State doctors in Zambia have returned to work a week after going on strike, but say the government has yet to resolve the problems facing the health sector, their union announced on Monday. 'We would like to inform the general public that the work stoppage by Resident Doctors Association of Zambia (RDAZ) has been suspended in the interest of our patients,' the union's acting president, Amon Ngongola, said at a news conference in the capital, Lusaka. The doctors went on strike last Monday after talks with the government broke down.

Zimbabwe's health minister says the southern African country needs $700 million to restore health services shattered by a decade of political and economic turmoil. At the launch of the nation's biggest health investment and funding appeal, Dr Henry Madzorera said the 'systematic decrease' in basic health care destroyed services once seen as among the best in the region.

With India's role as 'pharmacy to the developing world' seriously threatened by a free trade agreement to be signed with the European Union in December, the fate of cheap or free antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS hangs in balance. At the next EU-India free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, due to be held 6 -8 October in the Indian capital, Europe is expected to push for TRIPS-plus provisions that major non-government organisations such as Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) have warned will put the lives of those on antiretrovirals at risk.

As the Senior Program Specialist, you will identify critical research issues; assist in developing the research strategy; and take the lead in developing, managing, monitoring and evaluating a portfolio of research projects. In particular, you will develop programs related to health information systems and primary health care focusing on Africa.

Rampant corruption in the provision of life - prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and other HIV services is threatening Zimbabwe's national AIDS response according to a recently released report by a local human rights group. Commissioned by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) in March 2010, the report - 'Corruption Burns Universal Access to Treatment' - found that 73 per cent of HIV-positive respondents had been asked to pay bribes by health workers. Most of those unwilling or unable to pay were turned away or given inadequate services.

Poor education among women and lack of access to health facilities in many rural areas of war-torn Somalia have increased risks surrounding child birth, according to health officials. 'Home delivery and hospital maternity is not the same; when women deliver at home, some traditional midwives use unclean knives, increasing the risk of death even in cases where the process gets completed successfully,' said Habiba Isack Adan Hurmo, a doctor in Galkayo, Mudug Region, central Somalia.

Universal health coverage, or National Health Insurance, is affordable and would have the greatest spin off for the vast majority of South Africans who do and will increasingly rely on the state health sector, a University of Cape Town modeling initiative has revealed. The Strategies for Health Insurance for Equity in Less Developed Countries (SHIELD) project critically evaluated existing inequities in health care in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania and the extent to which changes in health care financing mechanisms could address equity challenges. The final phase was completed this week with the release of the findings.

Aid organisations say a small handheld computer will allow them to more rapidly assess where food aid is needed most urgently. As a result, fewer Burundians will suffer hunger this year.

With raised consumer awareness about green issues, forestry companies have
scrambled to acquire environmental certification. But as Khadija Sharife
investigates, the credentials of those who keep an eye on the process is often
murky.

Thousands of freshly molded reddish-brown bricks lie baking under the hot Malawian sun. Residents of Manase, like too many other villages in Malawi, have seen members of their communities die while travelling to faraway medical clinics. But the Manase residents are determined to see themselves into better health, even if it means building their own hospital from scratch.

Ugandan researchers will carry out a series of field trials on some of the major food crops that have been genetically modified (GM), following several recent approvals by the Uganda National Biosafety Committee, despite a lack of clear legislation on commercialising any such products within the country. They will seek to develop both transgenic and conventional maize varieties tolerant to climate change-induced drought; GM cassava resistant to virulent cassava brown streak virus ravaging the starchy root crop across eastern and central Africa; GM bananas with engineered resistance to Xanthomonas bacterial infections; and cotton plants containing both Bt and 'roundup-ready' genes.

Efforts to improve one of the world’s most resilient staples - cassava - have paid off, with lasting and, in some instances, dramatic benefits. Plant breeding has increased this starchy root’s nutritional value and resistance to disease, saving countless lives as a result, says the latest issue of Lasting Impacts from the International Development Research Centre.

The widening levels of inequality and poverty globally, coupled with sharp increases in the prices of agricultural products have aggravated the challenges of food security. Moreover, the diversion of land for the production of fuels (bio-fuel) in the face of environmental degradation as a result of climate change has aggravated the food crisis The recent debilitating economic slowdown has adversely impacted the situation on the African continent that is faced with a largely unsuccessful approach to agricultural production and food security and thus heavily reliant on imports and aid to meet its food requirements.

Malaria, and other common African infections, may make women more susceptible to HIV/AIDS than they are in the developed world, according to a study that may help solve the mystery of the vastly different infection rates around the globe. Researchers who compared immune cells in the genital tracts of women in Kenya and the United States, found that Kenyan women had more 'activated' cells, which are more vulnerable to attack by HIV. Cells can become activated as a reaction to infection.

It has been 18 months at the helm of one of South Africa’s toughest cabinet portfolios and already Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has endured a disgruntled doctors’ strike, a crippling public sector work stoppage, the untimely death of his deputy minister and complex debates on a National Health Insurance initiative, which is really the critical transformation of the health system. However, Motsoaledi is proving to be a survivor and a tactician who is determined to turn the health sector around.

WHO, UNICEF and UNAIDS have launched the report 'Towards universal access', the fourth report tracking progress made towards achieving universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by the end of 2010. Despite accomplishments, the report shows that the universal access target will not be met. Two-thirds of those needing access to treatment are still not receiving it, and women are the most impacted by this burden.

The death toll from a cholera epidemic in Cameroon's North and Far North provinces stands at 420, according to public health minister André Mama Fouda. The outbreak of the waterborne disease throws an unwelcome spotlight on inadequate access to clean water and sanitation, particularly in the country’s rural north.

Five months after Islamist militia took over a hospital and camp hosting thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Somalia's Afgoye corridor, living conditions have deteriorated, with malnutrition, food shortages and shelter emerging as the key concerns. 'I live in the Hawa Abdi area; in my camp alone, there are 550 families [3,300 people] with little or no food, no medical help and almost non-existent shelter,' Hussein Abi, an elder, told IRIN.

Communities in Swaziland are coming together as never before to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has so deeply affected them. 'We will defeat AIDS, we the women of this village!' chant a group of older Swazi women wearing voluminous black skirts and bright red wraps in Ka-Vikizuula, near the Mozambique border in the east of the country.

Much of an MDG discussion hosted by Al Jazeera's Inside Story focuses on increasing global food security and eradicating hunger. Vandana Shiva, Indian environmental activist and author, argues in this article and video that Brazil's programme is amazing because it has been an initiative of government to allow communities to become 'food self reliant' and 'food self secure'.