When WFP head James Morris arrived in Nhwali to inspect the distribution of mielies, an unprecedented seven government trucks filled with bags of mielies for sale rolled up, the first time since July that even one truck has arrived to feed the 9 000 people in the area, deep in opposition territory.

In some parts of Africa, traditional healers are the first available person a sick person turns to when facing a health emergency. These healers are often a central component of the primary health care system. In Swaziland, for example, 85 percent of people with HIV/AIDS consult a traditional healer at some time during their sickness. One response to the HIV/AIDS induced African health crisis is that traditional healers are increasingly asserting their role in society and demanding recognition and incorporation into primary health care networks being established on the continent.

An outbreak of cholera in Gombe State, northern Nigeria, has killed dozens of people, local officials said on Sunday. Worst hit in the epidemic is the town of Jero Musa in Akko local council area, where 11 people, including three members of one family, died in one day, they said.

The Medical Research Council (MRC) is under great political pressure to toe the party line and become "the trusted scientific voice that justifies unscientific findings or pseudo-science", according to MRC president Dr Malegapuru Makgoba.

A new South African project is set to revolutionise how AIDS patients manage their anti-retroviral treatment regimes, which often involve taking as many as 20 pills a day. The Cell Life project — a collaboration between the University of Cape Town and the Cape Technikon — hopes to solve the management problem of HIV/AIDS by using a mix of information communications technology, health and engineering expertise.

This paper is based on a report by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health. The main argument being put forward being that investment in the health of the poor would contribute to a wide range of global public goods such as equity, security, peace and a healthy environment.

Environmental groups and biotech companies are accusing each other of exploiting starvation in much of southern Africa for political gain as countries in the region try to determine whether it is safe to use genetically engineered crops to relieve famine.

Nearly 100 representatives from 14 Central and East African nations have met at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss the impact of HIV/AIDS on the region and to develop a plan of action.

Calling HIV/AIDS a "silent holocaust," Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and a special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said last Saturday that African nations should devote their resources to fighting HIV/AIDS before servicing foreign debts.

Fifty radio and television reporters are receiving training on HIV/AIDS and the techniques of educating the population in the Central African Republic (CAR).

A South African archive of memory cloths created by 1000 women, belonging to the Zulu community and living in the region of KwaZulu Natal, is a project conceptualized by Andries Botha as a part of his ongoing exploration of the relationship between creativity and society.

The United States government, through the United States Aid for International Development, has made available nearly $140 million for the strengthening of community based initiatives to support children orphaned by HIV/Aids.

With the spread of HIV/AIDS having reached an alarming rate in the Republic of Congo (ROC), a number of non-governmental organisations have, with the help of funding from the UN and other donors, and by means of outreach and education, stepped up their longstanding efforts to halt the exponential spread of the epidemic.

Financial institutions would stop unfair discrimination on various grounds, including HIV status, and access to financial services would be provided to poor South Africans, according to a declaration signed in the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) on Tuesday.

Cibitoke provincial health authorities have said that four of the 215 people who have contracted cholera in the area between 2 July and 19 August have died, and that overcoming the disease in this part of the country had become difficult.

Combination antiretroviral therapy is the "only thing that will really impact on survival" for people with HIV/AIDS, Charles Gilks, a senior adviser to the World Health Organization, said on the BBC program "Health Matters," BBC News reports.

A leading Tanzanian health official has warned religious and civic leaders against "infighting" and "finger pointing" in the war against HIV/AIDS in the country.

A follow-up round of a polio vaccination campaign on Tuesday entered its second day in six Burundian provinces bordering on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Health ministers from 10 southern African countries and senior officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO) are to meet next week in Harare, Zimbabwe, to examine responses to the region's humanitarian crisis.

While nearly 99 percent of global population growth is occurring in developing nations, the global economic slowdown is making it more difficult for these nations to finance population control initiatives, according to a new report.