Enforcement of travel restrictions and a ban on trade across the Kenya/Somalia border, coupled with a prolonged drought, has created a food security crisis particularly in the southern Gedo Region of Somalia.

About 78 percent of Malawi's rural poor may not have food by December, according to the preliminary results of a World Vision survey.

Everywhere you go in South Africa, you're confronted with the pink and purple colours of loveLife - a controversial HIV/AIDS youth education campaign which encourages young South Africans to talk freely about sexual issues such as teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a call for nominations for the Gates Award for Global Health. The award comes with a $1 million honorarium and is presented annually to an organization that has made an extraordinary contribution to the improvement of health around the world.

In an effort to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, the Zimbabwe National AIDS Council (NAC) met AIDS organisations to set in motion a process to facilitate HIV/AIDS prevention and care by district HIV/AIDS committees throughout the country.

The Good Electronic Health Record (GEHR), a major part of the work of the openEHR Foundation, is an evolving electronic health record architecture designed to be comprehensive, portable and medico-legally robust. It has been developed from the Good European Health Record project requirements statement and object model - the most comprehensive requirements documents ever developed for the electronic health record.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) has introduced a breakthrough vaccine treatment for infants younger than 12 months in several African countries, the World Health Organization announced at a three-day meeting in Entebbe, Uganda.

South African mining corporation, Anglo American, cannot afford to supply antiretroviral drugs to all its HIV/AIDS infected workers in South Africa, the company's medical department announced this week.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has granted US $11.5 million dollars to Mozambique for an anti-HIV/AIDS programme, AFP reported on Tuesday.

In its latest outbreak update, the World Health Organisation says 332 cases of
meningitis and 30 deaths had been reported in Angola at the beginning of the month.

Mozambique has asked the World Health Organisation to help the country find an adequate anti-malarial therapy to replace the well known drugs such as chloroquine to which malaria has become resistant.

Published by Family Health International in collaboration with the Center for Information and Development of Women (CIDEM), La Paz, Bolivia, is now online. The manual, developed with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, promotes an approach to sexual and reproductive health care that recognizes different needs and perspectives within a context of respect for the rights and dignity of men and women. Limited quantities of the manual are available from FHI in English and Spanish at no cost to developing country health agencies.

Following extensive consultation with the public health, medical and scientific community as well as the milling industry and consumer groups, the Department of Health is set to publish draft legislation in the next few months with final legislation planned for very early 2002 regarding the mandatory fortification of wheat flour and maize meal. Fortification is cost effective strategy to address alarming and widespread deficiencies in critical vitamins and minerals throughout the South African population.

Feb 22 2002 - 12 week course. Purpose is to acquaint students with broad approaches to communicating for health promotion, focusing specifically on the role of entertainment education.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a call for nominations for the Gates Award for Global Health. The award comes with a $1 million honorarium and is presented annually to an organization that has made an extraordinary contribution to the improvement of health around the world.

When all eyes are focussed on international crises, the world needs to be reminded of the great humanitarian needs on the African continent, says the President of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

At least 1,800 of South Africa's 350,000 teachers died of AIDS-related diseases last year, Johannesburg's Afrikaans daily, the 'Beeld', reported on Monday.

The Angolan ministry of health and the World Health Organisation has delivered US$7-million worth of medical supplies to outlying regions in the country.

Director-General of Tanzania's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) Andrew Kitua has said the institute received a request for permission for testing of an alleged new HIV/AIDS treatment that South African researchers are conducting on Tanzanian soldiers, but that the trials had not yet been approved, the South African 'Mail and Guardian' newspaper reported on Friday, 5 October.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has now overtaken malaria as the leading cause of death among adults in Uganda, and has claimed over 800,000 Ugandan lives so far, according to Dr David Kihumoro Apuuli, Director-General of the Uganda Aids Commission.