Norwegian Nurses Association International (NNAI) Secretary Per Godtland Kristensen has described as unethical the practice whereby rich countries rob poor nations of nurses through mass recruitment. Speaking at a joint Press briefing for NNAI, Zambia Nurses Association (ZNA) and International Council of Nurses (ICN) in Lusaka, Mr Kristensen said rich nations must not be allowed to recruit nurses from developing countries en-masse.

The Mozambican cholera epidemic has now spread to the western province of Tete, reports Friday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias". The Tete Cholera Treatement Centre (CTC) has diagnosed the first four cases if the diseases, but no deaths have been reported. The local health authorities believe that this onset of the disease is linked to the persistent rainfall in the region.

The implementation of the new national social health scheme begins next month in three districts. National Hospital Insurance Fund chief executive A.M. Hassan said the new scheme was part of the Government's efforts to ensure that all Kenyans had access to quality and affordable healthcare. Under the proposed changes, each unemployed family member would be required to contribute Sh400 yearly while income earners continue to pay on monthly basis. Mr Hassan said the Government would subsidise the poor and disadvantaged. Previously, only people in formal employment were beneficiaries of the health scheme which currently has a membership of 1.8 million.

The Ecohealth Training Awards encourage graduate-level students to examine the relationships between the environment, human health, and development from a holistic perspective through field research that contributes to understanding these relationships as inter-related. The focus of this year’s competition is health in an urban context. Applicants are asked to submit proposals that use ecosystem approaches to human health to analyse the links between human health and urban ecosystem conditions, as well as identify potential intervention strategies based on better natural resource management that improves human health and ecosystem sustainability. Deadline for receiving applications: May 15, 2004.

The Ministry of Health has established The Orotta School of Medicine in Asmara, the first medical school in Eritrea. The school admitted its first students on 16 February, 2004. As the first class entry, 32 (thirty two) students have been admitted to the program and of these 6 (six) are women.

"We, members of the Pan African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) who have gathered here in Harare from 3-5 March 2004 to draw up civil society strategies to ensure rapid scale-up of anti-retroviral therapy in Southern Africa understand that everyone in the world is vulnerable to HIV infection and know that HIV-positive people in Africa, particularly women and other vulnerable groups, experience great challenges that must be addressed urgently. We know and understand that there are numerous factors and actors that hamper the provision of affordable life-saving medicines. Some of these include profiteering by pharmaceutical companies, inequitable international trade relationships, poverty, extreme stigma, imbalance of power within patriarchal societies, macroeconomic policies that constrain spending for health care and other social services and a lack of commensurate political commitment by our governments and other leaders to match the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic."

Some 40 HIV-positive people on Tuesday began to receive free anti-retrovirals (ARVs) after Health Minister Muhammad Ali Kamil launched Djibouti's first distribution of ARV medication at Peltier Hospital, the country's main medical centre. Medical staff at the hospital told IRIN that the treatment was started through a donor-funded programme called Global Care for People Living with AIDS (Prise en charge globale des personnes vivant avec le SIDA).

A measles epidemic has been declared in Etoumbi, 700 km north of Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, with 32 cases registered so far, Bernard Mantele, the office director of the Congolese Ministry of Health, told IRIN last Thursday. "The epidemic was confirmed by local health authorities. The Ministry of Health would have sent an emergency medical team earlier, but we did not have the necessary resources," Mantele said. "Nevertheless, a team of doctors left Brazzaville on Wednesday and are on the ground working to stop the epidemic."

A survey of listeners to Botswana's popular HIV/AIDS radio drama, "Makgabaneng", has revealed a lack of specific knowledge about the virus in a country with the world's highest level of HIV infection. Only 55 percent of respondents rejected the myths that mosquitoes can spread HIV, sex with a virgin can cure AIDS, and healthy looking people cannot have the virus.

Suspected yellow fever cases have appeared in eight of the 15 counties in Liberia, three of them along the border with Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire, a senior official of World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed in the capital, Monrovia. Dr Mekonnen Admassu told IRIN last Thursday at the WHO-Liberia offices that the government and his organisation had received reports of 39 suspected cases of yellow fever, a potentially fatal disease that is transmitted by mosquitoes and is spreading rapidly through the country.

Nigeria’s programme of subsidised antiretroviral treatment, interrupted since September last year by drug shortages, has resumed with the arrival of emergency supplies ordered by the government, health officials said on Friday. Ayo Osinlu, spokesman for the Minister of Health Eyitayo Lambo, said drugs worth 500 million naira [about US $3.8 million] ordered by the government in January began arriving in Nigeria two weeks ago.

What does it mean to a town to have 10% of its children lose parents? Sarah Crowe from Unicef visited a school in Thaba Tseka, one of the worst hit districts in Lesotho. Residents blame large-scale development projects and road construction that have brought migrant workers to the area for the increasing HIV/Aids prevalence rates.

The Ecohealth Training Awards encourage graduate-level students to examine the relationships between the environment, human health, and development from a holistic perspective through field research that contributes to understanding these relationships as inter-related. The focus of this year’s competition is health in an urban context. Applicants are asked to submit proposals that use ecosystem approaches to human health to analyse the links between human health and urban ecosystem conditions, as well as identify potential intervention strategies based on better natural resource management that improves human health and ecosystem sustainability. Deadline for receiving applications: May 15, 2004

Kenya's efforts to ensure it has more healthy citizens shows no sign of improvement except for a reduction in the HIV/Aids prevalence, a survey report indicates. Consequently, the Kenya Family Service Provision Survey, launched in Nairobi this week, recommends a radical review of priorities and approaches in addressing the country's health issues. However, the report says there are pockets of past success stories, including a substantial increase in contraceptive use and a considerable success in the overall reduction of family sizes.

The Mozambican health authorities are concerned over the rise in cholera cases in several of the country's provinces, which is blamed on continuing heavy rains. Maputo city chief doctor Nidia Remane, cited in Wednesday's issue of the daily paper "Noticias", said that the average number of admissions to the Cholera Treatment Centre, at the Mavalane General Hospital, stood at about 150 a day, but the figure rose to 167 on Tuesday.

The South African treatment advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign on Monday threatened to file a lawsuit against the government before the country's April 14 elections unless the government begins its national HIV/AIDS treatment program, Reuters reports.

This course explores the communication process; the concept of behaviour change; steps in developing a behaviour change communication strategy; understanding the risk factors that expose individuals to HIV; defining desired behaviour and attitude changes; and setting communication goals and objectives.

Condoms, which for years have been used for combating the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and stopping unwanted pregnancies, are the latest campaign weapons to remove president Mugabe of Zimbabwe from power. In a bulletin broadcast this week, Zimbabwe’s State controlled radio claims that the US is behind a scheme in which re-branded ‘revolutionary condoms’ with the message “get up, stand up,” are being used to urge Zimbabweans to stand up for their rights and overthrow the government.

As U.S. pharmaceutical firms shift a growing number of their drug trials to poorer nations, companies are facing tough ethical questions about what -- if anything -- they owe to volunteers when the tests are done. The quandary is covered in a report from last week's New York Times, which found little consensus among corporate executives about how to handle end-of-trial issues. While some firms continue to provide volunteers with drugs after the tests have concluded, others simply wash their hands of the volunteers, saying the cost of setting up shop in underdeveloped countries is too steep.

This paper provides information on the implementation of the collaborative project to improve household food security in rural Ugandan communities affected by HIV/AIDS. The aim of the project is increased collaboration between communities and specialists to improve the ability of households to meet their food security needs. Gender is addressed as a central role in household food security.