CHICAGO (Reuters) - Closantel, an older drug used to treat a parasitic liver disease in animals, may prove effective at combating river blindness in humans, a major cause of infection-related blindness, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Transmitted by blackflies breeding along fast-flowing tropical waterways, river blindness is an eye and skin disease caused by the filaria worm, which infects more ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Our ever-expanding waistlines may have outgrown the doctor's needle, researchers say, in what could be another casualty of the obesity epidemic. In a new study, the researchers report that using a standard 1-inch needle to immunize obese adolescents against hepatitis B virus produced a much weaker effect than using a longer needle. "As obesity rises ...

High rates of the most effective type of malaria-fighting drugs sold in three African countries are poor quality — including nearly half the pills sampled in Senegal — raising fears of increased drug resistance that could wipe out the last weapon left to battle a disease that kills 1 million people each year, according to a U.S. report released Monday. Between ...

South Africa's polygamist president has apologized to the nation after being criticized for having an extramarital affair that resulted in a daughter born in October. Analysts had argued that the love child revelations would have little impact because South African voters overwhelmingly supported Jacob Zuma in last year's ...