The British government pledged US $2.5 million on Wednesday to combat a massive malaria epidemic threatening 15 million people in Ethiopia. The funding follows an emergency appeal by the UN for $5 million to provide drugs and mosquito nets for affected regions.

Despite being one of Africa's poorest nations, Mozambique has started an ambitious HIV/AIDS treatment plan which has already been treating patients with antiretroviral drugs for 300 days. A flood of donor dollars is underwriting the country's HIV/AIDS programme, with $330-million coming from the Clinton Foundation, $54-million coming from a Global Fund grant, and $55-million from the World Bank, mainly to fund prevention.

The sight conjures up stereotypical Western images of traditional African healthcare: An enormous pot sits on red-hot coals, bubbling away and giving off a pungent smell of mixed herbs. A glance inside reveals various strips of vegetation, some roots, and a few shreds of bark being stewed up in a brownish liquid. Since 1990, traditional healers have been receiving basic training in the form of seminars. In addition, meetings between modern and traditional healers have been held to discuss cures and an effective referral network has been set up.

An outbreak of cholera has killed 17 people in recent weeks in a swampy area of the Niger valley near the city of Mopti in central Mali, government officials said on Monday.

The government of Nigeria has rushed health workers to Daramba, a village on the border with Niger, following an outbreak of whooping cough - one of the six main killer diseases for children. Health officials blame the outbreak on the attitude of villagers who have shunned routine immunisation.

The small Southern African country of Malawi, with a population of just 11 million, has found itself at the heart of the AIDS pandemic. Health activists in Malawi have often pointed the finger at traditional beliefs and practices as being amongst the main catalysts for the spread of HIV. Now, officials, ethnic leaders and health workers are taking steps to transform these beliefs.

Although Botswana, one of the African countries hit hardest by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, offers free antiretroviral drugs, has 16 treatment facilities and hundreds of trained doctors and nurses, the nation is "barely making a dent" in fighting the disease. However, a new initiative to provide HIV tests as part of routine medical checkups in public and private clinics may help to improve HIV testing rates in the country.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed recent contributions to its appeal for southern Africa, but expressed concern that its operations were still only 38 percent funded. Unless WFP receives immediate donations, 6.5 million people will face severe hunger at the most critical time of year.

Two conferences that took place in Mozambique last week addressed issues surrounding the AIDS epidemic in Southern African nations. One conference examined the role of public-private partnerships in the fight against AIDS. The other conference considered ways of alleviating the effects of HIV on regional food production.

Already dire, Zimbabwe's food crisis is set to worsen next year, the World Food Programme has warned. "Millions of people are already facing massive food shortages and very high prices in their local markets

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) may have reached 20 percent in certain regions of the country, according to Dr Francois Lepira, director of the national programme against AIDS (Programme national de lutte contre le sida).

Uganda’s estimated 100,000 people living with AIDS, who are in urgent need of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) but cannot afford them could soon have access to locally produced ARVs at a cost of less than 50 US cents per day, according to a Ugandan company planning to produce the drugs.

Corruption - the misuse of public power for private benefit - is difficult to measure because officials who take bribes try to hide such activity. Corruption skews public spending toward the sectors where bribing is easier, shifting it away from education, health, and maintenance of existing infrastructure and toward large public works construction and the buildup of military. The environment also suffers. Deforestation is often spurred by corruption, and public officials have used concessions for mining and fuel extraction to liquidate a nation's resources without passing the revenue on to citizens, according to information from the Worldwatch Institute.

The Presidential Commercial Agriculture Working Group is to set up a task team made up of stakeholders in the agricultural sector, to devise a plan for the implementation of the integrated agricultural strategy and land reform.

In many developing countries, stigma and discrimination together pose one of the most significant challenges to stemming the spread of HIV and Aids. People known to have HIV often are isolated and the targets of gossip and name-calling. They can lose status and decision-making power in the household and community, family and friends shun many, and they frequently lose their jobs and sometimes their housing. As a result, it is not surprising that people often go to great lengths to hide their HIV status or deny that they might have it - fuelling the spread of the epidemic.

Trials of an experimental HIV vaccine will begin on 24 human volunteers in South Africa, where 4.7 million people, or 11 percent of the population, are HIV-positive, Associated Press reported this week. The treatment, which is also being tested in the United States, is one of about two dozen potential vaccines being tested on about 12,000 human volunteers worldwide.

The failure of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) to address HIV/AIDS, while at the same time encouraging economic progress, is "potentially disastrous", according to Metropolitan's AIDS strategist, Stephen Kramer. As Nepad's efforts to coordinate African development created jobs and opportunities, those who benefited may become more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, Kramer told the Metropolitan African AIDS Conference in Maputo.

As part of its 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Initiative, the International Food Policy Research Institute has articulated a vision of what the world should look like in 2020: It describes a world free from poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and unsustainable natural resource management.

The spectre of famine and reliance on outside help could soon threaten large parts of Africa, scientists believe. They think increasing water scarcity may leave much of the continent not only thirsty, but without enough water to grow sufficient food for its needs. On present trends, they expect one in three of the world's people will be affected by water shortages in 2025. The annual crop loss across Africa could be as much as the entire grain harvest produced by the US and India.

The Health Manager (HM) is responsible for overseeing all IRC health interventions in Nundu Health Zone. The Health Manger is responsible for planning, developing and implementing emergency health interventions (in collaboration with the Health Coordinator) as needed, while planning longer-term public health programs.