The European Union has approved Sanofi's blockbuster drug Dupixent for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the French pharmaceutical giant said on Wednesday.

The debilitating disease, sometimes called "smoker's lungs", is the third-leading cause of death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

A new deadlier strain of mpox that transmits more easily between people is killing children and causing miscarriages in the Democratic Republic of Congo and may have already spread to neighboring countries, researchers have warned.

World leaders, health groups and pharmaceutical firms announced $1.2 billion in funding at a summit Thursday to produce vaccines in Africa, which is facing numerous health crises including rising cholera outbreaks.

The fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) is being undermined by families taking girls to other countries to put them through the procedure, the United Nations warned Friday.

It called for concerted global action to tackle cross-border and transnational FGM, including so-called "vacation cutting" by families in the West.

A long-standing resolution urging WHO action on towering health needs in the Palestinian territories hung in the balance Friday, after Israel secured an amendment requiring the text to mention hostages held in Gaza.

A Pfizer medicine has been shown to greatly reduce cancer progression and improve survival outcomes for people in the advanced stages of a form of lung cancer, results published Friday showed.

Lorlatinib, which is already approved and available under the brand name Lobrena in the United States, was tested in a clinical trial of hundreds of people with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Between the sweat smell, fluorescent lights and omnipresent television screens, April Herring has never connected with going to the gym.

Instead, she runs, bikes, hikes, plays tennis, pickleball and football — anything to get her exercise outside as often as possible.

Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent's worst outbreaks of cholera.

In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021.

A University of Hawaii study examining the health effects of last year's deadly wildfires on Maui found that up to 74% of participants may have difficulty breathing and otherwise have poor respiratory health, and almost half showed signs of compromised lung function.

The data, gathered from 679 people in January and February, comes from what researchers hope will be a long-term study of wildfire survivors lasting at least a decade. Researchers released early results from that research on Wednesday. They eventually hope to enroll 2,000 people in their study to generate what they call a snapshot of the estimated 10,000 people affected by the fires.

After the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions, leaders at the World Health Organization and worldwide vowed to do better in the future. Years later, countries are still struggling to come up with an agreed-upon plan for how the world might respond to the next global outbreak.

A ninth and final round of talks involving governments, advocacy groups and others to finalize a "pandemic treaty" is scheduled to end Friday. The accord's aim: guidelines for how the WHO's 194 member countries might stop future pandemics and better share scarce resources. But experts warn there are virtually no consequences for countries that don't comply.