered by City Mayor Gavin Newsom, the city is still bent on improving the resident's health.

Aside from prohibiting the sale of cigarettes in drug stores, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors also mandated chain restaurants to post the calories, fat content and other nutritional information on their menu

- A new report released by the Center for Disease Control says that the rate of annual new H.I.V. infections in the United States are 40 percent higher than previously thought.

The study concludes that the infection rate is 56,300 per year as opposed to the 40,000 a year that was thought to have been the average rate for the last several years. The new findings, experts say, are not necessarily due to more infections, but are a result of improved tests and a more accurate and new statistical methods