In an effort to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Great Lakes region, government ministers from six countries signed a convention on Tuesday establishing a new regional organisation called the Great Lakes Initiatives on AIDS (GLIA). The Great Lakes has the world's second highest incidence of HIV infection after southern Africa.

A cholera outbreak in and around N'djamena, the capital of Chad, has infected more than 600 people over the past month and 38 have died, an official of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium said on Friday. "To date, more than 600 people have been infected by cholera and 38 have died,” Josette Benamane, the newly appointed MSF Belgium Coordinator in N'djamena, told IRIN.

A critical shortage of health professionals in Swaziland is undermining the public health system's capacity to expand its national antiretroviral (ARV) programme, health officials have warned. A recent situation analysis carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed the extent of the problem in a country with one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. The WHO study noted there was an overall lack of staff in key areas of the health sector resulting in services either being stopped or quality of care being compromised.

Building health research expertise in developing countries often requires personnel to receive training beyond national borders. For research funding agencies that sponsor this type of training, a major goal is to ensure that trainees return to their country of origin: attaining this objective requires the use of proactive strategies. This paper describes the strategies employed to discourage brain drain.

This World Bank report focuses on the health and nutrition Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) assessing the progress to date and prospects for achieving these goals. The first part of the report finds that progress towards the MDGs for health has been mixed and that progress in the second half of the 1990 - 2015 window will not necessarily be better. However, the authors argue that improving the rate of progress towards these goals is possible in all regions and countries.

Poor, pregnant and malnourished. These are the three adjectives that best describe Kache Nyoka, a mother of five, who is caught up in the drought that has ravaged Kilifi District in Kenya's Coast Province. Sitting next to the ramshackle mud-and-thatch hut that she calls home, Kache is in deep thought, agonising over what to do about her seven-year old daughter who has been sent away from school because the family cannot afford the ten shillings (US $0.13) that every pupil must contribute to pay the cook hired by the school to prepare meals for the pupils.

The fight against HIV/Aids in South Africa will receive a major boost when a European Union (EU) body will donate R4,2 bn to the Medical Research Council (MRC), reports the IOL. A spokesperson from the MRC indicated that the funding from the European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (ECDTP) will be used 'to conduct trials.'

Situated some 750 km from Mali's capital Bamako, patients at Dimbal hospital are now benefiting from the medical opinion of experts in Geneva. This is made possible by the Geolink Access satellite which allows doctors in the hospital to ask questions of experts 6,000kms away in case of difficulties. The network is an initiative for 'la mission archéologique et ethnoarchéologique suisse en Afrique occidentale (Maesao)' and Dimbal is a pilot project.

Inadequate health infrastructures and "insufficient" involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS pose challenges to African governments in the fight against the epidemic, officials said at the close of the U.N. Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa conference on Tuesday, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. The two-day conference, which was held in Botswana, was the second of five that aim to provide Africa with an opportunity to examine all aspects of the continent's HIV/AIDS epidemic.

South Africa has about 1.5 million fewer HIV-positive people than UNAIDS reported earlier this month, according to a new report released Wednesday by the country's governmental statistics agency Stats SA, Reuters reports. According to Stats SA's mid-year statistical report, there are about 3.8 million HIV-positive people in South Africa, and approximately 1.5 million people have died from AIDS-related causes.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries which have declared war against the second biggest killer disease in Africa, malaria, are winning the fight. Over one million children have been killed by malaria every year, in the sub-Sahara region. Dozens of delegates from global organisations, as well as health experts from the SADC region have gathered in Gaborone to attend this year's malaria control conference.

The incidence of measles among children in Uganda has fallen by over 84%, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report has revealed. The drop is mainly attributed to the massive nationwide immunisation conducted last year, a press release from the WHO office in Kampala said on Wednesday. It says from January to March this year, a cumulative total of 1,606 suspected cases (of measles) were reported from all health centres and hospitals countrywide, showing a significant decline from 10,329 reported in the same time period of 2003."

Nigeria is to get its first plant for manufacturing anti-retroviral drugs for people living with HIV and Aids. The plant is expected to bring cheaper medication for the millions of Nigerians afflicted by the disease. It is wholly owned by a group of Nigerians living in the US who answered an appeal by President Olusegun Obasanjo for investment from expats.

With a potentially devastating malaria epidemic threatening to break out in Ethiopia, United Nations agencies are working with the country's Government to raise nearly $7 million to purchase new medicines needed to treat the disease. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are supporting the Addis Ababa authorities in attempting to rapidly mobilize the funds to supply a newer treatment known as Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) because of increased resistance to drugs now in use.

The debate around a journalism school in Lagos, which has withdrawn the admission letter of a new student, after learning that he is living with HIV, doesn’t seem to go away. Adegboye Ibikunle’s dismissal by the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) has sparked protests by civil societies who have demanded that the college takes him back immediately.

Southern Africa is responding to its AIDS pandemic with new programmes that promoters say must be as adaptable as the HIV virus itself. "Just as HIV mutates, frustrating efforts to come up with a vaccine, so do our prevention, mitigation and treatment efforts have to be flexible and innovative. We are not yet crippled by this crisis," said Sylvia Kunene, a counsellor with a voluntary testing centre in Nelspruit, South Africa.

The government of Guinea-Bissau is launching its first big push against HIV/AIDS with the help of a US$19 million aid package from the World Bank and the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Health Minister Odete Costa Semedo said. The money pledged recently by these two donors will be used to help fund a three-year strategic plan to control AIDS, she told IRIN.

The health of the nation is characterised by a quadruple burden of disease, with the impact of HIV/AIDS adding to the combination of a high injury burden, conditions related to underdevelopment and chronic diseases. Per capita spending at district level on Primary Health Care (PHC) ranges from R389 in richer districts to R42 in the poorest districts, meaning that many districts are simply not able to afford the PHC package estimated at approximately R220 per capita. Although spending on health in the public sector in 2005/6 is projected to increase by R 8.7 billion in real terms over a decade, much of the funding has been absorbed by HIV/AIDS, medical inflation and relatively higher salaries which has resulted in real expenditure per capita stagnating. These are some of the findings contained in the 9th South African Health Review (SAHR).

The Competition Tribunal is set to reopen an investigation into the pricing practices of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, after announcing that it had agreed to hear the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's (AHF's) complaint against the company over its AIDS drugs prices. Glaxo is the world's largest manufacturer of AIDS drugs, with patents on three of the most widely used antiretroviral medicines

Botswana's antiretroviral drug program lacks the capacity to meet the country's "ever worsening, perpetual, insatiable demand," Ernest Darkoh, operations manager for the country's drug program, said at a U.N. fact-finding conference on Monday, Reuters reports. "We do not have the staff to deal with it ... [t]he critically ill and dying clog the system," Darkoh said.