Drug testers sifting through raw sewage in 19 European cities found the highest cocaine use in Antwerp, a Nordic preference for methamphetamines and Amsterdam unsurprisingly leading in cannabis use.

From the biggest-ever European drug analysis of human waste samples, the research team deducted that the continent used about 350 kilograms of cocaine every day while marijuana remained the most popular illicit drug.

A French researcher has built a device allowing disabled people to write or draw on a computer screen using only their eyes, a report said Thursday.

With head-mounted cameras monitoring their eye movements, test subjects were able to write and draw on a blank computer screen in the latest breakthrough for people trapped in immobility by disease or accident.

Gay sex in a conservative Catholic society where the influential church forbids the use of condoms is fuelling an alarming rise of HIV infections in the Philippines, experts warn.

The Southeast Asian country is facing a HIV epidemic, with sex between men making up nearly 90 percent of all new cases, according to the health department and the United Nations' Development Program (UNDP).

Scientists in the United States said Wednesday they had used a cancer drug to flush out the AIDS virus lurking dormant in trial patients' white blood cells -- a tentative step towards a cure.

The ability of the HIV genome, or reproductive code, to hide out in cells and be revived after decades poses a major obstacle in the quest for a cure.

Poor hygiene and sanitation stemming from a lack of water is contributing to soaring child mortality rates in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, a U.N. envoy said Thursday.

U.N. special rapporteur on the right to water and sanitation Catarina de Albuquerque said urgent action was needed to address water shortages among the country's 100,000 population.

Mexico will start vaccinating some 10 million poultry Thursday against the highly contagious bird flu strain that has already led to the deaths of five million birds which either fell ill or were slaughtered.

"Starting tomorrow, we are going to vaccinate hens and chicks across the country to put an end to this bird flu epidemic," Mexican President Felipe Calderon said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday measures to fight the "hidden epidemic" of hepatitis which kills more than one million people a year.

The virus, which settles in the liver causing inflammation, affects 500 million people worldwide but can go unnoticed for years and even decades, the U.N. health agency told reporters in Geneva.

A month long HIV blocker that women could use for protection without their partners knowing? Major new research is beginning in Africa to see whether a special kind of vaginal ring just might work.

Giving women tools to protect themselves when their partners won't use a condom is crucial for battling the AIDS epidemic. Women already make up half of the 34.2 million people worldwide living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS; even more — 60 percent — in hard-hit Africa are women.

Sunbed users run a 20 percent higher risk than non-users of developing skin cancer, according to a report that blamed some 800 melanoma deaths in Europe every year on indoor tanning.

About 3,400 of some 64,000 new cases of cutaneous melanoma diagnosed in 18 European countries every year are related to sunbed use -- more than five percent, said a statement issued by the BMJ medical journal.

Stella Nayiga clutches her mobile phone as she describes the messages that she received punctually every morning and evening for over a year, reminding her to take her antiretroviral (ARV) drugs regularly.

"The text messages would come twice a day and were saying things like 'Dear friend, please take care of yourself' and when you got them you knew it was time to take your medicine," Nayiga, 28, told Agence France Presse.