Read the courageous stories of eleven individuals and organisations who have been involved in the sexual and reproductive health field in Africa and received awards on the opening day celebrations of the African Women's Health and Rights day at the African Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Conference, held in Johannesburg in February.

April brought the end of the rainy season in western Tanzania, where approximately 500,000 refugees from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) live in refugee camps. It also brought a slight reprieve from the malaria that accompanied the rains and badly affected the refugees. Thanks to effective drugs, health workers said case fatalities were relatively low, but at the peak of the rains, malaria filled paediatric wards, drained precious health resources and affected pregnant women. Poverty and a lack of awareness in the camps led to preventative methods failing.

South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang last week recommended a combination of garlic, onions, virgin olive oil and the African potato to boost the immune systems of people living with HIV/AIDS. However, a local immunology professor on Monday said the African potato turned the food combination into a lethal concoction.

Government attempts over the past five years to get private medical schemes to take care of more South Africans have failed as high costs have generally precluded those earning less than R5 000 from joining private schemes. Medical inflation has outpaced overall inflation by around 5% every year, and this has virtually nullified regulations introduced from January 1999 aimed at opening up the private sector.

More than 38 million Africans are threatened by starvation this year because of a food crisis that relief workers predict could last for generations as a result of the impact of Aids. Relief workers say the devastation from Aids is combining with the effects of poverty, war, bad governance, corruption and erratic weather conditions to cripple the ability of societies in sub-Saharan Africa to recover from famine.

Mozambique and Denmark signed in Maputo on Monday a memorandum of understanding for further cooperation in the area of agriculture, particularly for the National Agriculture Development Programme (PROAGRI).The Danish programme to support Mozambican agriculture is budgeted at 278 million Danish Crowns (about 79 million US dollars) to be used over the 2000-2004 period.

While Malawi's health sector is already hurt by shortages of drugs due to a constrained government budget, and a rising death toll because of HIV/AIDS, an exodus of medical personnel to richer western nations is threatening to cripple the already ailing sector.

A government programme to provide anti-AIDS drugs to HIV-positive Zambians had ignored those who needed it most and was simply "a lot of hot air", activists told IRIN. Last year, the government announced that up to 10,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) would receive free antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in nine provincial treatment centres. The project would also provide a team consisting of a physician, faith healer, counsellor and social worker in each centre. But the Network of Zambian People Living With HIV/AIDS (NZP+) has expressed concern that PWAs who are poor and powerless, still have no access to treatment.

In a humanitarian emergency, HIV/AIDS prevention and reproductive rights are not likely to be seen as a priority. But Africa's refugees and displaced persons face the prospect of a life of poverty, powerlessness and social instability: conditions that increase their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. "Refugees and IDPs (internally displaced persons) are often at a higher risk of HIV/AIDS, but often in crises, reproductive health is put on the backburner," Helen Jackson, regional HIV/AIDS advisor for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) told IRIN.

The Ugandan health authorities on Tuesday said several medical teams had been dispatched to districts affected by a cholera epidemic sweeping through most of the country's western regions, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

This paper summarises existing evidence and experience concerning HIV/AIDS and food security in Africa. It deals with two major issues: the impact of HIV/AIDS on agrarian livelihoods and how this can be mitigated; the implications of a concurrent generalised HIV/AIDS epidemic and an episode of acute food insecurity, what is termed 'new variant famine'.

This paper describes the possible extent and consequences of HIV/AIDS prevalence among military personnel worldwide. The author states that the risk the epidemic poses to both national and international security is extremely serious and has begun to be recognised by governments.

Center for the Right to Health (CRH) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the full realization of the right to health in Nigeria and the promotion of ethics and human rights in healthcare policies and practises, especially for vulnerable groups such as people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). CRH has its head office in Lagos and a Voluntary Counselling and Testing office in Abuja. CRH presently seeks to recruit top level Nurses to join her multi-sectoral programme staff in tackling HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support and in defending the human rights of PLWHA.

Does agriculture have a role to play in economic growth and poverty reduction? This paper considers the role of agriculture in Kenya. A brief discussion of the role of agriculture in economic growth and poverty reduction is provided and the performance of Kenya's agricultural sector is discussed, focusing on both the policy and structural constraints that have impacted on agricultural performance. The author concludes that the agricultural sector has not received the attention and recognition it deserves in relation to the importance of its role in economic growth and poverty reduction.

The severely depleted food rations of refugees living in camps in Western Tanzania are to be increased slightly by mid-April, the World Food Programme announced. Aid agencies in the west of the country welcomed the 16 percent rise in caloric value of the rations, but refugees and local officials continued to voice their concerns over the lack of food in the camps.

Malaria costs Tanzania $120-million (R960-million) in treatment expenses and lost man-hours every year, Health Minister Anna Abdallah said on Wednesday. "The loss is equivalent to 3,5 percent of the east African country's gross domestic product and is manifested in terms of spending in treating the disease and lost man-hours due to illness," she added.

The number of deaths from the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Republic of Congo has risen to 113, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported on Monday. Since Ebola was confirmed early in 2003, 123 people in the Cuvette-Ouest region of northern Congo are known to have contracted the virus.

An outbreak of cholera has hit Uganda's western border district of Bundibugyo, killing 23 people over the past month, according to a senior health official in the district.

A research study of media response to HIV/AIDS in Nigeria in the year 2002 has revealed a steady increase in the quality of coverage and understanding of key issues by journalists. The study also found high levels of sensational reporting and common use of inappropriate and stigmatising by newspaper reporters. The preliminary findings of the study, covering print media reporting on the epidemic between March and December 2002, was presented at a ceremony marking the 2002 Red Ribbon Awards on HIVAIDS, held at the NiteShift Coliseum, Ikeja in Lagos on March 8, 2003.

South African AIDS activists continued a civil disobedience campaign on Tuesday by shouting down Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as she tried to address a conference. Blowing whistles, waving red "wanted" posters and shouting "Murderer" and "Manto go to jail", some 100 members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) drowned out Tshabalala-Msimang as she tried to make herself heard at a public health conference in Cape Town.