High blood pressure could be caused by a common virus, according to a study carried out by a team of Chinese doctors which could lead to better treatment for millions of people around the world.

The team from Beijing Chaoyang Hospital's cardiology center says it has found the first evidence of a link between the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and the most commonly occurring form of hypertension, or high blood pressure.

A new study suggests nearly one in five children with an autistic older sibling will develop the disorder too — a rate much higher than previously thought.

Researchers followed 664 infants who had at least one older brother or sister with autism. Overall, 132 infants or about 19 percent ended up with an autism diagnosis, too, by their third birthdays. Previous smaller or less diverse studies reported a prevalence of between 3 percent and 14 percent.

Mohamed Ibrahim fled to Ethiopia to seek relief from a harsh drought devastating his country Somalia, but misery stalked him in refuge where malnutrition recently killed his one-year-old son.

The desperate exodus by tens of thousands of Somalis to find assistance across borders has taken them to refugee settlements, where spartan living conditions, congestion and threat of disease are making survival difficult.

World Health Organization officials said Friday that famine-hit Somalia faces a cholera epidemic as dirty water and poor sanitation are leading to an increase in outbreaks of the disease.

Officials say cases of acute watery diarrhea — an important indicator of the risk of cholera — are now at 4,272 in Somalia — an 11 percent rise on last week's WHO reported figure of 3,839.

They savor pizza and burgers, no longer frighten children, and many of them can walk the streets without people knowing they have someone else's cheeks, nose, lips and skin. People who have had face transplants increasingly are going public, helping to transform an operation that six years ago was daredevil theory into one that is widely accepted.

At least 18 face transplants have been done around the world, starting with a French woman mauled by her dog in November 2005, said Dr. Maria Siemionow, at Cleveland Clinic. She did the first face transplant in the U.S. in December 2008.

Juvenis Esthetic Medical Center is organizing a weekend of awareness against risks of sun exposure and malignant Melanoma.

The event will take place on Saturday and Sunday at the Juvenis Center in Furn al-Shebbak region.

Surgeons have re-attached a large part of the face of a seven year-old child torn in a pitbull attack, Mexico's state-run Social Security Institute said Tuesday.

"This is the first facial re-implant that has been successfully carried out in the country," said Juan Francisco Salazar, an Institute spokesman in the northern state of Nuevo Leon.

Tests that measure DNA in a pregnant woman's blood work well for telling the sex of a baby after seven weeks' gestation without posing danger to the fetus, a U.S. study said Tuesday.

The meta-analysis of previous studies on the topic suggests that using cell-free fetal DNA from the mother's blood is more accurate than a urine test or sonogram and is safer than amniocentesis.

Malaria is spread to humans by female mosquitoes who suck blood in order to help their offspring grow, but British scientists said Monday that introducing spermless males could halt the deadly disease.

Scientists at Imperial College London said that by genetically tweaking male mosquitoes to produce no sperm, females would still mate with them but would lay unfertilized eggs that would not hatch into mosquito larvae.

Long working hours can more than triple the risk of alcohol abuse and addiction, New Zealand research has found.

An Otago University study of more than 1,000 people aged 25-30 found a statistically significant link between the amount of hours worked and alcohol abuse.