A website has been helping people with sexually-transmitted diseases conveniently and anonymously notify by e-mail sexual partners whom they may have inadvertently infected.

InSpot has been used by some 30,000 people since it was launched in San Francisco in 2004 making it an innovative and effective communication channel among sex partners, according to a report published in the October issue of PLoS Medicine

One of every four teenage girls took the medically prescribed vaccine for four types the human papillomavirus and cervical cancer last year, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed.

The ratio was based on the agency's 2007 phone survey of 1,500 girls aged 13 to 17, though the health officials' recommendation is for girls to start the Gardasil vaccination as early as age 11 or 12, before sexual activity starts

Researchers have discovered an important risk factor for pancreatic cancer that could someday possibly help prevent the disease.

The first-of-its-kind finding was made by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an AIDS drug made by Gilead to treat patients with hepatitis B. The drug Viread has been available in the U.S. as a treatment for HIV infection in adults since 2001.

The FDA is joining regulators in Europe, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand by allowing the drug in U.S. Generically known as tenofovir, the drug is taken in the form of a pill once daily. It works by blocking HBV DNA polymerase, the enzyme that is necessary for the virus to replicate in liver cells

Two United Nations agencies have signed an agreement aimed at slashing costs of vaccines for Afghans and locals living in and around Pakistan's refugee settlements.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) signed the agreement here on Sunday, a U.N press statement said Monday. UNICEF will obtain vaccines on behalf of the UNHCR based on the current UNICEF supply catalogue and price list or other estimates provided by UNICEF - which are lower than what the other agency pays, according to the memorandum of understanding