At least 11 people have lost their sight after undergoing free cataract surgery at a camp in northern India, local authorities say, as fears grow the final figure will be far higher.

Officials said 62 people had the surgery at a village camp run by a medical charity on November 4, and they were trying to ascertain how many people had lost their sight.

A panel of experts convened by U.S. health regulators failed Wednesday to decide whether a lifetime ban should be lifted on gay men donating blood, following two days of heated deliberations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which takes into account the 17-member committee's suggestions, did not indicate when it would make a decision.

A new compound, tested so far on rats, shows promise in restoring functions lost by paralyzing injury to the spinal cord, a study said on Wednesday.

Called intracellular sigma peptide (ISP), the drug helped lab animals with severe spinal injury recover the ability to urinate or move, or both, it said.

China will stop its controversial practice of using executed prisoners as a source of transplant organs from next month, a Chinese newspaper reported Thursday, a promise it has made repeatedly in the past.

High demand for organs in China and a chronic shortage of donations mean that death row inmates have been a key source for years, generating heated controversy.

Egypt reported on Wednesday four new deaths from bird flu, taking to seven the number of people that the H5N1 virus has killed in the country so far in 2014.

The latest deaths from H5N1, a strain that has killed more than 400 people worldwide since first appearing in 2003, were reported in the North African country in the past two weeks.

International researchers said Monday they have made steps toward understanding why the most commonly used drugs for osteoporosis worldwide, known as bisphosphonates, may also prevent some kinds of lung, breast and colon cancers.

If confirmed in clinical trials, the findings could accelerate the use of drugs like alendronic acid (Fosamax), zoledronic acid (Reclast, Zometa) and ibandronic acid (Boniva) to prevent tumors or treat them in their early stages, according to two studies in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Intellectually disabled women in India are routinely locked up in institutions where they suffer sexual or other abuse and are "treated worse than animals", a report by a human rights group said Wednesday.

Women are often dumped in overcrowded, state-run institutions lacking basic facilities in India, where mentally ill and disabled people are "ridiculed, feared, and stigmatized", the Human Rights Watch report said.

Authorities in Canada said Tuesday they put two poultry farms in British Columbia under quarantine after they tested positive for bird flu.

"Preliminary testing by the province of British Columbia has confirmed the presence of H5 avian influenza on two farms in the Fraser Valley" region of the province, said a statement released by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

The World Health Organization introduced new cervical cancer guidelines Wednesday, making it easier and cheaper to protect women against one of the deadliest, but most preventable, diseases.

An estimated 270,000 people die each year from the cancer, of which 85 percent are in the developing world where many have limited access to healthcare and struggle to afford the vaccine.

An independent investigation into the deaths of 13 women in India after mass sterilization surgeries found the doctor and his staff used the same needles for all of the procedures and never changed their gloves.

The women died after being paid to have the surgery at a state-run camp in Chhattisgarh state last month, which also left dozens in hospital and sparked widespread criticism of India's family planning program.