After a steep increase in the 1990s, and several years of plateauing, South Africa's HIV prevalence may finally have entered a phase of decline. The first evidence of this downward trend comes from the government's 2006 National HIV and Syphilis Survey, which tested more than 33,000 pregnant women at antenatal clinics in all nine of the country's provinces.

They sell sex for money or goods. It's a risky business - and illegal in Botswana - but female sex workers are out there, and so are the clients who keep them in business. Until now, not much was understood about sex workers in Botswana: what risks they take and what motivates them, but a recent report, HIV Needs Assessment of Female Sex Workers in Major Towns, Mining Towns, and Along Major Roads in Botswana, has taken a comprehensive look at how the world's oldest profession is practiced here.

When it comes to sub-Saharan Africa's devastating AIDS crisis, there is an understandable tendency to latch onto any scrap of good news. Figures suggesting the epidemic is waning in some countries are being trumpeted by governments and international donor agencies as evidence that their prevention efforts are succeeding.

Food imports are keeping Sierra Leone from realising agricultural self-sufficiency and meeting the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating hunger by 2015, experts say. In a country where 80 percent of food is imported, mostly from the USA and Europe, the local agricultural industry is feeble and local farmers struggle to compete.

A country and people are food secure when their food system operates efficiently in such a way as to remove the fear that there will not be enough to eat. In particular, food security will be achieved when the poor and vulnerable, particularly women, children and those living in marginal areas, have secured access to the food.

Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection significantly increases the risk of HIV infection in Ugandan and Zimbabwean women, according to the findings of a prospective cohort study published in the July 31st edition of the journal AIDS. Among women who acquired HSV-2 during the study, the risk of HIV infection was eight times higher than for women without HSV-2.

Traditional circumcision protects low-risk rural Kenyan men against HIV infection, according to the findings of a prospective observational study published in the August 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. There is currently a surge of interest worldwide in the possible protection provided by male circumcision against female-to-male HIV transmission in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network held a two day regional workshop on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights in Tanzania from July 31- August 1, 2007 with the aim of supporting African women organizations to act and advocate around reproductive and sexual rights and influence national and policy frameworks to protect and promote reproductive and sexual rights.

In three articles just published in the electronic journal Globalization and Health, two Canadian researchers warn that the “asymmetrical” nature of contemporary globalization may increase health disparities between rich and poor. Ronald Labonté and Ted Schrecker, from the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Population Health, focus on social determinants of health: broadly speaking, factors that affect the chances people will have to lead healthy lives.

The effects of the government's month-old price-control policies, which have brought widespread shortages of basic commodities, are also beginning to tell in the education, health and social service sectors. The government launched "Operation Reduce Prices" in late June in an attempt to cap escalating prices as businesses tried to cushion themselves against the world's highest inflation rate - over 4,000 percent - although some independent economists estimate the actual inflation rate at about 20,000 percent.

A new testing method will make it possible for babies below the age of 18 months to be accurately screened for HIV. Infants up to this age still carry their mother's antibodies and, using the usual testing method, can test HIV positive when, in fact, they are negative.

Worldwide, an estimated 2.8 million people over the age of 50 are living with HIV, but this group is largely ignored by information and awareness campaigns. Most people remain sexually active well past their fifties, usually with their long-term partners, while others start sexual relationships with new people after the death of a partner, or in the case of polygamous societies, when men marry new wives.

African governments are worried that funds from the European Union (EU) to help them increase their countries' share of world trade could be at the expense of other forms of development aid. The EU's executive arm, the European Commission (EC), has been promising that substantial "aid for trade" will be available to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations, who are set to sign Economic Partnership Agreements with Brussels by the end of this year.

A pharmacokinetic (PK) study conducted in people on directly observed tuberculosis (TB) treatment in Botswana calls into question whether the standard TB drug dosing is really adequate for all populations, particularly among people with advanced HIV living in sub-Saharan Africa. The study, which was presented at the 4th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Sydney, Australia, found that low concentrations of TB drugs were common in the population, regardless of HIV status.

Treating HIV-infected infants with antiretroviral therapy (ART) as early as possible, within the first six to 12 weeks of life — rather than waiting until they show signs of immunological or clinical deterioration — dramatically decreases their risk of early death, according to findings from the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial, a South African study presented at a late-breaker session of the 4th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Treatment and Pathogenesis in Sydney.

Estimates are that in the first three months of 2008 — an election year — 4.1 million people, a third of Zimbabwe's population, will require food aid. Most of it will be provided by the United Nations, but so far, the government is said to be in a state of "denial", refusing to make the obligatory appeal to the UN.

The impact of Zimbabwe's sky-rocketing inflation isn't all bad, as it seems to be bringing down HIV rates, the Washington Post reports. Inflation of more than 4,500 percent means bread, milk and other provisions are out of reach for many citizens. But so is maintaining a mistress, visiting a prostitute or keeping a second, or even, a third wife.

Police have seized food earmarked for relief aid from a warehouse in Masvingo as part of the crackdown on the business sector, sources say. Aid agency sources told The Financial Gazette this week that police arrested the manager of a Blue Ribbon Foods warehouse, which stored relief supplies sourced by CARE, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Based in Mozambique, the HIV/AIDS Behavior Change Technical Advisor will provide technical assistance to CAP grant recipients in designing and implementing community-based HIV/AIDS prevention programs. She/He will provide technical expertise in behavior change strategies to CAP partners through trainings and mentoring. The HIV/AIDS Behavior Change Technical Advisor will develop and adapt behavior change tools and train CAP grant recipients in integrating them into their programs.

The Tanzanian government has announced plans to nearly double the number of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the end of 2007. The East African country, where an estimated 1.4 million people are living with the HI virus, has 77,066 patients on the life-prolonging medication; the government intends to raise the number to 150,000 by December 2007, and to 200,000 by the end of 2008.