NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Regular consumption of foods with a high glycemic index appears to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in African-American and Chinese women, according to the results of two studies published Monday.

Glycemic index refers to how rapidly a food causes blood sugar to rise. High-glycemic index foods, like white bread and potatoes, tend to spur a quick surge in blood sugar, while low-glycemic index foods, such as lentils, soybeans, yogurt and many high-fiber grains, create a more gradual increase in blood sugar.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Malaria is fading as a major public health problem in certain African countries where the killer disease is endemic, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said on Tuesday.

Michel Kazatchkine, Global Fund executive director, said that malaria mortality rates for children under the age of five had dropped by more than 50 percent in areas of Tanzania and Eritrea in the last five years.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Pregnant women are receiving more high-tech imaging exams, exposing their babies to higher doses of radiation than a decade ago, a study said on Tuesday.

While the levels of radiation exposure are low, they carry a slight risk of harm to the developing fetus, said study author Elizabeth Lazarus, a professor of diagnostic imaging at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The European Commission, the European Medicines Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said they have adopted a common application form for drugmakers seeking orphan designation for their medicines.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Agricultural powerhouses France and Germany sought on Monday to break the deadlock that has kept genetically modified crops out of most of Europe, saying rules must be changed to ease their approval.

"This authorization process of GMOs is highly unsatisfactory and worrying, it cannot stay like this," German Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters on arriving for a meeting of EU farm ministers.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new high-definition CT scanner from GE Healthcare is producing clearer images of the body's internal organs, bones and soft tissue while reducing potentially cancer-causing radiation exposure compared with older machines, the company said on Monday.

GE Healthcare, a $17 billion unit of General Electric Co, said its new high-definition CT scanner is under U.S. regulatory review and it hopes to launch the product sometime in 2008.

GE Healthcare is showcasing the new technology at the annual meeting of Radiological Society of North America here this week.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia will not share bird flu virus samples unless there is a guarantee developing nations will have control over their use and have access to cheap vaccines, a health ministry spokeswoman said on Monday.

Indonesia, the nation worst hit by bird flu with 91 human deaths, has held back its virus samples since August and wants guarantees from richer nations and drugmakers that poor countries get access to affordable vaccines derived from their samples.

BEIJING (Reuters) - The top EU trade official told China on Monday its reputation was at risk after a series of product safety scandals and that it must do more to tackle the problem.