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For the very first time, the US health authorities are launching an advertisement to counteract the growing popularity of e-cigarettes. Starting next week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is launching the latest in its series of advertising campaigns designed specifically to sway Americans' feelings about cigarettes.

The campaign expands on the CDC's three-year-old 'Tips from Former Smokers' series, which enlists real people who've been ravaged by smoking.

The new ads will also include former e-cigarette users since e-cigarettes do not yet face the same restrictions on marketing that traditional tobacco products do.

Indiana's Governor Mike Pence has declared a public health emergency due to a rapidly spreading, intravenous drug use-linked HIV outbreak in a rural southern county.

According to health officials, since December around 72 people, all tied to Scott County, have got infected in southern Indiana, and another seven have preliminary positive HIV infections. In Scott County around five cases are seen every year.

On Wednesday, Pence has said that he is looking forward for a needle-exchange program as part of the public health emergency. He formally declared the program on Thursday.

A new bionic eye has helped a woman, 72, from Honolulu to see again after being blind for more than two years. It took the elderly Japanese woman four hours undergoing the procedure at the Eye Surgery Center of Hawaii on Tuesday to become the first person to receive the implant in the Asia pacific region.

According to CBS reports, the treatment is only beneficial for those who have the hereditary disease, retinitis pigmentosa which causes vision impairment. According to Dr. Gregg Kokame, who performed the operation, the woman will begin to see motion and different shades of grey with the bionic eye.

The National Task Force for Combating Resistant Bacteria will release a five-year action plan in order to address the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance. Although many steps would be taken under the plan in an attempt to control the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, it will not be considering critical reforms in the agricultural sector, which are important to protect public health.

According to Dev Gowda, Advocate with Illinois PIRG's Stop Antibiotics Overuse campaign, President Obama has worked well to deal with this problem from many aspects. However, he added that the administration has not done much regarding the troubling overuse and misuse of antibiotics on large factory farms.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are set for a nearly yearlong mission aboard the International Space Station. The veteran space fliers will blast off in a Soyuz spacecraft on Friday at 3:42 p. m. ET from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

According to experts, they will reach their home for the next year, about 250 miles above Earth. Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka will join them for the ride up and he will visit the orbiting research complex for a standard six-month expedition.

By increasing that mission period for two crew members for the first time on ISS, NASA and its partners expect to know more about the issues astronauts could face on even longer voyages to Mars.

On Thursday morning, Vetr released a research report upgrading their target for shares of EXACT Sciences. The rating has been upgraded from hold rating to a 'Buy'. Currently, Vetr has $25.47 price objective on the stock. On Thursday, shares of EXACT Sciences were traded about 7.5%to $21.33.

According to reports, the company has a 52-week low of $10.69 and a 52-week high of $29.97. The 50-day moving average of the stock was $24, while 200-day moving average was $24. In addition, market cap of EXACT Sciences is $1.89 billion. On the same day, the company was also the recipient of unusually large options trading. Investors acquired more than 3,630 put options on the company. As per the reports, it is increase of approximately 1,179% compared to daily volume of about 284 put options.