California health officials on Thursday confirmed 13 new measles cases connected to an outbreak at Disney theme parks last month, bringing the total number of illnesses to 39.

The new cases of the airborne illness include five in Los Angeles County and one in San Diego County.

This year's flu vaccine is doing a pretty crummy job. It's only 23 percent effective, which is one of the worst performances in the last decade, according to a government study released Thursday.

The poor showing is primarily because the vaccine doesn't include the bug that is making most people sick, health officials say. In the last decade, flu vaccines at their best were 50 to 60 percent effective.

At least 50 Ebola hotspots remain in the three hardest-hit West African countries but new cases are declining and the deadly disease will be defeated, the U.N.'s Ebola chief said Thursday.

The latest report from the World Health Organization showing reductions in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone "is very good news," Dr. David Nabarro said in an interview with The Associated Press.

China diagnosed 104,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS in 2014, media reported Friday, highlighting growth in infections in the country despite a comparatively low overall rate.

The figure was a 14 percent increase on the number of new cases diagnosed in 2013, the Beijing Times cited the country's health administration as saying.

Parents in Spain will be asked to sign a declaration promising their daughters will not undergo female genital mutilation when they visit nations where the practice is common, under a new government protocol approved Wednesday.

The measure is part of a comprehensive strategy for preventing, detecting and treating the practice among at-risk populations in Spain.

A cholera outbreak in southern Nigeria's Rivers State has killed 20 people and infected scores more, the state health commissioner, Sampson Parker, said Wednesday.

Parker, a physician, said the outbreak was recorded in 11 communities in the Andoni local government (municipality) of the oil-rich state.

U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved a new kind of pacemaker-like device that aims to help people lose weight by stimulating a nerve that runs from the brain to the stomach.

The Maestro Rechargeable System is made by Minnesota-based EnteroMedics, and is the first device for weight loss approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in eight years.

The arrival in Europe of better but pricier hepatitis C drugs has raised pressure on Spanish leaders over health spending cuts which sufferers say deprive them of life-saving treatments.

Hundreds of people have marched in Madrid and other Spanish towns demanding the government authorize doctors to prescribe the latest treatments for the deadly liver disease for whoever needs them.

A major outbreak of avian flu in Taiwan has spread to 19 more farms with a total of 160,000 birds slaughtered in the island's worst bout of the disease in a decade, authorities said Wednesday.

The number of poultry farms infected with the virus has almost doubled since Tuesday, jumping from 21 to 40. More than 10,000 geese have been killed since Tuesday afternoon.

The surrogate mothers of nine babies fathered by a Japanese man and taken into care by Thai authorities last year have launched legal proceedings to regain custody of the infants, an official said Wednesday.

The alleged father, who was at the time was reported by Japanese media to be the son of an IT millionaire, left Thailand as a surrogacy scandal erupted in August following the discovery of nine babies in a Bangkok apartment.