A “hideous cycle” of food shortages, poverty and HIV/AIDS in Zambia has left about one million children orphaned and a growing class of people destitute, aid agencies say. “The HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zambia deserves to be treated as an emergency which has and will continue to have impact on poverty and food security levels,” Lena Savelli, information officer for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) in Zambia, told AlertNet.

Worldwide, partners and stakeholders value the sharing of information and experiences on Conservation Agriculture (CA). This has been demonstrated and achieved in the First and Second World Congresses on Conservation Agriculture (Spain, 2001 and Brazil, 2003). The World Congress on Conservation Agriculture is acknowledged as an effective forum. Hence, the second World Congress gave the mandate to Africa to organize and host the Third World Congress on Conservation Agriculture (III WCCA).

Kenyans have been consuming imported foods that were long banned without their knowledge. Many supermarkets in Kenya have stocks of these banned foods, also known as genetically modified (GM) crops, and the Government is helpless because it does not have the capacity to test and detect if the food is unnatural. The most consumed GM food comes into Kenya from import food markets like South Africa and the US. The South African brokers sell maize bought by some local millers because of the low price compared to locally grown maize.

Following confirmation on 23 January of a polio case in the southwestern province of Ombella Mpoko, Central African Republic (CAR) health officials have scheduled an anti-polio immunisation drive in the province for 23-28 February. "To avoid other cases, all the children in the region must be immunised," Nestor Nali, the health minister, was quoted as saying on Monday by state-owned Radio Centrafrique.

More than 14,000 living with AIDS in Nigeria who had been receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs subsidised by the government are running out of supplies, an HIV/AIDS activist group said on Tuesday. Nsikak Ekpe, president of AIDS Alliance Nigeria (AAN), an organisation which represents people living with AIDS in Africa's most populous country, said the government had stopped supplying drugs at almost all the 25 treatment centres selected for the programme across the country.

Sleeping sickness, a vector-borne parasitic disease, is ravaging Angola, threatening a third of the population across 14 of the 18 provinces in the south-west African country which is still struggling to rebuild after a 27-year civil war that ended in April 2002. "The situation in Angola is alarming," said Ndinga Dieyi Dituvanga, a doctor and an official with the Institute for the Prevention of Trypanosomiasis, the scientific name for the disease, which is initially characterised by bouts of fever, headaches, pains in the joints and itching and affects both human beings and cattle.

A man is HIV positive. His doctor prescribes Bactrim, a common anti-biotic used as a prophylaxis (prevention) and for the treatment for pneumocystis carinii pneumonia – a generally treatable condition if the person is HIV negative, but potentially fatal if he or she is HIV positive. At present, the pharmacist, private hospital or doctor who dispenses this patient’s prescription will charge up to R126,94 for 20 adult-strength Bactrim capsules. After May this year, when government enacts the recently-published draft regulations relating to a transparent pricing system for medicines and scheduled substances, the same prescription could cost as little as R46,56. The old pricing structure in South Africa is notoriously complicated, secretive and confusing with incentives, discounts and mark ups hidden along the drug chain. Until now, South African consumers, who pay amongst the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, have suffered the brunt of these huge markups and profits.

Drugs distributed as part of Kenya's AIDS medicine programme are being sold on the black market, according to a report. Unscrupulous business people are selling the drugs on the back streets of the capital, Nairobi, at less than US$65 for a monthly cocktail, nearly quarter the normal price. Health minister Charity Ngilu announced last year that selected hospitals would dispense the drugs on strictly prescription-only terms and at subsidised prices. The scheme currently provides antiretroviral drugs to 6000 people infected with HIV.

Short-term relief followed by long-term disaster is not sound policy. Nonetheless, that could be a result of the Aids strategy being contemplated by the World Health Organisation, which on December 1 - World Aids Day - announced a plan to treat 3-million people with HIV/Aids by 2005. The WHO is proposing that billions of dollars be spent on increasing access to anti-retroviral drugs. That is a noble intention. However, it may not be the most cost-effective way to stem the tide of HIV/Aids: it may even be counterproductive. Let's be clear. Reducing the cost and increasing the supply of medicines to the poor is a good thing. But on its own it is not enough. Nor should it be today's priority. The roots of Africa's health care crisis run far deeper and broader than a mere shortage of drugs.

Cheap and widely available antiretroviral therapy for treating HIV and AIDS may seem like the solution to Africa's AIDS epidemic. But if not carefully planned and carried out, any programmes to administer the drugs could be disastrous. In this article, Warren Stevens, Steve Kaye and Tumani Corrah of the Medical Research Council Laboratories in Banjul, Gambia, argue that consistent prescription and close monitoring of the drugs are essential to prevent widespread drug resistance.

AIDS activists from the advocacy group, AIDS Therapeutic Treatment Now, South Africa (ATTN SA) expressed outrage and frustration over the move by the South African government to cut by two-thirds of its AIDS budget. According to the Financial Times (UK) newspaper (2/2/04), "The initial budget of R296m (pounds Sterling 22m, $42m, euro 34m) for the first phase of the roll-out of treatment, up to the end of next month, has been cut to R90m by the Treasury, without explanation."

The international medical relief organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Tigray Regional Health Bureau this week launched the first programme of free anti-retrovirals (ARVs) for the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients in Ethiopia, according to a press statement issued by MSF on Tuesday. The first 13 patients at the Kahsay Abera hospital in the northwestern town of Humera had started receiving their ARVs, it said.

The development agency, Christian Aid, is stepping up a campaign to get church and faith leaders to join the fight against the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS in Angola. The UK-based group plans to integrate HIV/AIDS awareness into its current post-conflict food security activities, and believes the church should play a much bigger role in helping people learn about and live with the virus, rather than fuelling the stigma and prejudice that envelops it.

Zambian authorities are considering tough measures to contain a cholera outbreak which has claimed 110 lives, 80 of them in a treatment centre in the capital, Lusaka. Among the measures being considered is the restriction of movement from areas affected by cholera, and the prevention of large gatherings such as weddings and funerals, Central Board of Health spokesman, Dr Victor Mukonka, told IRIN on Friday.

A strike by doctors, nurses and hospital technicians demanding the payment of salary arrears paralysed government hospitals in Guinea-Bissau for three days this week, forcing hundreds of patients to go home or seek treatment in private clinics if they could afford it. The strike was called by the two main trade unions in the health sector to protest at the government's failure to pay five months of salary arrears and special bonuses and to demand better food for patients.

A new initiative to strengthen food security and enhance economic growth in East Africa through a sustainable, long term partnership between governments, traders, producer associations, development and aid agencies has been set up in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Supported by the United States Agency for International Development and the Famine Early Warning System, the Regional Agricultural Trade Enhancement Support and FOODNET projects, the information network aims to gather, analyse and increase access to information about key food commodities such as maize and beans in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.

The G8 (the United States, England, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia, the European Union, and Canada) represents the major political driver of contemporary globalization. It is also the most powerful political force behind the multilateral institutions that are shaping global economic practice and governance. The aid, trade, and investment policies and practices of G8 member nations largely shape the development possibilities of poorer countries around the world. This book provides a “report card” of commitments over the past three G8 summits (1999, 2000, and 2001) with a preliminary assessment of the most recent 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada. It presents findings from the G8 Research Centre at the University of Toronto (Canada), which has been tracking compliance on G8 commitments for a number of years. Based on research funded by IDRC, the book extends these assessments of compliance to an examination of how adequate G8 commitments are to global development needs.

The proposed criminalisation of people who have sex without telling their partners of their HIV status has been slammed as "rubbish" and a "very dangerous approach". That's the view of Mark Heywood, law and human rights sector representative on the SA National Aids Council, who said the stance had already been opposed by the SA Law Commission after a "lengthy investigation". This follows a proposal on Monday by Johnny de Lange, chairman of the parliamentary portfolio committee on justice, that the transmission of HIV become a separate crime. Heywood responded that the proposal "goes against the recommendations of the World Health Organisation", and that criminalising people with HIV would further stigmatise them.

More than 11 million children under 15 years of age have been orphaned as a result of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, with that figure expected to rise to 20 million by 2010, according to a report by UNICEF Ireland. In late 2003, an estimated 26.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV/AIDS. Of those, 10 million were young people (aged 15-24) and more than 2 3 million were children under 15. In 2003 alone, about 2,3 million adults died of AIDS in the region - that's the equivalent to over 5,000 people dying every day. Among the most devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa is that it is orphaning generations of children - jeopardising their rights and well being, as well as compromising the overall development prospects of their countries.

Julia, 24, has three children and is one month pregnant with her fourth baby, but is adamant that she does not want to continue with the pregnancy. Julia participated in a pilot project to prevent transmission of the HI virus from mother to child (PMTCT) at the Primiero do Maio health centre, in Malhagalene, a suburb of Maputo, the capital. It began in June 2002 and is supported by the international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF). One of the ongoing challenges is the stigma associated with the virus. Nurse dos Santos points to a box of consultation cards belonging to 28 of the women benefiting from the project. "The women ask me to keep their cards, so that their husbands or other family members do not see their status," she said.