The UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Ethiopian government are tackling mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, which has affected as many as 200,000 children in Ethiopia. UNICEF has joined the ministry of health and the HIV/AIDS Prevention Control Office (HAPCO) to combat transmission of the deadly virus.

An outbreak of meningitis in Burkina Faso that has killed over 1,000 people since October, has shown signs of declining, health officials told IRIN last Thursday.

Last month Gina Manganhela, a domestic worker, began to feel sick. She suffered aching joints, fever, headaches and lacked appetite. She suspected the beginning of a vicious bout of influenza that had already hit members of the household where she worked, in the heart of the capital, Maputo. "Educating people about malaria is key in the fight against this deadly disease," said the director of the government's malaria programme, Dr Samuel Mabunda. "As soon as people experience symptoms of malaria, they must go to the nearest health facility to be tested. Malaria kills very quickly."

SABCNews reports that Global Philanthropist and head of computer company Microsoft, Bill Gates, has donated US$28 million for a study on the effectiveness of latex diaphragms.The study seeks to prevent the spread of HIV infection among women by supplying them with latex diaphragms. Recent studies in Zimbabwe, which has a high Aids prevalence, showed high levels of satisfaction with the product among women.

HIV/AIDS is the greatest single threat to Africa's development. AIDS kills more than 5,000 people every day in Southern Africa, destroying local communities and national economies. But the crisis is still not a priority for the international community. Action for Southern Africa, in a joint campaign with the Trade Union Congress (TUC), is lobbying the British government to take a lead in the war against HIV/AIDS by supporting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Join Actsa's campaign.

A call from President Bush for quick action from Congress on the global AIDS crisis comes in response to pressure from Africa Action and other groups, demanding a greater U.S. commitment to defeating the AIDS pandemic. Salih Booker, Executive Director of Africa Action, said, "The Bush Administration is finally beginning to grasp the gravity of the AIDS crisis in Africa, and it now acknowledges that AIDS is the greatest global threat of our time. However, the White House is still failing to match rhetoric with resources."

Doctors and nurses have borne the brunt of the HIV/Aids pandemic but have received inadequate training to cope with the disease. A new project aims to change that by providing African health workers with the skills to better treat HIV/Aids patients.

The South African AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign held an international day of protest on April 24 against the South African government's handling of the AIDS epidemic, demanding that the government improve access to antiretroviral drugs.

Effective tools to control malaria are available now but are not being accessed by the populations in need. The prime example is insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs). Most malaria-carrying mosquitoes bite at night. Thus ITNs have been proven to reduce malaria infection and death rates by forming both a physical barrier against mosquitoes and, in the words of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘generating a chemical halo’ around the bed, repelling and killing mosquitoes. However, for people in rural Africa, bednets are hard to get hold of. In these areas, access is often restricted to those with money to buy them from urban centres, or to those taking part in isolated research projects and localised bednet programmes.

GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest maker of AIDS drugs, has announced that it is further cutting the prices of these drugs by as much as half in poor countries. The price of Combivir, the company's popular AIDS therapy that combines two drugs in a single pill, has been cut to 90 cents a day, from $1.70, a reduction of 47 percent, the company said.

One in five African children die before they reach their fifth birthday, a conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa heard on Tuesday. Experts warned that many of the children die simply because of the poor environment they are forced to live in.

Nigeria plans to learn from the experiences of Ugandan HIV/AIDS prevention programs to address its HIV/AIDS epidemic, Babatunde Osotimehin, chair of Nigeria's National Action Committee on AIDS, said on Monday, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Malaria kills more than 3,000 African children a day, drug resistance is an "enormous and growing problem", and measures to tackle what is a completely preventable disease must be stepped up, according to the first comprehensive report on malaria in Africa. The Africa Malaria Report 2003, produced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), says that malaria remains the single largest cause of death in young children in Africa and one of the most important threats to the health of pregnant women and newborns.

Effective tools to control malaria are available now but are not being accessed by the populations in need. The prime example is insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs). Most malaria-carrying mosquitoes bite at night. Thus ITNs have been proven to reduce malaria infection and death rates by forming both a physical barrier against mosquitoes and, in the words of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘generating a chemical halo’ around the bed, repelling and killing mosquitoes. However, for people in rural Africa, bednets are hard to get hold of. In these areas, access is often restricted to those with money to buy them from urban centres, or to those taking part in isolated research projects and localised bednet programmes.

Times are changing and, in one respect, the Maasai are changing too. Before, the Masaai warriors would look after their herds of cattle, but now many of them have to go into urban areas to work and earn money. They often take with them their attitude towards sex. The Maasai culture of sharing wives may still pose a potential threat and encourage the spread of HIV/AIDS, but despite their deep-rooted traditions, the Maasai have acknowledged the new challenge, and do seem prepared to adapt.

Zimbabwe and Mozambique have been placed on a very high alert for risk of increased malaria transmission and possible epidemics within the next few weeks. The World Health Organisation's Southern Africa Malaria Control Programme based in Harare has warned of a crisis resulting from cyclones and floods which hit the region in February and March.

Three of six communicable diseases reported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to have broken out in Africa since January affected countries in the Great Lakes region. According to statistics published by the WHO regional office for Africa in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo (ROC), outbreaks of Ebola were reported in the ROC; malaria in Burundi; and cholera in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Tanzania.

Tuberculosis (TB) patients in South Africa now have a new weapon in the fight against the disease - a cellphone. A pilot project in the coastal city of Cape Town is using the text message service on cellphones to remind patients to take their medication. This saves the over-stretched public health services time and money. The country is said to be facing one of the worst TB epidemics in the world, with disease rates up to 60 times higher than those currently experienced in the United States.

More than 2 000 needy people have benefited from 70 food-for-work projects across the country, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting says. Some 835 women and 1 230 men have received food in return for labour. The Ministry said in a press statement that Government and NGOs have given 114,4 million Namibia dollars towards the Comprehensive Drought Aid Scheme. Another 24, 8 million Namibia dollars is needed to "fully implement the (drought) scheme".

The government's emergency food security programme, which seeks to alleviate poverty in rural areas, has been overwhelmed by a huge demand from poor people who desperately need food. The programme, which is overseen by the Social Development Department, got underway in the Lady Frere area, where 5 340 families received basic food parcels. Department district manager, Tizana Mpondwana, said that since the beginning of April 2003, the government in conjunction with the Independent Development Agency had distributed food in five areas around Lady Frere, writes Sipho Sikilishe.