Women meet weekly in Juliet's house in Gayaza in Rakai district. In psychological jargon, this is an interpersonal psychotherapy group. In practice, it resembles community support and friendship, the kind of network which has been destroyed by the HIV/Aids pandemic. The success of these groups in combating depression and boosting productivity means that they will be rolled out to the other Ugandan districts of Luwero and Mpigi later this year.

Some 5,000 nurses will be hired next month to ease an acute shortage in public hospitals, an assistant minister has said. Recruitment would be conducted at the constituency and district levels to improve local medical services, said Mr Gideon Konchella of the Health ministry.

Adverse drug reactions to alternative medicines have more than doubled in three years. To help address this issue, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new set of guidelines for national health authorities to develop context specific and reliable information for consumer use of alternative medicines. Up to 80% of developing country populations rely on traditional medicine for their primary health care, due to cultural tradition or lack of alternatives.

South Africa's department of health will continue to dispense Nevirapine until further research into the reliability of the drug in preventing HIV transmission from mother to child is conducted. Concerns about the safety of Nevirapine surfaced after collaborative research conducted by the Medicines Control Council (MCC), manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases revealed that some HIV positive mothers had developed resistance to the antiretroviral, making it uncertain whether transmission of the virus was being blocked or not.

HIV/Aids is hitting the world's young people hardest. More than half of the 14,000 people newly infected each day are under 25 years old; most of them are girls. But despite the disproportionate burden they carry - and the fact that they are more likely than adults to adopt and maintain safe behaviours - young people are routinely disregarded when strategies on HIV/Aids are drafted, policies made and budgets allocated.

Economic, social and cultural rights include the right to an adequate standard of living. The human right to adequate food is explicitly recognized as part of this broader human right. While the focus here is on food, social organizations have much to learn from the work that has emerged on health, education, housing, and other issues relating to an adequate standard of living.

African countries require less of an Asian-style 'green revolution' than a 'cultural revolution' involving ideas, attitudes and institutions. This must include, but not be limited to, a belief in science-based innovation. If United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan had expected a simple answer when he asked scientists two years ago what they could do about the food crisis in Africa, he will have been disappointed when he received their reply last week. The implication behind the way that Annan's question was phrased - how can a 'green revolution' be achieved in Africa? - is that the solution might be found in a set of relatively straightforward scientific and technical innovations in plant breeding. But, as the scientists' response, which was presented to Annan at a ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York last Friday, makes clear, Africa is a different case.

Humanitarian agencies have attributed the rise in the infection rate of young women to a lack of educational and vocational opportunities. In an effort to raise HIV/AIDS awareness among them and improve their life skills, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the authorities have teamed up to assist young people. "The UN agencies are supporting two youth projects to encourage the participation of girls in social activities through clubs. The projects also empower young girls by providing vocational training where they learn carpentry, tailoring and motor vehicle mechanics," UNFPA programme assistant Daniel Msonda explained.

Health workers in Zimbabwe have called for increased efforts to stem the high number of AIDS-related deaths in the armed forces. The recently released 2003 Zimbabwe Human Development Report claimed that HIV prevalence in the armed forces far exceeded the general population infection rate of 24.6 percent in the general population, and three-quarters of soldiers died of AIDS within a year of leaving the army.

Male circumcision as a method to reduce the risk of HIV infection is being hotly debated this week after a prominent politician announced that his four sons had been circumcised, contrary to Swazi tradition. "All male children should be circumcised. To show my seriousness, I have taken all my sons for circumcision," MP and former House Speaker, Marwick Khumalo, told his constituents at Lobamba, 20 km east of the capital, Mbabane. Khumalo said he wondered why circumcision, despite the evidence of its effectiveness, was not being stressed as a way to reduce HIV infection.

The Health Coordinator (HC) will be ultimately responsible for the development, implementation, standardization, and evaluation of all health-related activities in the Kivu and Katanga provinces.

The 79-member grouping of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries known as the ACP bloc wrapped up its latest summit in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, this week, with delegates expressing a willingness to kick start stalled global trade talks. However, the ACP warned that the thorny issue of agricultural subsidies would have to be at the top of the talks agenda.

Harare, Zimbabwe – Canada and Sweden officially handed over up to US$60,000.00 per hospital to four mission hospitals in Manicaland and Masvingo provinces. The donation will enable the mission hospitals, with technical support from Pact ZimAIDS, to carry out competitive community HIV/AIDS support programmes targeted at rural communities.The official handover ceremony was held in Harare on May 20th, 2004. The Ambassador of Canada, John Schram, and the Ambassador of Sweden, Kristina Svensson, officially presented the grants to Musume Mission Hospital (United Lutheran Church), Mutambara Mission Hospital (United Methodist Church), Regina Coeli Mission Hospital (Roman Catholic) and St. Theresa’s Mission Hospital (Roman Catholic).

The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is call ing for for Proposals (in collaboration with The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada) to strengthen health systems, promote civic engagement, and make research matter. The aim of this exercise is to support the integration of political, economic, social and policy analysis into research on public health and health care systems and policies in Eastern and Southern Africa. Only proposals focusing on this region will be considered. The research should provide solid grounds for making informed and needs-based decisions on the equitable financing and functioning of health systems.

African church leaders said on Friday that they would make available in church-supported health facilities, drugs used to lessen the severity of HIV/AIDS infection and become more involved in fighting the stigmatisation of those living with the virus. "We will make treatment available at church-supported mission hospitals, clinics, dispensaries and health posts," the Rt Rev Nyansanko Ni-Nku, the president of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), told a news conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, following a three-day meeting of 200 Protestant church leaders from 39 African countries.

Tanzania hopes to start distributing free antiretroviral drugs to people living with HIV/AIDS by October, the Ministry of Health has said. Special priority would be given to expectant mothers, as around 70,000 HIV-positive babies were born each year, said deputy health minister Ali Mwinyi.

About 90 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province have teamed up to work with the government in rolling out antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, in the first structured civil society response of its kind in South Africa, and possibly even on the continent. When the government announced a national rollout plan for free ARVs in September 2003, Cati Vawda, director of the Durban-based Children's Rights Centre, and a number of her NGO colleagues, quickly realised that "government alone cannot do it".

A new study commissioned by the South African Cities Network (SACN) urges local municipalities to develop a multi-sectoral strategy to tackle the effects of HIV/AIDS on their communities. The report, titled 'South African Cities and HIV/AIDS: Challenges and Responses', noted that while there had been a number of initiatives to support local government in developing an HIV/AIDS response, there was little attempt to assess the challenges facing the cities.

"The June 2004 EQUINET conference in Durban South Africa affirmed that we stand for:
* Equity and social justice in health;
* Public interests over commercial interests in health;
* International and global relations that promote equity, social
justice, people's health and public interests;
* Increased unconditional resource flows from the North and fairer
terms of trade..."

The World Health Organisation has removed two generic antiretroviral drugs from its list of approved AIDS drugs used to treat people in the developing world, the New York Times reports. The decision was made after a routine check in May found that the manufacturer, the Indian company Cipla, could not document that its drugs were biologically equivalent to patented ones.