Swedish scientist Svante Paabo won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for his discoveries on human evolution that provided key insights into our immune system and what makes us unique compared with our extinct cousins, the award's panel said.

Paabo has spearheaded the development of new techniques that allowed researchers to compare the genome of modern humans and that of other hominins — the Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Warning that the world is in "great peril," the head of the United Nations says leaders meeting in person for the first time in three years must tackle conflicts and climate catastrophes, increasing poverty and inequality — and address divisions among major powers that have gotten worse since Russia invaded Ukraine.

In speeches and remarks leading up to the start of the leaders' meeting Tuesday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cited the "immense" task not only of saving the planet, "which is literally on fire," but of dealing with the persisting COVID-19 pandemic. He also pointed to "a lack of access to finance for developing countries to recover -- a crisis not seen in a generation" that has seen ground lost for education, health and women's rights.

The World Health Organization warned Tuesday of a "very high" risk of cholera spreading across Syria after the country recorded its first cases since 2009.

Hospitals in the Syrian capital have been put on alert after more than two dozen cases of cholera and at least three deaths were reported in the war-torn country, health officials said Monday.

The main cause of the spread appears to be people drinking polluted water as well as watering plants in some areas with unclean water.

Officials in Pakistan raised concern Wednesday over the spread of waterborne diseases among thousands of flood victims as waters from powerful monsoon rains began to recede in many parts of the country.

Some doctors said initially they were seeing mostly patients traumatized by the flooding, but are now treating people suffering from diarrhea, skin infections and other waterborne ailments in the country's flood-hit areas.

A cup of tea just got a bit more relaxing.

Tea can be part of a healthy diet and people who drink tea may even be a little more likely to live longer than those who don't, according to a large study.

Moderna said Friday it is suing rival vaccine makers Pfizer and BioNTech, alleging the partners infringed on its patents in developing their shot for Covid-19.

In celebration of its fifth anniversary, the Global Health Institute (GHI) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) has organized the Global Health Change Makers” pitch competition. The event brought together students from universities of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to present their project ideas related to Global Health and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a 5-minute pitch for a chance to win seed funding.

Seven competitors coming from different countries in MENA including Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and others were shortlisted to the final stage and participated in the competition that was held at AUB, the university said in a statement.

For years, global health officials have used billions of drops of an oral vaccine in a remarkably effective campaign aimed at wiping out polio in its last remaining strongholds — typically, poor, politically unstable corners of the world.

Now, in a surprising twist in the decades-long effort to eradicate the virus, authorities in Jerusalem, New York and London have discovered evidence that polio is spreading there.

Nearly half of cancers worldwide can be traced back to a known risk factor, primarily tobacco or alcohol, a huge global study found on Friday, which said that behavioral changes can help reduce the threat of disease.