The Population Council has announced that it plans to begin the clinical trials of its lead candidate microbicide, Carraguard?, by the end of 2002. A $20 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will provide a substantial part of the funding needed for this large-scale study of 6,000 women in southern Africa.

Two hundred and fifty thousand children under the age of five are living with the HIV/AIDS virus in Ethiopia, according to the ministry of health.

The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa, the country's "leading body" for specialist physicians, today issued a statement saying it supports the use of nevirapine to prevent vertical HIV transmission and that failure to provide such treatment is "unethical," Agence France-Presse reports.

President Bush will meet with the leaders of Angola, Mozambique and Botswana on Feb. 26 to discuss economic and security issues, including HIV/AIDS, Reuters reports. White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer on Monday said that Bush "looked forward" to speaking with Presidents Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and Festus Mogae of Botswana, calling the three men "critically important" to the future of southern Africa.

South African President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address said that the government will increase its efforts to halt the spread of HIV, but added that the efforts will focus on prevention and not the use of antiretroviral drugs, the Associated Press reports.

In the decade since the collapse of the totalitarian regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam have the lives of ordinary Ethiopians improved? As the population rises, external debt spirals upwards and aid continues to decrease, can the country meet 2015 international development targets?

Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has denied suggestions at the World Economic Forum that South Africa seeks to apply for grants from the newly formed international Aids fund.

Bill Gates has announced $50-million grant to help curb the HIV/Aids scourge internationally.

Global Health Council Invites Nominations for Health and Human Rights Award. The Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights is designed to honor outstanding work in the area of global health and human rights and to call continued attention to the vital links between health and human rights. The award, a $20,000 cash prize, is presented annually. Potential funding is used to enhance visibility and public awareness of the issue or project nominee is addressing.

The health department says drugs imported by Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) for AIDS treatment in South Africa can be used for normal research practice if they comply with the section 21 authorisation.

Two hundred and fifty thousand children under the age of five are living with the HIV/AIDS virus in Ethiopia, according to the ministry of health.

The general humanitarian focus in the volcano-stricken town of Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is shifting from an emergency intervention to longer-term needs.

Activists respond to the Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum report on the "Business Response to AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria." The report presents "best practices" for corporations responding to the global AIDS crisis, but remains largely silent on the issue of access to the life-extending AIDS drugs that are widely available in rich countries.

U.N. Population Fund country director for Kenya Dr. Wangui Njau has said that negative attitudes on the part of health workers are partly to blame for the 20-percent HIV infection rate among Kenyan youth between the ages of 15 and 19. Njau said that 24 percent of Kenyan women aged 15 to 24 are infected with the virus and that health workers stigmatize youth who seek reproductive health services. The attitudes of the teen-agers themselves contribute to the crisis, she said, as a "large percentage still engage in high risk, unprotected sexual activities with a multiplicity of partners".

Female genital mutilation is becoming one of the key medical concerns affecting women and is contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS, an Inter-African Committee official said at a three-day workshop at the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa.

The Food and Nutrition unit of the Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) recently received WHO support to contract a local Web site developer to create a very comprehensive site addressing breast-feeding in Namibia.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) call on the Eastern Cape Premier to follow the example of his Kwa-Zulu Natal counterpart and provide the anti-retroviral drug, nevirapine, to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in the province. This joint call is made after careful consideration of the resources available to the Department of Health in the province.

Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) members have returned from Brazil with a consignment of generic triple therapy anti-retroviral drugs for HIV-positive people treated at a Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) pilot project in the Western Cape. This is the second shipment of generic Aids drugs produced in Brazil and bought by MSF for use in the Khayelitsha pilot treatment programme where 85 terminally ill people are being treated, MSF's Dr Eric Goemaere said on Tuesday.

This is a recent publication by UNFPA, on its experience in preventing maternal deaths and disabilities. The introduction presents UNFPA's policy, as well as the current consensus on effective strategies to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. The report includes an overview of UNFPA's support to country-level programmes, country by country, and to regional and global activities.

Scaling Up the Response to Infectious Diseases: A Way Out of Poverty, a new report by WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, the World Bank, UNESCO and UNFPA will be launched at the World Economic Forum. The Report calls for new investment for treating and preventing TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS. By expanding the use of known interventions, TB and malaria deaths can be cut in half and new HIV infections in young people can be reduced by 25% in a decade.