A new drug called therapy given to HIV-infected mothers can reduced the chances of the infant inheriting the deadly disease of AIDS by 40 percent, a new study reported Wednesday.

Doctors say that a single dose of the drug nevirapine during labor is not only effective in prevention of mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission but also safe, cheap, and easy-to-use

A new government study says being fat doesn't necessarily increase the risk of dying from heart disease or cancer.

According to the report in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, obesity increased the risk of death from heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease, and several cancers. But being merely overweight, having a body-mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30, did not increase the risk of dying from heart disease or cancer

A new study published in Veterinary Microbiology found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is widely common in Canadian pig farms and pig farmers, signaling to some that animal agriculture as a source of the deadly bacteria. The Veterinary Microbiology study (Khanna et al. 2007) is the first to show that North American pig farms and farmers commonly carry MRSA.

Researchers looked for MRSA in 285 pigs in 20 Ontario farms and found MRSA at 45 percent of farms (9/20) and in nearly one in four pigs (71/285). One in five pig farmers studied (5/25) also were found to carry MRSA, a much higher rate than in the general North American population. The strains of MRSA bacteria found in Ontario pigs and pig farmers included a strain common to human MRSA infections in Canada

Afghanistan is being credited for providing better and advanced health services as the under-5 child mortality rate in the nation has declined years after Taliban rule ended.

The reports said that the health ministry of Afghanistan claims that it has successfully saved thousands of children below 5-years-old who would have died without proper medical care during the authoritarian rule

Maintaining normal serum zinc concentrations in the blood may help prevent pneumonia in elderly nursing home residents, a new study shows.

After studying 617 people of 65 years and older in 33 nursing homes in the Boston area, researchers at the Tufts University found that those with normal blood zinc concentrations were about 50 percent less likely to develop pneumonia than those with low concentrations