The Global Agriculture Scale Up Initiative was launched in April 2005 as a major initiative in Oxfam's Global Livelihoods Strategy and Corporate objectives relating to Aim 1-Sustainable Livelihoods. The position will aim to provide overall leadership, coordination and support for the Global Agriculture Scale-up Initiative, working closely with country, regional and Oxford based staff to successfully deliver the entire project.Closing date: 3 August 2007.

The level and longevity of protective antibodies elicited by a measles vaccine is significantly shortened by HIV infection in Zambian children, according to the findings of a prospective study published in the August 1st issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Measles immunisation programs may have to consider repeated vaccinations in areas of high HIV-1 prevalence.

Frequent antiretroviral therapy (ART) switches in HIV-infected Kenyan urban adults might limit the efficacy of ART, according to the findings of an observational study published in the July 1st issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The authors sound the alarm that this is a potentially serious threat to the sustainability of HIV treatment programmes in Kenya and other developing countries.

Using a condom in conjunction with a diaphragm — a latex contraceptive cap that fits tightly over a woman's cervix — to protect against HIV infection in women is no more effective than relying on a condom alone. The findings are reported in an article published in The Lancet (13 July) by Nancy Padian, from the University of California in San Francisco, and her colleagues. The team, from Methods for Improving Reproductive Health in Africa (MIRA), did a randomised trial of almost 5,000 sexually active, HIV-negative women in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Thousands of children and adults living rough on the streets of Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, face a daily struggle to eat and find a warm corner to sleep in; many blot out the reality of their situation by turning to sex and drugs. Sexual violence is also prevalent, as people living on the streets of Bujumbura are vulnerable to sexual attacks and often have nowhere to turn.

A programme known as 'community conversations' (CC) is making traditionally conservative Ethiopians open up and face the realities of HIV, including the need to treat people affected by the pandemic with greater respect and acceptance. The project began in 2004 in southern Ethiopia as an initiative of the UN Development Programme and Kembatti Mentti Gezzimma-Tope, a local non-governmental organisation, and has grown to cover most regions in Ethiopia.

Many HIV-positive Nigerians are still losing their jobs or being denied work because of their status. Activists say a national workplace policy to protect them from stigma and discrimination, adopted over two years ago, is practically toothless. "The policy is not effective at all; most companies are only paying lip service to it," said Josephine Odikpo, Executive Director of the Centre for Rights and Development, in the port city of Lagos.

A group of prominent and renowned church leaders in Lesotho showed their commitment to promote dignity, equality and rights of all people, especially those living with HIV/AIDS in front of King Letsie III and Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili. They also pledged to discuss openly issues around HIV/AIDS - treatment, shun negative statements that the disease is a divine punishment as well as break negative cultural barriers.

What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth -- and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men. That is the message for World Population Day 2007, which is being marked Wednesday under the theme 'Men as Partners in Maternal Health'.

Under pressure from the medical community, the Algerian government recently allowed distribution of a new preventive treatment for cervical cancer. A lack of early screening and treatment facilities and an increase in the cancer's prevalence in Algeria drove the Algerian government to register the vaccine as a government programme.

Scientists have found that a relatively new drug is much more effective at treating HIV/AIDS in treatment-experienced patients, but experts in the developing world say it may be too costly for widespread use in resource-poor countries. The research, published in The Lancet last week (6 July) concludes that darunavir-ritonavir, a drug developed to combat HIV that is resistant to other HIV drugs, should be considered as a treatment option for HIV-infected individuals at various stages of treatment.

Swaziland's first Demographic Health Survey has found that 26 percent of sexually active Swazis are infected with HIV. The last prevalence survey, based on tests of pregnant women at antenatal clinics, had found a 38.6 percent HIV infection rate. The new figure was derived from a house-to-house survey by the Central Statistics Office for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

As mountains of garbage expand in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, the UN Environment Programme has called on the government and private sector to repair the country’s broken system for collecting trash. “Solid waste management is arguably the greatest public health threat in Monrovia,” UNEP’s Michael Cowing told IRIN. “There is virtually no waste management secto

The United Nations is supposed to play global policeman, but what happens when its own peacekeepers break the law? That's a question raised by a string of incidents allegedly involving Pakistani and Bangladeshi peacekeeping troops in war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo in 2005.

In a departure from tradition, religious communities in Algeria have become increasingly involved in AIDS education in the country. To this end, the Ministry of Religious Affairs organised a seminar on Monday (July 2nd) in Algiers, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the role of religious leaders in the fight against AIDS.

HIV prevention campaigns in Africa and Asia are often tilting at the wrong target and wasting money because of a basic lack of information about who is becoming infected in a country, David Wilson of the World Bank told the 2007 HIV Implementers’ meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, last month.

Laws criminalising behaviour that may transmit HIV are “the product, not of rational public health choices, but of irrational fears, which provide an inveterately poor basis for rational law-making,” according to South Africa’s Justice Edwin Cameron. Speaking last night at Birkbeck College in central London, at an event co-hosted by NAM and the National AIDS Trust, Mr Justice Cameron argued that the law’s current place in the AIDS epidemic is primarily to create “legislation specially protecting the rights of those with HIV.”

When some of the world's largest donors to the global AIDS response organise a conference for "implementers", there is none of the chaos and rush of larger AIDS gatherings, or any of the free goods and gimmicks hawked by large pharmaceutical companies: no conference bags; no protests; no glittering opening ceremonies - it was all business last week when conference delegates met in Kigali, Rwanda, at the 2007 HIV Implementers' Meeting.

In Maputo, Mozambique's capital, the neighbourhoods of Serrano and Mafalala are the most popular places for buying drugs. Users visit small, ordinary-looking houses there to buy and shoot up heroin, cocaine and amphetamines. "Addicts always leave syringes that others pick up and use," said Ezequiel, a former heroin and cocaine user, who did not wish to give his full name. "Buying a syringe costs money; addicts prefer to use their cash to buy more drugs."

As Uganda's AIDS epidemic matures, bringing altered behaviour patterns, prevention messages must be adjusted to reflect the new dynamics of the pandemic, senior health officials have said. "The landscape has changed; it's important to understand what is driving the epidemic," Dr David Apuuli Kihumuro, director-general of the Uganda AIDS Commission, told IRIN/PlusNews.