The biggest genetic analysis of colon and rectal tumors show that these cancer types are almost indistinguishable, a finding that could improve treatment options, a study said on Wednesday.

A U.S.-funded consortium of scientists compared the genetic codes of cancer cells found in 224 samples of colorectal tumors.

About 117,000 babies were saved from HIV infection last year under South Africa's scheme to prevent mothers from passing on the disease during childbirth, health official said Thursday.

Among mothers with HIV, only 2.7 percent passed the virus to their babies in 2011, down from 3.5 percent in 2010, the Medical Research Council said. The rate was eight percent in 2008.

Sierra Leone's health ministry on Wednesday said an outbreak of cholera in the West African country has killed 62 people in less than a month.

The western area, including the capital Freetown, and "three towns in the northern and southern parts of the country have now been declared cholera outbreak areas", said a ministry statement.

The star-studded world AIDS conference opening in Washington on Sunday will hear urgent appeals for funds at a crucial point in a war now in its fourth decade.

Cash-strapped Western donors that have led a string of victories, in devising new drugs and getting them to poor people, are refusing to dig deeper into their pockets.

An Australian woman born without arms and legs after her mother took thalidomide during pregnancy, on Wednesday won a landmark multi-million dollar settlement in her class action against drug firms.

Lynette Rowe, 50, is leading a mass lawsuit on behalf of people born with congenital defects in Australia and New Zealand between 1958 and 1970 whose mothers took the sedative thalidomide, made by German chemical firm Grunenthal.

U.S. regulators approved the second new anti-obesity drug in 13 years, Qsymia, for use with exercise and a good diet in people who are obese or overweight with certain medical problems.

Some analysts have touted Qsymia as the next "blockbuster", akin to the best-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor, with the U.S. market desperate for new treatments for the two-thirds of the population that is overweight or obese.

Three decades into the AIDS pandemic an end to new infections is in sight, according to Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"We don't even know if a cure is possible. What we know is it is possible that we can end this pandemic even without a cure," Fauci told Agence France Presse in an interview ahead of the International AIDS conference July 22-27 in the U.S. capital.

A third of the world's adults are physically inactive, and the couch potato lifestyle kills about five million people every year, experts said in the medical journal The Lancet on Wednesday.

"Roughly three of every 10 individuals aged 15 years or older -- about 1.5 billion people -- do not reach present physical activity recommendations," they said in a report that described the problem as a "pandemic."

The World Health Organization is giving China's health minister an award for battling smoking in a country whose people and government remain prodigiously addicted to tobacco.

China has stepped up efforts to curb tobacco use in recent years. The Health Ministry released the country's first official report on the harms of smoking in May, banned smoking in its office building and hospitals, and is lobbying for airports and other indoor public facilities to do the same.

There's more advice on the contentious issue of prostate cancer screening: A leading group of cancer specialists says the decision hinges in part on a man's life expectancy.

Doctors should discuss the possible pros and cons of those PSA blood tests with men expected to live longer than another 10 years, the American Society of Clinical Oncology recommended Monday.