The U.N.'s refugee agency warned Friday that an outbreak of hepatitis E among refugees in South Sudan was worsening and that it did not have the needed funds to contain it.

"With funding depleted for our operations in South Sudan, UNHCR is warning today that the capacity to contain an outbreak of hepatitis E among the refugee population is increasingly stretched," agency spokesman Adrian Edwards lamented to reporters in Geneva.

San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

The city's Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.

An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.

That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half — though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.

Surgeons at a Philadelphia hospital have successfully completed operations to separate 8-month-old twin girls who were joined at the lower chest and abdomen.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia says the seven-hour procedures to separate Allison and Amelia Tucker were completed Wednesday afternoon.

Performance-boosting drugs, powered prostheses and wearable computers are coming to an office near you — but experts warned in a new report Wednesday that too little thought has been given to the implications of a superhuman workplace.

Academics from Britain's leading institutions say attention needs to be focused on the consequences of technology which may one day allow — or compel — humans to work better, longer and harder. Here's their list of upgrades that might make their way to campuses and cubicles in the next decade:

Researchers said Thursday they had discovered a genetic mutation in people with autism that cuts communication between brain cells to about one-tenth of normal levels.

The study found a protein which helps brain cells transfer data through neurological pathways called synapses was mutated in autism sufferers, offering a likely explanation for their cognitive and behavioral difficulties.

The number of people believed to have died from mosquito-borne yellow fever in Sudan's conflict-plagued Darfur region has doubled to 67, health officials said on Tuesday.

"As of 5 November 2012, 194 suspected cases have been reported, including 67 deaths," a joint report from the health ministry and the World Health Organisation said.

If you look old, you might be at higher risk of heart trouble.

People with several visible signs of aging such as hair loss and fatty deposits around the eyes have a higher risk of developing heart problems than those of the same age who look younger, according to a study presented Tuesday.

Regular moderate exercise can raise life expectancy -- even among people who are overweight, a study said Tuesday.

The analysis, published in PLOS Medicine, pooled self-reported data on physical activities and body mass indexes (BMIs) -- a ratio of weight to height -- from some 650,000 people aged 40 and older enrolled in one Swedish and five U.S. studies.

Multivitamins might help lower the risk for cancer in healthy older men but do not affect their chances of developing heart disease, new research suggests.

Two other studies found fish oil didn't work for an irregular heartbeat condition called atrial fibrillation, even though it is thought to help certain people with heart disease or high levels of fats called triglycerides in their blood.