Some 27 million people worldwide are problem drug users, with almost one percent every year dying from narcotics abuse, while cannabis remains the most popular drug, a U.N. report showed Tuesday.

"Heroin, cocaine and other drugs continue to kill around 200,000 people a year, shattering families and bringing misery to thousands of other people, insecurity and the spread of HIV," director Yury Fedotov said as he presented the 2012 World Drug Report of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

British charity Save the Children on Wednesday said it was a "global scandal" that 50,000 teenagers die each year due to pregnancy and childbirth complications.

The charity urged the world to renew its focus on family planning with a summit set to take place in London next month highlighting U.N. figures showing pregnancy and childbirth as leading causes of death for adolescent girls,

The A(H1N1) "swine flu" 2009 pandemic probably claimed over a quarter of a million lives -- 15 times more than the 18,500 reported, a paper in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal said Tuesday.

The elevated toll underlined the need for better planning and vaccine distribution, said a team of epidemiologists and physicians who made a statistical model based on population and infection estimates to present what they believe is a more accurate picture of the pandemic's reach.

Care facilities often deny elderly people the basic right, and one of their few remaining pleasures, to continue having sex, according to a paper published on Tuesday.

Many older people, including those with early stage dementia, enjoy sex while they live at home, but this changes once they move into residential care, said the Australian authors of a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Health officials in South Africa's Eastern Cape region Monday voiced concern at the increased number of children born with rare deformities.

"There have been 50 cases of rare deformities in the past two years and five conjoined twins in less than 18 months," provincial health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo told Agence France Presse.

Famous cartoon character Popeye is right to down a can of spinach when he wants his biceps to bulge, according to a Swedish study presented Monday showing why the leafy vegetable makes us stronger.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said Monday they had conducted a study showing how nitrate, found naturally in spinach and several other vegetables, tones up muscles.

The first seafood caught off Japan's Fukushima coastline since last year's nuclear disaster went on sale Monday, but the offerings were limited to octopus and marine snails because of persisting fears about radiation.

Octopus and whelk, a kind of marine snail, were chosen for the initial shipments because testing for radioactive cesium consistently measured no detectable amounts, according to the Fukushima Prefectural (state) fishing cooperative. They were caught Friday and boiled so they last longer while being tested for radiation before they could be sold Monday.

Health authorities are working at tightening South Africa's anti-smoking laws, proposing a total ban on indoor smoking and even making it illegal to puff away in open spaces such as beaches.

Stadiums, zoos, parks, outdoor eateries and beer gardens would all be affected. At beaches, smoking would only be allowed at least 50 meters from the closest person.

A top Vatican official called Friday on the international community to provide "free and efficient treatment" for AIDS in Africa, starting with pregnant women, mothers and their babies.

During an international conference organized by the Sant'Egidio Community, the number two in the Vatican, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, made the call "to states and to donors" to "rapidly provide those sick with AIDS with free and efficient treatment."

At least 30 people in Georgia have contracted anthrax this year, prompting authorities to step up safety measures, medical officials said Friday.

Georgia's Center for Infectious Diseases said that by year's end the ex-Soviet nation is expected to roughly match last year's total of 59 cases. That would represent a marked increase from the 28 anthrax cases the Caucasus Mountains country had in 2010.