Prevention of waterborne diseases is a priority in Malawi where floods have killed at least 176 people, an aid official said Sunday.

Malawi's heavy flooding has displaced at least 200,000 people, submerged whole villages in some areas, destroying homes, drowning crops and washing away livestock.

Diseases linked to lifestyle choices, including diabetes and some cancers, kill 16 million people prematurely each year, the World Health Organization said Monday, urging action to stop the "slow-moving public health disaster".

Unhealthy habits like smoking, alcohol abuse and consuming too much fat, salt and sugar have sparked an epidemic of diseases which together constitute the leading cause of death globally, WHO said.

The Malian government and the United Nations on Sunday declared the country free of Ebola after 42 days without any new cases of the deadly virus.

Health Minister Ousmane Kone said no confirmed cases had been registered since December 6 when the last Ebola patient had tested negative.

A 32-year-old Taiwanese man has died after a three-day gaming binge at an Internet cafe in the island's south, the second such case this year, a report said on Saturday.

The man, identified by his family name Hsieh, was found slumped motionless in his chair in the cafe in Kaohsiung city.

A Dutch dentist suspected of mutilating dozens of patients in France has been detained in a special prison psychiatric unit, a judicial source said.

Dubbed the "horror dentist" by the media, Mark van Nierop, 50, claims to suffer from "psychological problems" including gender identity issues and suicidal tendencies, which he had cited in a failed attempt to challenge his extradition from the Netherlands.

Two people have died of the H7N9 strain of avian flu in China's eastern province of Fujian, state media said Saturday, quoting local health officials. 

Fujian has confirmed 15 cases since the start of 2015, Xinhua news agency reported. It did not say when the two patients died.

Insurer Aetna has made new hepatitis C drugs from Gilead Sciences Inc. preferred treatments for customers with the liver-destroying virus.

Aetna Inc. said Friday that it's reached a deal with Gilead bringing discounts for Sovaldi and Harvoni, which have list prices of about $84,000 and $94,000, respectively, for a course of treatment. The amount of the discount wasn't disclosed.

An Egyptian woman died Friday of bird flu, the health ministry announced, the third victim killed in the country this year by the H5N1 infection.

The 43-year-old woman died in the southern city of Asyut, five days after she was hospitalised at the facility where she worked as a nurse, a ministry official from her hometown said.

Health Minister Wael About Faour canceled the contracts between the Ministry of Health and al-Hayat Hospital on Friday, referring a doctor to the disciplinary board and warning two pharmacists ad part of the anti-corruption campaign that he started more than two months ago.

In a statement, the ministry announced that Abou Faour “scrapped the contract between the ministry and al-Hayat Hospital, and a probe will be launched into the hospital’s conduct with patients.”

Fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine has wreaked havoc on the health system, with more than five million people affected, the United Nations said on Friday.

The World Health Organization said access to primary, secondary and emergency health services was "critically needed," adding that the health infrastructure was buckling under the humanitarian crisis.