Food aid for famine-stricken Zambia will come to a halt by early October unless the country lifts its ban on donations of genetically modified (GM) maize, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) announced this week.

The aim of this paper was to model and estimate individual heterogeneity regarding AIDS mortality. Knowledge in this field is indispensable to quantify the economic impact of AIDS and to set up adequate AIDS prevention and therapy policies.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned that thousands may die of wilful neglect unless a vaccine is made available at an affordable price to the African countries most affected by meningitis. As international experts on meningitis prepare to meet in Burkina Faso next week to discuss strategies to combat the disease, MSF is calling for immediate action by WHO, governments and pharmaceutical companies to avert a potential disaster.

AIDS activist group, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), is squaring up for another challenge to drug companies, this time around high prices being charged for life prolonging anti-retroviral medication. Activists will be joined by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the Chemical and Energy Paper, Print, Wood and Allied Workers Union (CEPPAWU), People living with HIV/AIDS and a group of doctors and nurses who work at the coal face of the epidemic.
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The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported this week that an outbreak in Rwanda of meningitis, which has already struck two million people, may spread to the capital and endanger one million more.

Cholera has claimed nine more lives in Zimbabwe's populous Masvingo province, bringing the death toll to 19 since the outbreak was reported last week.

A Bill presented to the Kenyan Parliament suggests that those found guilty of causing the transmission of HIV/AIDS should be jailed. The HIV/AIDS Prevention Bill proposes three-year jail terms and will cover not only sexual transmission, but also transmission through contaminated instruments, health care supplies and physical contact.

In order to address the needs of the poor it is necessary to measure health behaviours and service uptake of poor people. However very little is known about these outcomes for the poorest of the poor. This is a key argument of an issues paper produced by the DFID Health Systems Resource Centre (HSRC) on behalf of the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The paper aims to review the existing methods and sources available to measure the health problems of the poor, their access to services, spending on health and mortality differentials, in order to advance the debate on how to build a strategy for systematically upgrading the evidence base in health.

Malawi is reinforcing its image as the "warm heart of Africa" by forming networks of volunteers who provide home-based care (HBC) to the country's HIV/AIDS sufferers. The groups help the sick with bathing and going to the toilet. They fetch water for them and help with some housework and disseminate HIV/AIDS awareness into the communities.

Guinea worm disease, a debilitating water-borne parasitic infection, was once endemic throughout much of Africa. But recent efforts to control the disease have proven so successful that experts now believe it could be eradicated within a decade.

Ordinary Zambians are battling to cope with the effects of a food security crisis exacerbated by an economic slowdown. Joyce Mwenya is an example of the daily struggle faced by 80 percent of Zambians who live on less than US $1 a day. With a baby strapped to her back, the 33-year-old mother of three sells vegetables at the market in Kanyama, one of Lusaka's poor shanty towns.

Young people in both the Congos are alerting one another about the deadly risks of HIV/AIDS and how to prevent infection in an initiative supported by international and private sector partners. Nearly 250 students and teachers in the Republic of the Congo and from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo gathered recently at a conference in Brazzaville to expand the project.

HIV-positive individuals from Southern African countries are increasingly travelling to Botswana -- the only nation in the region that provides antiretroviral therapy through its public health service -- in search of treatment, the Financial Times reports. Botswana, which has the world's highest HIV infection rate, with 38.5 percent of people between the ages of 14 and 49 believed to be HIV-positive, began offering treatment this year through a partnership with drug maker Merck and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Intellectual property rights laws are "holding up access to vital medicines," including drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, in poorer nations, and strategies such as compulsory licensing and differential pricing should be implemented to increase access to medicines in developing nations, according to a report released by the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights.

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has given his approval to the Industrial Property Act, which allows the country to import generic versions of patented antiretroviral drugs, the Kenyan Daily Nation reports.

On behalf of the organizations listed below that support the highest level of funding possible from the U.S. government to address the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, we are writing to urge you to vote YES on the Pelosi amendment to increase funding for the global HIV/AIDS response. Congresswoman Pelosi's amendment would increase funding for the global effort by $400 million - an additional $200 million for the global HIV/AIDS programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development and an additional $200 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The HIV/AIDS NGO/CBO Support Toolkit is an electronic library of resources about NGO/CBO support that have been collated by the Alliance from a wide range of organisations, based on the understanding that there are many viable approaches to NGO/CBO support provision. These resources are accessible on CD-ROM as well as on the website.

Despite a damning report on the state of lottery payouts, the head of the National Lotteries Board says the board is doing everything by the book.Sershan Naidoo, chief executive of the National Lotteries Board, said amendments in the legislation, due to come into force by the end of this year or early next year, would make it easier for the board and the Department of Trade and Industry to distribute some of the unspent millions.

The government of Zimbabwe has "urged" country residents to undergo voluntary HIV testing, Xinhua News Agency reports. Minister of Health and Child Welfare David Parirenyatwa said that knowing one's HIV status is "very important" to plan for the future.

The outbreak of meningitis in Rwanda continues to threaten the lives of some 2 million people, and fears are the disease may spread close to the capital Kigali, endangering another one million people, UNICEF said in a press release Tuesday.