Drug-resistant HIV has been increasing in parts of sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade, according to experts writing in the Lancet. Studies on 26,000 untreated HIV-positive people in developing countries were reviewed by the team. They said resistance could build up if people fail to stick to drug regimes, and because monitoring could be poor.

An estimated one million people in Madagascar are diabetic, but only about half of them know it. Finding the other half presents a major challenge for this large, island nation in which 80 per cent of the population live in rural areas where few people have ever heard of this chronic and potentially deadly disease. With the country’s underfunded public health sector barely functioning, this task has mainly fallen to the Madagascan Diabetes Association which dispatches its doctors and nurses to the provinces to conduct blood sugar tests and raise awareness at fairs, schools and health centres.

In 2008, Egypt reached an agreement with the US-based Monsanto Corporation to import, grow and sell the company's genetically-modified maize. The first shipment of 70 tons arrived in Egypt in December 2010 and was planted in ten governorates without restriction on planting. The second and most recent shipment of 40 tons arrived in January 2012, but was seized by the Ministry of Agriculture because it was not properly approved. 'The January shipment has been imported without the formal approval from the Ministry of Environment, the agency that should approve imported genetically-modified organisms (GMOs),' said Osama El Tayeb, a microbiology and immunology professor.

An independent, global medical and humanitarian organization says African nations are not receiving adequate international funding to fight HIV/AIDS, leaving them to face catastrophic consequences without enough medication. Experts at Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, said Congo is only able to supply anti-retroviral drugs to 15 per cent of the people needing them and 'patients are literally dying on our doorstep'. In a statement released in Johannesburg ahead of the United Nations world AIDS conference in Washington starting 22 July, the organization said countries worst affected by the pandemic were the least able to provide 'the best science' available to fight it.

At least a hundred protesters arrived at South Africa's parliament on 11 July to demonstrate their disapproval of the ongoing court case by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis against the Indian government over its patent laws. As the case draws to a close, health organizations say a win for the pharmaceutical company will be a loss to the developing world, which sources the bulk of its generic medicines from India. Novartis approached the Indian government six years ago, seeking to register a cancer drug already commonly marketed under the name Gleevec. The patent was denied and a long-running court battle ensued, but at each step Indian courts have ruled against Novartis and the company has appealed.

State hospitals and health clinics across Sierra Leone are facing severe shortages of drugs that should be supplied under the free healthcare programme because practitioners are diverting them for private sale, investigations by the Sierra Leone Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) show. User fees for children under five and pregnant women were scrapped in 2010, allowing them to consult health practitioners and receive medication free of charge. One in 21 women in Sierra Leone dies from pregnancy or other causes, while over 17 per cent of children die before their fifth birthday, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Fewer people are dying from AIDS-related illnesses and being infected with the HIV virus than at any time in the last decade, but more progress is needed in prevention, testing and treatment, a report from the United Nations AIDS programme (UNAIDS) said. Fewer people are dying from AIDS-related illnesses, with the number of deaths declining to 1.7 million in 2011. New cases of HIV infections were 2.5 million, the lowest level since 2001, according to UNAIDS figures for the last decade.

Unsafe abortion and post-partum hemorrhage are the main causes of maternal mortality in Kenya, so this hotline could save lives.

Child mortality rates have slowly come down, although they are still significantly high. Health experts say this is attributed to huge inequalities that exist in accessing health care. According to health experts at a Peoples’ Health Movement conference in Cape Town, last week, poverty and high unemployment rates are some of the barriers that prevent people from accessing quality health care. Director of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, Professor Dave Saunders, says child mortality in South Africa is still high and it has a direct link to the levels of unemployment and rising poverty.

The final report on the Global Commission on HIV and Law presents a coherent and compelling evidence base on human rights and legal issues relating to HIV. The report entitled 'HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights and Health', cites various laws that obstruct global responses on HIV and calls for their repeal in order to better address factors that increase HIV transmission and infection.

What is the future of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP)? This was President Mutharika's flagship programme, which put Malawi on the forefront of international development debates and provided subsidies for seeds and fertiliser. Through the FISP, which was implemented against fierce donor resistance, Malawi was able to break free from a vicious cycle of hunger and food insecurity. This article from Africa Report examines whether the FISP will continue under new president Joyce Banda.

Kenya sex workers are expected to attend the parallel 'Freedom Festival of Sex Workers' in Kolkata, India to coincide with the International AIDS Conference in Washington, US. The festival has been hailed as the 'alternative International AIDS Conference 2012 for sex workers and allies.' Many sex workers in Africa were refused a US visa to attend the XIX International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Washington DC later this month.

Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health on Friday declared a cholera outbreak in the country following the death of five people from the disease. Deputy minister of Health and Sanitation Mahmoud Tarawalie, made the confirmation on Friday while stressing that the authorities were putting measures in place to stem the disease. This follows reports of two deaths because of cases of severe diarrhoea in the provinces. But one of death cases was recorded in one of the slums of the capital, Freetown.

About 120,000 people in the coastal, mid- and far western regions of the self-declared republic of Somaliland require emergency food assistance after four years of failed rains, says Mohamed Mousa Awale, chairman of Somaliland's environment research and disaster preparedness agency. The most affected areas include the Salel Region localities of Asha-Ado, Lughaya, Garba-Dadar, Gargaara and Waraqa-dhigta where some 450 tons of food aid from Djibouti was distributed on 6 July.

In a decision outraging campaigners for food sovereignty and agroecological approaches, the Gates Foundation has awarded a $10 million grant to develop genetically modified (GM) crops for use in sub-Saharan Africa. The grant is for the John Innes Centre in Norwich, which hopes to engineer seeds for corn, wheat and rice that will fix nitrogen (take nitrogen from the air) so that the crops would not need fertilizers. But GM Freeze, which campaigns against GM food, crops and patents, says that 'nitrogen fixing wheat and other cereals have been promised by the GM industry for several decades' and that other, non-GM methods are the solution. Pete Riley, campaign director GM Freeze, adds that 'GM is failing to deliver'.

Doctors working in Tanzania government hospitals are leaving the country for greener pastures in other African countries after the government terminated their services over a strike. The Tanzania Medical Association says the exodus of medical specialists has peaked over the past week in response to what the professionals see as the arrogance and vindictiveness of senior state officials.

People in the Swaziland lowveld have died of hunger, a member of the Swazi Parliament has reported. Nkululeko Mbhamali, Matsanjeni North MP, said hunger was rife in his constituency and some people had died at Tikhuba. Crops have failed this year due to poor rains. Mbhamali said a ‘food-for-work’ scheme organised by World Vision that was supposed to distribute food supplied by overseas’ donors had not been implemented properly and many people were not receiving food.

African governments have been urged to improve their investment on health. According to the Coordinator of the Africa Public Health Alliance 15 per cent Plus Campaign, Rotimi Sankore; health budget in Africa is lower than that of other continent. 'The gap in health investment between industrialised and developing countries is currently too wide. Average percentage allocation of budget to health in Africa region is only 9.6 percent – but a much higher 16.9 percent in America; 14.6 percent in Europe; and 14.4 percent in Western Pacific,' Sankore explained.

The finance and health ministers agreed on 10 important steps to promote value for money, accountability and sustainability in the health sector.

The world needs more doctors, nurses and other health care workers - 3.5 million of them, to be exact. The poor state of human resources in the health care system came under the spotlight at a session at the People’s Health Assembly, a five-day international meeting currently underway at the University of the Western Cape campus in Bellville. 'Human resources are at the heart of a good health system,' said Bridget Lloyd from the People’s Health Movement (PHM), who chaired the meeting. 'But in Africa we face great challenges with human resources in the health sector.'