A cholera epidemic in 8 of Mozambique's 11 provinces has infected 11,527 people and killed 139 in only a few months, health officials said. The epidemic began in August in the central Zambezia province, where more than half the deaths have been recorded, Avertino Barreto, the deputy national director of health, told state radio.

The South African Medical Association, which represents 17,000 doctors, two-thirds of whom work in the public sector, has announced its support for physicians who prescribe post-exposure prophylaxis antiretroviral treatment for rape survivors, despite the national government's policy against such treatment, the South African Press Association reports.

Some "safe, inexpensive [and] widely available" sexual lubricants containing two compounds reduced HIV replication by 99.9% in HIV-infected sperm, according to a University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston study published in the November 2001 issue of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, Salon.com reports.

AIDS researchers have discovered simian immunodeficiency virus, an HIV-like virus, for the first time in the wild in a Tanzanian chimpanzee, the AP/New York Times reports. The findings "bolster" the theory that HIV originated in chimps, Dr. Beatrice Hahn, a molecular geneticist at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said in her report that appears in the journal Science.

'INASP Health Links' is a new Gateway to selected Web sites of special interest to health professionals, medical library communities, publishers, and NGOs in developing and transitional countries. Please have a look and let us know what you think of the site and, especially, how we might improve it.

Bread for the World’s Africa: Hunger to Harvest campaign aims to win U.S. leadership for an international effort to reduce hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, including an increase of $1 billion in annual U.S. funding for effective, poverty-focused development assistance.

The African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) is looking for a self-motivated, energetic Tanzanian / East African citizen to assist the multi-sectoral District AIDS Secretariat in the coordination of a comprehensive district HIV/AIDS control programme in Serengeti district, Mara region, Tanzania.

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it needs help urgently to continue feeding about 19,500 mainly Angolan refugees in Namibia beyond March.

The Africa Development Fund has approved a US$8,03-million loan and a US$1,25-million technical assistance grant to help finance health sector reforms in Lesotho.

The Catholic Institute of Education is looking for a fieldworker for KwaZulu-Natal who will be responsible for implementing, monitoring
and evaluating the CIE's HIV/AIDS prevention programme in Catholic primary schools.

Tanzanian opposition leaders on Wednesday took the rare step of getting tested for HIV/AIDS and promised to publicise the results in a bid to encourage other Tanzanians to do the same.

Once a tranquil backwater, the little village of Firgi on the dusty border between Niger and its southern neighbour Nigeria is enjoying a boom. The growth in this impoverished region of West Africa has been fueled by sex, and the drawback is a sharp rise in the number of people infected with HIV --the virus that causes AIDS.

A top government official has barred doctors from giving anti-retrovirals - even to raped infants. As South Africa was reeling at the news of an alleged gang-rape and sodomising of a nine-month-old baby in Upington last November, the Northern Cape MEC for health was blasting a Kimberley hospital for giving the infant anti-retroviral medication.

Botswana is turning to Brazil to reinforce its strategy against HIV/AIDS, demonstrating that South-South cooperation is more than a slogan. The Brazilian response to the HIV/AIDS scourge has impressed experts, who have urged other countries to copy it. Botswana, with one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection, is doing just that. More than one third of its adults are infected, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, while the rate in Brazil is less than 1 per cent.

The Kaiser Family Foundation have released a policy brief, titled "Critical Policy Challenges in the Third Decade of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic," that highlights the United States' national and international challenges to and roles in addressing the pandemic. The brief, developed as part of the KFF and Ford Foundation joint initiative "AIDS at 20: A National Policy Initiative," examines several domestic and global challenges. The report is available online in Adobe PDF format.

The World Bank has warmly welcomed a new report from the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, which stresses the importance of health in global economic development, the need for effective health policy reforms, and calls for a significant increase in financial resources to improve the quality of health care by poor and wealthy countries alike.

Most Sub-Saharan African countries have reduced or eliminated fertilizer subsidies as part of the economic reform process that began in the early 1980s. Subsidy removal and currency devaluation have contributed to higher fertilizer prices. Trends in fertilizer use, however, vary by country. Benin’s farmers have increased their use of fertilizer tenfold since 1982, while Malawi’s farmers have increased use by just 30 percent during the same period. To explain these different responses to market reform, Markets and Structural Studies Division (MSSD) researchers Nicholas Minot, Mylène Kherallah, and Philippe Berry joined local counterparts to survey 800 farm households in Malawi and 900 farm households in Benin. They found that fertilizer use is closely related to crop mix.

Parents in Mt Elgon District have defied the new law barring them from circumcising their daughters under 16 years of age, Western Provincial Medical Officer (PMO), Dr Jackson Songa said.

State minister for health, Capt. Mike Mukula has commended the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for supporting Sabiny elders in their campaign against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

The Police force is being depleted of useful personnel by the AIDS scourge, the Inspector-General has warned.