The African folklore tradition is being revived in Swaziland to communicate difficult contemporary problems like AIDS and child abuse. "These stories are not Swaziland-specific, and we believe they would be welcome and useful in other African nations," UN children's agency UNICEF representative, Alan Brody, told IRIN.

One of a series of International Policy Research Workshops held over the last eleven years in the UK, East Asia and Africa, the 5th HEARD HIV/AIDS workshop focuses on the need to anticipate the medium and long-term social and economic consequences of HIV/AIDS. Taking place between 28 October and 15 November in Durban, South Africa, we offer participants a unique opportunity over two weeks, to exchange ideas, review their experiences with strategies and tactics, and identify interventions appropriate to their local situation.

Patterns of risk behaviour and condom use among commercial sex workers (CSWs) have been heavily investigated in recent years. But what is known about the social context of these women's lives? What factors prevent them from having safer sex? Researchers from Population Services International investigate the lives of CSWs in Lusaka, Zambia.

The female condom could reduce the spread of HIV by increasing the prevention options available to sexually active adults. Marketing of the female condom at subsidised prices began in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1997. How effective has this been? Do people know about female condoms and are they likely to use them?

Sierra Leone has just emerged from possibly the most brutal conflict known to sub-Saharan Africa. Now it faces a new challenge, having been identified as being on the brink of an HIV/AIDS crisis.

Findings from a preliminary study suggest that a drug combination that is the gold standard of HIV treatment in the developed world can help patients in developing countries as well. The new study, published in the July issue of the journal AIDS, followed up on a trial of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in the African nation of Senegal.

Soldiers are both vulnerable to HIV and linked to the spread of HIV, particularly in situations of conflict. This publication outlines some of the reasons why and includes material from focus group discussions with soldiers in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South-east Asia. It introduces some of the issues involved in, and approaches to working with, the military, including a section on HIV testing and on HIV prevention in the armed forces.

Nutrition for people living with HIV should be prioritised particularly as high cost and unavailability limits access to antiretroviral drugs, while government should make antiretroviral drugs and the tests for measuring patient response such as CD4 count free for people living with HIV. These were two of 11 recommendations made at a meeting of Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS), held in Benue State on 17 July.

“Rudimentary” health care research infrastructure and very little activity involving HIV/AIDS are problems facing Nigeria, but there is also a window of opportunity regarding an anti-retroviral treatment programme in its planning stages. These are some of the factors identified by Nigerian delegates meeting after the XIV International AIDS Conference.

As the fight against malaria gains momentum in the country, villagers in Kanyemba, Lower Guruve, have mobilised local resources and skills at all levels, a move that has seen a remarkable decline in reported malaria cases throughout the district.

Humanitarian organisations in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have stepped up their efforts to contain a cholera epidemic in the region that continues to strike more people.

Nigeria has started pre-testing an innovation aimed at ensuring an uninterrupted supply of contraceptives in the face of declining donor support, increasing demand and global shortage.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has criticised the Global Fund for Aids for allocating large amounts of money to the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa while ignoring the dire need of other countries in the region.

HIV/AIDS poses a development challenge of unprecedented urgency, especially in Africa. Apart from the terrible personal costs, the pandemic is the single biggest threat to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. Over one-third of HIV/AIDS sufferers live in countries classified as heavily indebted, says Oxfam in a new briefing paper.

Some 14 million children are to be immunised against polio as part of a final drive to eradicate the virus from Ethiopia, the health ministry said last Thursday.

The wives of 18 African leaders met last week in Switzerland to discuss ways of combating Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic, BBC News reports. The women have met on nine previous occasions in the past year and a half to discuss HIV/AIDS and its effects on Africa, but the meeting was "greeted with scepticism" by some observers, who said that people were "tired of meetings which produce nothing, and want action rather than words."

TB is the single biggest killer in Ethiopia's Somali Region and clinics are few and far between. In the squalid conditions of the camps which dot the region, disease spreads like wildfire.

If the international community does not act now, then between now and the next main harvest in April/May 2003, nearly 13 million people in Southern Africa will face extreme food shortages. Famine-related deaths will occur. The big question is how many. Read about Oxfam's response to this growing emergency, donate online, and find out the reasons behind the food crisis in a Southern Africa briefing paper.

Coca Cola, the world’s number one beverage brand name, was the target of criticisms by AIDS activists last Thursday at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. Activists from the advocacy group ACT UP! led a shutdown of the beverage manufacturer’s stand at the conference, in protest against the company’s policy of restricting access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment only to 1500 of its direct employees, completely ignoring 100,000 other workers in Africa who help bottle the product.

Faced with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, deepening malnutrition as a result of a serious food shortage and abject poverty, Malawi has managed to become a model for sub-Saharan Africa in treating tuberculosis (TB), a disease that kills two million people annually.