Following the landmark announcement from Gro Harlem Brundtland and the six major medical publishers from the BMA on Monday, we are pleased to announce the Universal Access to Health Information Global videoconference Wednesday, 18 July, 2001 and invite all to attend.

The Ugandan government is planning to establish an HIV/AIDS centre in each district referral hospital where patients will be able to get access to antiretroviral drugs used to treat the disease, according to the official 'New Vision' newspaper.

According to a 'Sunday Independent' report, clinical trials conducted in Johannesburg and Cape Town have shown that despite poverty and scarce clinical resources, antiretrovirals can be used successfully by poor people. These findings come after the government's repeated refusal to offer antiretroviral therapy to all saying the majority of South Africans were poor and would misuse the drugs.

The Roman Catholic Church in southern Africa is "consider[ing]" supporting condom use as a method to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region, Britain's Daily Telegraph reports. The church's "fundamental principle of the sanctity of life" forbids the use of condoms. But Bishop Kevin Dowling of South Africa stated in a policy paper that the church should "reconside[r]" this view.

Speaking at an OAU "working breakfast" meeting with other heads of state, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi "called on" African leaders to develop and implement joint initiatives for fighting the continent's HIV/AIDS pandemic. Because HIV/AIDS knows "no regional boundaries," the need for such regional anti-AIDS efforts are "urgent," he said.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission has agreed on the first global principles for the safety assessment of genetically modified foods, on maximum levels of certain food toxins, and on guidelines for organic livestock production, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a joint statement today.

There was little to no coverage of HIV/AIDS related issues in the Zimbabwe mainstream print media in the week under review. Perhaps the most significant report appeared in The Chronicle (6/7) in which journalists were urged to report HIV/AIDS in a compassionate manner. However, this was just another workshop and/or event report. The article quoted a research and communication expert who noted that journalists tend to dwell on stories highlighting shocking death and infection statistics devoid of a human and social face.

Six large publishing concerns have announced plans to provide free or discounted access to approximately 1,000 medical journals to medical schools, research laboratories, and government health departments in poor countries.

In April 2000, IFPRI launched an Institute-wide synthesis activity on "Successes in African Agriculture," involving an extensive review of success stories in African agriculture, criteria for success and factors underlying success.

The uses of GIS in epidemiology and public health monitoring will be explored in this course. Students will learn how to map public health indicators, identify disease clusters, and explore the geography of environmental risks.

The Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health Program Initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) supports transdisciplinary research that focuses on the development of ecosystem management interventions that lead to the improvement of human health and well-being while maintaining or improving the capacity of the ecosystem to provide a desired range of products and services.

First National Congress on Quality Improvement in Health Care, Medical Research and Traditional Medicine at the Ministry of Health Kenya, Department of Standards and Regulatory Services. 19 - 23 November 2001, Kenya College of Communications and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya.

The Partnership for Global Health Equity ("the Partnership") is a small grants facility created to catalyse exploration of mechanisms for Canada-South-global partnerships that involve the production or utilisation of equity-oriented research for health. The Partnership is housed at IDRC and has a number of contributors, including IDRC, RITC, CSIH, CPHA, and other Canadian and developing country health research organisations1. Proposals selected for funding under the theme of Globalisation and Health will be eligible for consideration of co-funding by the Globalisation and Health, Cross-Sectoral Policies and Human Rights Team, Department of Health and Development, World Health Organization. In its pilot year (2001-2), the Partnership proposes to disburse approximately CAD100,000. The Partnership will provide seed funding (average $5-10,000) for a range of health research related activities including (but not limited to): exploratory or pilot research involving partners from Canada and the South; collaborative workshops to assess research for development needs and utilization; proposal development; travel between project sites (including travel to projects for technical assistance, capacity building, etc); dissemination of research findings (in particular activities aimed at bridging the gap between research and policy); activities involving liaison or consultation around agenda setting between North-South and South-South partners.

WFP on Monday welcomed the arrival in Mombasa port of a 54,000 mt shipment of maize, valued at US $24 million, as part of a substantial donation by the US government towards the agency's post-drought expanded school feeding programme in Kenya. "This food is not only a meal, but a passport to an education, a future, hopes and dreams," said Esther Ouma, a programme analyst for WFP Kenya. "Giving a nutritious meal to a poor student today is key to helping him or her become a literate, self-reliant adult tomorrow," she added.

The fertility and population growth rates in Uganda are among the highest in the world, according to a new survey by Uganda's Population Secretariat (POPSEC). The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for 2000 indicated that a Ugandan woman would give birth to an average of 6.5 children, the state-owned 'New Vision' newspaper quoted Acting Director of POPSEC, Paddy Nahabwe, as saying. "By comparison, a Kenyan woman will have an average of 4.5 children in her lifetime. This means that our population is growing rapidly and continuing to exert pressure on the environment," he added.

The flawed text of a new global treaty which could ensure future food security by conserving and protecting the genetic resources of the world's most important food crops has finally been agreed. The treaty is the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, or IU. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) immediately criticised the weakened text for enshrining OECD countries' priority to support private profit rather than food security, and for subordinating this environmental treay to the trade rules of the WTO - including its contentious agreement on intellectual property rights (TRIPs).

President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, where two million people are infected with the HIV virus, has said he is confident the country should be able to reverse the spread of the disease in the next five years, given the current level of nationwide mobilisation against the epidemic. "We are now at a stage of all-round mobilisation that will result in the total reversal of the trend in the next five years," the UNDP quoted Mkapa as saying at a press conference in New York last week to coincide with the UN General Assembly's special session on HIV/AIDS.

A one-stop compilation of essential facts and figures on the environment, poverty and health.

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has "demanded" that people who "knowingly" transmit HIV to others receive the death penalty, Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Moi's proposal that those who knowingly infect others with the virus be hanged drew "mixed reactions" from women's groups and church leaders.

Zimbabwe has admitted for the first time that it is running out of food and needs foreign aid to help it to buy grain from abroad. Finance Minister Simba Makoni said there was no provision in the budget for such purchases. He said he hoped that, where human life was concerned, the government and the donor community could find common cause.