AIDS drug treatment programmes can be scaled up effectively in poor areas, and do not lead to the high levels of drug resistance that many had feared, according to preliminary results from Mozambique. The DREAM (Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS in Mozambique) programme - part of a national strategy to provide antiretroviral drug treatment (ART) to people living with HIV/AIDS - has also confirmed that state-of-the-art laboratory facilities are an important part of monitoring treatment.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa announced his government will provide free anti-retroviral drugs to about 100,000 patients by next year through the public health system. In a state-of-the-nation address to parliament, Mwanawasa said 10,000 HIV-infected people have so far been put on anti-retroviral therapy provided by the government.

“At least tens of thousands of children die every year” because the World Health Organisation and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (GFATM) continue to fund (or support the funding) the purchase of old drugs by African countries rather than the newer, more effective and dramatically more expensive artemisinin-class combination therapies (ACT), according to an editorial “viewpoint” published in the January 17th issue of The Lancet. The editorial, written by academic malaria specialists and some researchers in the developing world accuses both organisations of “medical malpractice” and blames them for caving into pressure from donor governments such as the USA, whose aid officials say that ACT is too expensive.

South Africa's most influential AIDS pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) slammed the government on Tuesday for delays in rolling out a planned anti-retroviral (ARV) drug program. Amid mounting pressure from home and abroad, President Thabo Mbeki's government agreed last November to give sufferers anti-retroviral drugs which can prolong life and stave off full-blown AIDS in people with the HIV virus that causes it. The long-awaited announcement was universally welcomed after years of controversial debate about the science of HIV/AIDS, but now activists are unhappy about further delays.

The World Health Organisation said last Wednesday it planned to boost programmes aimed at curbing the growing pandemic of tuberculosis and HIV co-infections, with the main focus being in Africa, where 70 percent of the world's 14 million people who are co-infected live. "Tuberculosis (TB) is perhaps the greatest and most deadly opportunistic infection associated with AIDS," said Dr. Peter Piot, executive directions of the UNAIDS programme. "By tackling TB and HIV together, we can have a significant impact on improving the quality of life of people infected with HIV, while also controlling TB and preventing new infections."

Unfair competition from developed countries could have tragic effects and genuine globalization is required where everybody plays on a level playing field without double standards being adopted. This is one of the findings of a paper produced by the Global Development Network (GDN) that asks the question: Is agricultural technology able to lead to economic development through more productive techniques and can small-scale farmers efficiently and significantly improve their production, feed themselves and enter into competition in a free market? This paper looks at the adoption of technologies in three different countries in West Africa and analyses the impact on soil fertility, food security and market access.

There is no reliable data on the extent to which AIDS has increased in the rebel-held north of Cote d'Ivoire since civil war broke out 16 months ago, but recent informal studies by one haematologist working at the main hospital in the northern town of Korhogo showed alarming results. Dr Assad Ouattara told IRIN on Monday that he had tested 60 patients at the Korhogo hospital for HIV/AIDS so far this month. Of these, 35 - more than half - were found to be infected with the fatal virus.

Zambian health officials have warned of the emergence of strains of the HI virus that are resistant to current antiretroviral (ARV) drug treatment. Dr Ben Chirwa, director general of the Central Board of Health, said a recent laboratory study conducted at the University Teaching Hospital in the capital, Lusaka, had confirmed the drug-resistant strain, and its emergence was "clearly an indication that people are not being consistent with their medication."

When Jasper Simalie suffered from severe respiratory complications two years ago, his family had no reason to fear for the worst. They had their hopes pinned on Zimbabwe's affordable health care service, which enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best in Southern Africa. And it delivered. The condition returned to haunt him last year, and this time the family made frantic but futile efforts to find affordable treatment. Simalie's illness forced him to stay at home for three months. He was retrenched, and left with only enough money to pay his way back to his rural home in the northwestern province of Binga. Hospitals, according to Simalie, "are now a place to die - they refer everyone to a filthy deathbed under a hardworking but underfunded home-based care system."

The International Organisation for Migration has launched a US$2 million, three-year initiative to foster a regional partnership on HIV and AIDS in mobile populations in Southern Africa. The initiative will include assessments and research across the region, which has some of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, as well as raising public awareness of the vulnerability and needs of groups on the move.

Food and nutrition security remain Africa's most fundamental challenge. About 200 million people on the continent are undernourished, their numbers having increased by 15 percent since the early 1990s and virtually doubling since the late 1960s. Against this alarming backdrop, however, Africa has climbed back on the agenda. There are new political initiatives gaining momentum both inside and outside the continent. This all-Africa conference will bring together the traditional and new actors and stakeholders to deliberate on how to bring about change and action to assure food and nutrition security.

With support from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the University of KwaZulu-Natal has extended and refined its grants programme to stimulate research in Population Studies and HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa over the 2004-2005 periods. Interested researchers are requested to contact Millicent Atujuna for further grant and application details at [email protected] or visit the following website: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/grants.

You will have at least 3 years' direct work experience of planning and implementing HIV & AIDS activities with young people and communities and experience of training young people and adults both in a formal and non-formal setting. You should have a relevant qualification in youth and community development work or similar. Proven experience with participatory rural appraisal methodologies such as stepping-stones or other participatory techniques, experience of liaison with a range of different organisations, and experience of/understanding of the role of advocacy in promoting change on issues relating to HIV & AIDS are essential.

You will have at least 2 years experience working in a management or coordination role at the level of primary health care and a minimum of 2 years relevant work experience in a third world context, preferably Africa. Proven experience in health policy formation, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, experience in formal training and theoretical and practical experience of community-based health care delivery system are essential.

Ghana earlier this month began providing antiretroviral treatment to some HIV-positive people living in the country, Reuters reports. Sekyi Amoah, director-general of the Ghana AIDS Commission, said, "We started providing free antiretroviral drugs to patients in four hospitals around the country this month. Our target is to have 6,000 people on the drugs each year over the next two years."

An outbreak of cholera killed 11 people in southern Chad earlier this month, but the outbreak has been brought under control following repairs to the water supply system in the town of Moundou, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said last Thursday. Dr Abdoulaye Yam, the leader of a WHO team which investigated an outbreak of acute diarrhoea in Moundou, an industrial town 600 km south of the capital N'Djamena, said the disease had been confirmed as cholera.

Earlier this week Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, hosted a seminar to debate the adoption of a draft bill of law on the rights and obligations of HIV-positive people. The seminar, attended by doctors, lawyers, magistrates, social workers and Members of the Transitional Council (CAR’s law advisory body) was organised by UNAIDS, in conjunction with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the national anti-HIV/AIDS body, the Comite National de Lutte contre le Sida.

A World Health Organisation official in Ethiopia has dismissed an article in a respected British medical journal that claimed the United Nations agency was undermining the fight against malaria. "The Lancet" accuses the agency of approving cheap drugs that do not work, and blocking the use of a newer -- albeit more expensive -- treatment to combat the disease. This comes as Ethiopia is experiencing a malaria epidemic. According to a joint report by government and the UN, 46.2 million Ethiopians are living in malaria-prone areas, out of a population of 70 million.

'Horn of Africa Journal of AIDS' a biannual magazine was launched in Addis Ababa on Tuesday with a view to fostering health care education in a more organized and systematic fashion to make a difference in the lives of the victims in the region. People to people, an International humanitarian organization has sponsored the journal to be distributed freely to the medical communities and medical schools in Africa.

A perception that HIV/AIDS is an Africa problem manifested itself clearly at the Mumbai Social Forum by its conspicuous absence from the main events of the international jamboree. Even condoms, a common free handout at most international meetings, were not distributed at the meeting. Neither were they readily available at the hotels where the delegates are booked. "If the social forum shifts to Africa I guess one of the issues they will want is HIV/AIDS. Not many civil society or social movements from this region are taking this as a major issue," Minar Pimple, a member of the Mumbai WSF organising committee, told Terra Viva.