The World Health Organization issued a call to action to China Monday over HIV/AIDS as government figures said nearly half a million people are living with the disease or its precursor, with hundreds of thousands more thought to be undiagnosed.

Bernhard Schwartlaender, the World Health Organization's representative in China, wrote in an op-ed in the state-run China Daily newspaper that "there is much more China needs to do" to prevent infection and better help those living with HIV.

When Islamic State group fighters swept into northern Iraq's second city Mosul in a lightning June offensive, their propaganda trumpeted a better life for the people under jihadist rule.

Now, nearly six months later, residents there are suffering from a lack of clean water and also a shortage of medicine to treat illnesses caused by it.

Nearly 7,000 people have now died from Ebola in west Africa, with the latest report from the World Health Organization counting over 1,200 more deaths than in a toll given on Wednesday.

Data published by the U.N.'s health body late Friday showed that 16,169 people had been infected with Ebola and that 6,928 of them had died in the three countries at the center of the outbreak -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Beijing has adopted a smoking ban in all indoor public spaces including workplaces and public transport.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the ban will go into effect in the capital city of 21 million people on June 1 and carry a fine of up to 200 yuan ($32.50). The Standing Committee of Beijing Municipal People's Congress passed the draft regulation Friday.

The Ebola scare has subsided in the United States, at least temporarily, but an Alabama manufacturer is still trying to catch up with a glut of orders for gear to protect against the disease.

Located in north Alabama, the family-owned Kappler Inc. typically gets only a few orders annually for the type of suit needed by health workers who are in contact with Ebola patients.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday his government would provide support worth hundreds of millions of dollars towards life-saving vaccines for children around the world.

Harper made the announcement at an event with Senegalese Prime Minister Mohammed Dionne at a clinic in Dakar to mark the introduction in Senegal of a vaccine for rotavirus -- a virus that causes diarrhea in children so severe it can be fatal.

British scientists announced trials on a 15-minute Ebola test in Guinea as French President Francois Hollande became the first Western leader to visit a country devastated by the epidemic.

The prototype is six times faster than current tests and aims to speed up diagnosis, the London-based global research charity Wellcome Trust and Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) said in a statement.

British-funded researchers are to conduct trials in Guinea on a 15-minute Ebola test, the Wellcome Trust and UK government said in a joint statement on Friday.

The prototype is six times faster than current tests and aims to speed up diagnosis, the London-based global research charity and the Department for International Development (DFID) said.

Eight people have died in the west African nation of Benin from an outbreak of Lassa fever, while 170 others have been placed under observation, officials said Thursday.

Fourteen suspected cases of the virus have been identified, with two confirmed and eight deaths in the small country bordering Nigeria, said a joint statement from the WHO, Benin's health ministry and UNICEF.

Italy suspended the use of a flu vaccine made by Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis on Thursday amid fears it may have caused three deaths.

The Italian Pharmaceutical Agency (AIFA) banned the use of two batches of the Fluad vaccine after three people who had received it died and a fourth was taken seriously ill.