An American NGO operating in the Central African Republic (CAR) has donated HIV/AIDS testing materials to six Roman Catholic dioceses in the country, state-owned Radio Centrafrique reported. The donation, from the International Partnership for Human Development (IPHD), also included medicines for HIV-related opportunistic diseases and video sets for the screening of sensitisation messages about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The health ministry has launched a programme to distribute free anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to people living with AIDS through 26 centres in district and regional referral hospitals across the country. Health Minister Jim Muhwezi told IRIN on Friday that arrangements were being made to expand the distribution outlets to reach more people.

Angola needs urgent funding for essential drugs if lives are to be saved, particularly among resettling populations, warned a mid-year review of the UN's Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP), released on Tuesday. The CAP review, prepared by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that at the end of April, funding for the essential drug component of the Minimum Health Care Package stood at approximately 50 percent.

Of 585 000 maternal deaths worldwide each year, 99% are in developing countries. What factors underlie this striking imbalance? Research involving the Malawi College of Medicine and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine studied this issue in a rural community in southern Malawi. Maternal education and access to healthcare facilities influence pregnancy outcomes, it showed.

Out of every hundred births, seven newborn babies do not survive the first week of life in Africa. In developed countries only 1% of babies die during this period. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, together with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, studied the maternity ward of a rural Kenyan hospital to find the causes of perinatal mortality, that is, stillbirth or death in the first week of life.

Up to date and accurate information on best practice for maternity care is not always available to practitioners in African countries. Women giving birth in government hospitals may be subjected to outdated practices, because midwives and birth attendants may not be aware of effective interventions that can improve outcomes and women's experiences during labour and delivery.

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN says it is deeply concerned by the reported death threats made against Gaston Bony and the apparent deterioration in his health. Bony was handed down a prison term of six months for defamation on 31 March 2004 following the publication of an article which implicated the Mayor of Agboville in the misappropriation of funds which were intended as a grant for a radio station.

Programme Planning for Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health focuses on building sound interventions for adolescent sexual and reproductive health designed to strengthen institutional capacity to effectively monitor programme operations and evaluate performance.

Save the Children (USA) is a non profit making organisation whose mission is to bring lasting positive change in the lives of children in need through out the globe. Save the Children Uganda Field Office is currently implementing a five year Food Security Program in Nakasongola district and is seeking to recruit competent professionals.

Increases in production and incomes, the development of contract-farming arrangements with smallholders, and attention to market dynamics, including a lack of recurrent subsidies, have positively impacted on the Kenyan horticulture export situation, according to a paper from the International Food Policy Research Institute. The brief examines some of the factors that have contributed to the over six percent growth in Kenyan horticulture exports over the last 30 years. The article highlights specific elements of Kenya's horticultural export market that have led to its success and specifies more general characteristics that could be applied to other markets seeking further improvement.

A meeting of the East African Network for the Monitoring of anti-Malaria Treatment opened on Tuesday in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, with participants calling for the establishment of a system to monitor the use of a new anti-malarial combination therapy. The delegates, from Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Kenya and Uganda, said the Network should play a key role in advocacy for countries to put in place useful and acceptable anti-malaria policies.

The government of Gabon has announced a further cut in the price of anti-retroviral drugs for people living with AIDS and has slashed the price of HIV/AIDS testing for the country's 1.2 million population. Both measures were introduced in April following an announcement by the Global Funds to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that it would grant the West African country US $3 million grant to help fight AIDS.

While the United States “dissociated” itself from the consensus, the World Health Organisation's first strategy on reproductive health was adopted by the 57th World Health Assembly (WHA). Reproductive and sexual ill-health accounts for 20% of the global burden of ill-health for women and 14% for men. "Once again, the Bush Administration has shown their true colors by calling for a reproductive health policy that is more about ideology than reality,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA). “We have a moral responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of women and men around the world."

Political commitment and partnerships with organisations and governments are key to implementing successful HIV/AIDS prevention programs, Ugandan Health Minister Jim Muhwezi said in an interview with the Washington Times. The Ugandan government in 1986 implemented the "ABC" HIV prevention model - Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms - which has helped the country lower its HIV prevalence rate. According to a recent study published in the journal Science, the country's HIV prevalence has dropped 70% since the early 1990s.

Cotton anchors the economies of some of the world's poorest nations. But in 2001, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 24 sub-Saharan African states lost an estimated $302 million in cotton exports. The culprit? Soaring government subsidies for cotton farmers in the US. From 1994 to 2001, US cotton supports rose from $99 million to nearly $4 billion, according to official figures.

The Global Fund to FightAids, TB and Malaria has expressed its dissatisfaction over the South African government’s delay in disbursing funds allocated to various HIV/Aids prevention projects. The R1 bn funds allocated to South Africa last year could be withdrawn. The Global Fund is also exploring the possibility of dealing with the HIV/Aids NPOs directly. Love Life, one of the NPOs benefitting from the Global Fund, also expressed their frustration over the delay in the disbursement of funds by the government.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has expressed deep concern over the deterioration of "Le Venin" ("Venom") publication director Gaston Bony's health. Bony is imprisoned in the Agboville penitentiary, just outside of Abidjan. "The deplorable conditions of [Bony's] detention and a five day hunger strike have considerably weakened him," said the organisation. Bony, who is also a radio host with La voix de l'Agnéby (The Voice of Agnéby), a local radio station, has been in prison since 31 March 2004.

The Star reports that the national Health Department denies any delay on the part of the South African government in disbursing Aids funds to recipients. This is a response to the statement made by the Global Fund to FightAids, Malaria and TB, on channeling Aids funds directly to the beneficiaries in South Africa and complaints by recipients of delays in receiving their funds.

More and more people in the landlocked desert state of Niger are volunteering to undergo testing for HIV/AIDS as acceptance and understanding of the disease improves, according to health workers in the capital, Niamey. "The image of AIDS has changed. People no longer associate it with death, weight loss, incurability", Doctor Kadidiatu Gouro, the director of the Anonymous and Voluntary Testing Centre (CEDAV) in Niamey told IRIN.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) launched this year's campaign for World No Tobacco Day with the slogan: 'Tobacco and Poverty: a vicious circle', stressing the enormous economic costs of tobacco use and cultivation to families, communities and countries. The slogan 'a vicious circle' explains the inextricable link that exists between tobacco and poverty, and how the use of tobacco, especially by poorer people who consume this product the most, can cause harmful consequences to their already precarious economies and income.