LONDON (Reuters) – Men who have children when they are older are more likely to have grandchildren with autism, according to a study which shows for the first time that risk factors for autism may build up over generations.

Men who had a daughter when they were 50 or older were 1.79 times more likely to have a grandchild with autism than men between 20 and 24, and with sons the likelihood was 1.67 times.

LONDON/GENEVA March 18 (Reuters) – Deadly strains of
tuberculosis that are resistant to multiple drugs are spreading
around the world, and authorities urgently need another $1.6
billion a year to tackle them, global health officials said on
Monday.

Donors should step up with “significant funding” to help
experts track down all existing cases and treat the most serious
ones, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria said in joint statement.

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) – Deadly strains of tuberculosis
(TB) resistant to multiple drugs are spreading around the world,
and authorities urgently need another $1.6 billion a year to
tackle them, global health officials said on Monday.

Donors should step up with “significant funding” to help
experts track down all existing cases and treat the most serious
ones, said the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria in joint statement.

LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) – A donated human liver has been
kept alive, warm and functioning outside a human being on a
newly-developed machine and then successfully transplanted into
patients in a medical world first.

A British team of doctors, engineers and surgeons announcing
the achievement on Friday said it could be common practice in
hospitals across the developed world within a few years, up to
doubling the number of livers available for transplant.

LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) – Treating people with HIV
rapidly after they have become infected with the virus that
causes AIDS may be enough to achieve a “functional cure” in a
small proportion of patients diagnosed early, according to new
research.

Scientists in France who followed 14 patients who were
treated very swiftly with HIV drugs but then stopped treatment
found that even when they had been off therapy for more than
seven years, they still showed no signs of the virus rebounding.

LONDON (Reuters) – British soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan – particularly young men and those who have seen active combat – are more likely to commit violent crimes than their civilian counterparts, according to research published on Friday.

The study of almost 14,000 British soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan is the first to examine the link between military service and violent crime by using official criminal records.

LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) – Scientists have worked out how
a deadly new virus which was unknown in humans until last year
is able to infect human cells and cause severe, potentially
fatal damage to the lungs.

In one of the first detailed studies of the virus – which
emerged in the Middle East and has so far infected 15 people
worldwide, killing nine of them – Dutch researchers identified a
cell surface protein it uses to enter and infect human cells.

LONDON, March 13 (Reuters) – Europeans can expect to live
longer and their overall health has improved in recent years,
but “unjust” health inequalities persist between men and women,
East and West and rich and poor, the World Health Organisation
said on Wednesday.

In an update on the 53 countries in its European region, the
United Nations health body said its 900 million people were
living longer and healthier lives, with average life expectancy
increasing by five years since 1980 to reach 76 years in 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) – A Saudi man infected with a deadly new virus from the same family as SARS has died, becoming the ninth patient in the world to be killed the disease which has so far infected 15, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

The 39-year-old developed symptoms of the novel coronavirus (NCoV) on February 24 and died on March 2, several days after being hospitalized, the WHO said in a disease outbreak update.

LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) – Antibiotic resistance poses a
catastrophic threat to medicine and could mean patients having
minor surgery risk dying from infections that can no longer be
treated, Britain’s top health official said on Monday.

Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said
global action is needed to fight antibiotic, or antimicrobial,
resistance and fill a drug “discovery void” by researching and
developing new medicines to treat emerging, mutating infections.