Health News Roundup: Explainer-How climate change is making the world sick; AstraZeneca, AI biologics firm Absci tie up on cancer drug and more

The spike in illness in the country where COVID emerged in late 2019 attracted the spotlight when the World Health Organization sought information last week, citing a report on clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children. Explainer-How will the Supreme Court reshape US opioid epidemic relief? The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Monday to hear arguments over the legality of a roughly $6 billion bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful and highly addictive pain medication OxyContin that played a key role in the country's opioid epidemic.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Explainer-How climate change is making the world sick

Heat stress. Lung damage from wildfire smoke. The spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes into new regions as temperatures rise. These are just a few of the ways that public health has been impacted and compounded by climate change - a focus for the first time ever at the annual U.N. climate summit COP28.

AstraZeneca, AI biologics firm Absci tie up on cancer drug

Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca has signed a deal worth up to $247 million with U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) biologics firm Absci to design an antibody to fight cancer, Absci said in a statement on Sunday. Absci's collaboration with AstraZeneca aims for a zero-shot generative AI model designed to create new and improved antibody therapeutics, the company said. It did not say what kind of cancer they plan to target.

China's respiratory illness rise due to known pathogens -official

China's surge in respiratory illness is caused by known pathogens and there is no sign of new infectious diseases, a health official said on Saturday as the country faces its first full winter since lifting strict COVID-19 restrictions. The spike in illness in the country where COVID emerged in late 2019 attracted the spotlight when the World Health Organization sought information last week, citing a report on clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children.

Explainer-How will the Supreme Court reshape US opioid epidemic relief?

The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Monday to hear arguments over the legality of a roughly $6 billion bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful and highly addictive pain medication OxyContin that played a key role in the country's opioid epidemic. If the justices allow the deal to proceed, it could lead to billions of dollars being poured into addiction-treatment and other relief efforts. The settlement also would shield the Stamford, Connecticut-based pharmaceutical company's wealthy Sackler family owners from lawsuits brought by opioid victims.