Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the Central African Republic (CAR) have embarked on a two-year project to provide low cost malaria treatment in the remote eastern province of Haut Mbomou, boosting countrywide efforts to fight the killer disease. "Now we have [the] necessary means to fight malaria in Haut Mbomou," Dr Daniel-Florent Dignito, the head of medical services in the province, told IRIN on September 21st. "The new low cost treatment of malaria in Haut Mbomou is aimed at assisting the deprived population."

A major hospital in Botswana is struggling to cope with the mounting pressure of staff and resource shortages, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a high rate of road accidents. The Princess Marina hospital was initially meant to be a referral facility for districts south of the capital, Gaborone, but has evolved into a national referral centre due to the lack of specialised units in the rest of the country.

Expanding access to tuberculosis treatment, combined with introducing HIV testing and anti-retroviral (ARV) delivery into TB programmes, could save the lives of as many as 500 000 Africans living with HIV every year and is one of the most cost-effective ways to ensure the survival of HIV-positive people, according to international health experts meeting this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The Riseau en Afrique Francophone pour la Tilimidecine (Telemedicine Network in French-speaking Africa or RAFT) project is a telemedicine network aimed at creating a multinational South-South network for telemedicine linking healthcare institutions in Francophone African countries. The project provides assistance to culturally adapt online medical content while training medical librarians to improve the quality and accessibility of medical information over the internet.

At least 11 wild animals, all elephant and buffalo, have died of anthrax in the eastern Caprivi region of Namibia. Sacky Namugongo, deputy director of parks and wildlife management in the environment and tourism ministry, said seven dead elephants and four dead buffaloes were tested on Saturday and Sunday and found to have had anthrax symptoms. The carcasses were found in the areas between Masikili and Kasika in the Caprivi strip and residents have been urged not to eat the meat.

Zimbabwe's information minister has accused the mayor of Bulawayo of lying about food shortages in the second largest city, where independent media have recently reported that scores of people have been dying of hunger. President Robert Mugabe has shut out food aid saying it should be given to more deserving countries.

The U.N. Children's Fund and the World Food Programme on Tuesday launched a $123 million programme to reduce the mortality rate of children in Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest countries. "The Canadian-funded three-year programme will increase access to health care and supplementary food to benefit six million children in seven regions of Ethiopia during the three year period," a statement issued by UNICEF and WFP said.

In June 2004 the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS released a policy statement that cautiously endorsed a new approach to HIV testing in hopes of increasing the number of people worldwide who know their status. While the two organisations emphasise that all testing still needs consent, should be confidential and offered with appropriate counseling, they now say a variety of approaches to testing should be embraced, in addition to voluntary counseling and testing.

As treatments become more available, particularly in developing countries, the line between a patient's health status and right to privacy is beginning to shift. More than 2 million Africans died of AIDS last year and 3 million others were newly infected with the virus that causes the disease, yet it is estimated that in most African countries fewer than 10% of the population know their status. Testing for the human immuno-deficiency virus is one of the thorniest aspects of a health debate fraught with human rights implications.

Chairman of the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA), Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, has revealed that while 90 percent of Nigerians know about AIDS, only about 20 per cent of the country's 140 million population believe in its reality. Osotimehin noted the importance of the endemic in different sectors, saying it was not merely a health issue but a development phenomenon. The HIV/AIDS prevalence in Nigeria is at five per cent.

The 4th International Conference & Exhibition on Traditional Medicine "Traditional Healing & HIV/AIDS" originally scheduled for October 4-6, 2004 in Dakar, Senegal, has now been postponed to April 11-13, 2005.

The Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA) and partners is planning to jointly review the National Response to HIV/AIDS in Nigeria and also develop a new 5-year Strategic Framework to guide the National Response. This will require the cooperation of all organizations and institutions that have done any intervention in HIV/AIDS in Nigeria to send all available documents to the Directorate for Policy, Strategy & Communication, in NACA.

The HIV/AIDS Program Manager will coordinate, manage and oversee the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance's (FANTA) HIV/AIDS activities in Rwanda. The HIV/AIDS Program Manager will work with USAID/Kigali, the GOR, and their partners to design and implement technical support activities to strengthen nutritional care and support for HIV-infected individuals, management of nutritional implications of ART and links between HIV/AIDS services and food assistance programs.

I first met Hassan Saeed Yusuf, the editor of Jamhuriya, in Hargeisa central prison in June 1992. Since then, I have visited him there several times, most recently just over a week ago. Jailed by all three presidents of Somaliland, Hassan has been arrested 15 times since 1992. On eight occasions, he has spent time, ranging from five days to a month, in Hargeisa central prison; other times he has been locked up in various police cells. Each time, however, he has been released, for lack of evidence, sometimes aided by international pressure; no court has ever brought a judgment against him.

Hassan's latest brush with the law came just after midnight on 31 August. Policemen came to his office to arrest him in connection with an article he had published that day about the Somali peace talks in Kenya. The article quoted from interviews with Somali delegates to the talks, including some politicians who claimed that the opposition in Somaliland, rather than the government, has taken a hard-line against the prospects of any possible reunification with Somalia.

Given what is at stake, the independence of Somaliland is a sensitive political topic, domestically, regionally and internationally, making it all the more important to have a robust public debate so that the public can make informed judgements. Journalists, like other Somalilanders, have the right to know what the government and the opposition are thinking, and doing, about crucial issues that affect all of us as individuals, and which will determine our collective political future. More than that, they have a responsibility to shine a search light on what politicians would often prefer to hide. If the government wanted to challenge the veracity of these claims, it has many opportunities to make its view heard. Imprisoning Hassan will only fuel speculation that it has reason to be secretive on this issue.

Voluntary testing or mandatory testing? That is the question AIDS activists and government officials are grappling with in Zambia, where about one million people have already died in the pandemic since the late 1980s. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS puts adult HIV prevalence in Zambia at about 19 percent. The country has a population of about 10 million.

Nine more people died in Bulawayo last month due to hunger amid reports that an estimated 22 of the 58 districts in Zimbabwe have dwindling food supplies. Bulawayo Executive Mayor, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, told The Standard those who died were mostly children under the age of five, some elderly men and women aged above 60 years. He said the deaths resulting from malnutrition were a weekly occurrence.

Since February, Lesotho is in a state of emergency due to three years of drought, hunger and a dramatic increase in HIV/Aids cases. On the other, surprising side, however, Lesotho is experiencing an economic growth well above the African average. For several years, the deepening of the country's humanitarian crisis has been paralleled by a strong GDP growth.

Close to 8,000 South Africans are now receiving anti-AIDS drugs, but several provinces are still not doing enough to rapidly roll out the treatment programme, an NGO coalition has said in a new report.

The Department of Health (DoH) in the Limpopo Province and the European Union invite proposals from NPOs providing Primary Health Care and HIV/Aids services in the Bohlabela and Sekhukhune districts only.

South Africa's parliament approved a new law on Thursday to regulate traditional African healers. Millions of South Africans consult more than 200 000 traditional healers, who use rituals and herbal medicines to treat a wide range of illnesses. The Traditional Health Practitioners Bill - which must still be ratified by South Africa's second House - aims to regulate their activities, including barring them from treating fatal diseases such as cancer and Aids. It will also create a council to licence the healers.