The fight against malaria has slowed in the past two years, threatening to reverse progress in combating one of the world's biggest killers, the World Health Organization warned Monday.

Funding for efforts to prevent the deadly mosquito-borne disease increased sharply between 2004 and 2009, part of an ongoing drive that has saved more than a million lives in the past decade, but has since leveled off, the U.N.'s health body said.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela remained in hospital for a tenth straight day Monday after receiving treatment for a lung infection and gallstone surgery, the president's office said.

"If there's any changes we'll announce it. In the absence of that, work on the basis that he is continuing to improve," presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj told Agence France Presse.

A gene inserted into ordinary heart cells transformed them into rare "pacemaker" cells that regulate cardiac rhythm, according to experiments carried out on lab rodents.

The research is a step toward the goal of a biological fix for irregular heartbeat, which at present is tackled by drugs or electronic pacemakers, its investigators said.

Pentagon-backed scientists on Monday announced they had created a robot hand that was the most advanced brain-controlled prosthetic limb ever made.

The mind-powered prosthesis is a breakthrough, the team of neurologists and bio-engineers reported in The Lancet.

Philippine legislators were Monday poised to pass landmark birth control laws paving the way for increased sex education and free contraceptives, despite lobbying by the Catholic church, the bill's author said.

The Philippine Senate is due to vote on the Reproductive Health Bill during its crucial second reading, while the House of Representatives will vote for the third and final time late Monday, said Congressman Edcel Lagman.

Nelson Mandela remained in hospital Saturday, a week after he was admitted for treatment for a lung infection, a government official said.

"Mr Mandela is still in hospital, still comfortable and receiving treatment," said presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj.

The United Nations warned Friday that nearly 55 million tonnes of radioactive waste from old Soviet-era uranian mines remain in unsecured sites in northern Tajikistan.

The former Soviet republic, where Stalin's empire once mined uranium to create its first nuclear bomb, is still stuck with about 54.8 million tonnes of unsecured waste from the now mainly abandoned mines, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said.

The Obama administration on Friday imposed a new air quality standard that reduces by 20 percent the maximum amount of soot released into the air from smokestacks, diesel trucks and other sources of pollution in its first major regulation since the Nov. 6 election.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said the new standard will save thousands of lives each year and reduce the burden of illness in communities across the country, as people "benefit from the simple fact of being able to breathe cleaner air."

Brazil is worried that fears over a single case of mad cow disease from more than two years ago could force it to slash its beef prices, after China, Japan and South Africa this week suspended imports.

Agricultural officials here insist there is "no risk whatsoever to public health or to animal hygiene" from the lone case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) that was detected in an animal that died in 2010 in the southern state of Parana.

Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.