The National Agency for Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigerian's food and drug production and consumption regulatory agency, has begun investigations into the administration of some suspended anti-retroviral drugs on some people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Abubakar Jimoh, national public relations officer of the NAFDAC,was quoted as saying that some drugs de-listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) are being distributed under the national program for the treatment of the PLWHA.

A $42.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Institute for OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the United States, will create a powerful new approach to developing a more affordable, accessible cure for malaria, which kills more than a million children each year. OneWorld Health will work in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley, and Amyris Biotechnologies. UC Berkeley will conduct research to perfect a microbial factory for the compound artemisinin, currently the most effective treatment for malaria, and Amyris, a new biotech company founded on the breakthroughs in synthetic biology pioneered at UC Berkeley, will develop the process for industrial fermentation and commercialization.

New measures aimed at preventing the dumping of low quality condoms in Uganda have resulted in shortages across the country, a senior health ministry official told IRIN on Tuesday. Ugandans use between 80 and 100 million condoms annually as part of the country's anti-HIV/AIDS strategy of ABC - Abstain [from sex], be faithful [to one partner] or use a condom.

Millions of Africans will continue to die from malaria – an easily treatable disease – unless international donors agree to raise the substantial funds required to fight the disease. According to a new report by the Africa regional office of the World Health Organisation (WHO-Afro), a warchest of between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion is needed every year to prevent and control malaria, which claims over one million lives annually.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) lobby group was awarded costs in its failed Pretoria High Court application for access to the health department's documents on an Aids treatment plan. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister, cited as the respondent in the matter, was ordered to pay the applicant's costs.

Nearly 600 health experts, economists and policy-makers have joined an appeal for free AIDS treatment for all people living with HIV/AIDS in the developing world. The "Free By 5" declaration will be presented to the World Bank, aid donors, the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNAIDS and many other parties in the next few days.

Thank you for my second online edition of the Pambazuka magazine.

My comment is that nobody wants to be sick so that he/she can be treated. Thus my plea to African heads and all leaders is to address the issue of food security and then things like health can be catered for automatically. Why? With good nutrition, most diseases are kept at bay. There has been this craze in Kenya by the Ministry of Health for a National Health Bill. It is fine, but I can’t understand how it is going to work when there are over 300 000 Kenyans staying in the slums. Maybe you have heard of slums - visit one (Kibera slums) and get the real picture of what it means to be poor. The same applies to people living in rural areas. Their living conditions are below average.

Africa is a very productive land, and if this resource is harnessed properly, we can even produce a surplus.

The good news about AIDS in Burkina Faso is that HIV prevalence in the West African country is on the decline. The bad news is that people who have already contracted the virus appear to be having difficulties in getting drugs to treat themselves. According to the most recent statistics from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), HIV prevalence in Burkina Faso in 2003 was 4.2 percent – down from 7.17 percent in 1997.

Ethiopia is to begin free distribution of potentially lifesaving drugs next month for people living with HIV, US officials supporting the programme said last Thursday. The move is part of a US $43 million scheme from the US government of antiretroviral drugs for up to 15,000 people this year. "You can consider this the start of the treatment era, in which free treatment will be made available in increasing numbers over the years," Taddesse Wahub, head of the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) in Ethiopia, said.

At a meeting of the WTO Council for Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) on 1-2 December, Nigeria submitted a proposal on behalf of the African Group - which includes all African WTO Members - for converting the waiver provided for in a 30 August 2003 Decision on pharmaceutical patents into a formal amendment of the TRIPS agreement. The '30 August Decision' by the General Council spells out the circumstances under which countries without pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity can import generic versions of drugs still under patent.The Decision temporarily waives Members' obligations under TRIPS Article 31(f) by allowing them to export pharmaceuticals produced under compulsory licence, albeit subject to a large number of conditions in both the exporting and importing country.

This paper from the HIV/AIDS Impact on Education Clearinghouse examines the literature on how HIV/AIDS has impacted teachers and other education personnel in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d`Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. It focuses on the areas of: prevalence; impact on professional lives of teachers; impact of teacher infection on schools; impact of teacher infection on students; infection of administrative personnel; responses from teachers; and responses from management.

About one in every three Namibians has experienced corruption in public institutions, while one out of every two citizens knows someone who has fallen victim to the evil practice this year, according to a study commissioned by the Office of the Ombudsman. The 2004 National Integrity Survey reveals that although Namibians are becoming increasingly positive about Government efforts to fight corruption, they still perceive the evil phenomenon to be on the rise.

The Global Health Watch newsletter is part of the initiative to mobilise civil society around an alternative World Health Report. The November newsletter is now available.

The human rights environment in Zimbabwe has become increasingly complex. For the last few years political violence has dominated any discussion about health and human rights. Since 2000 there have been periods of intense violence across the whole country, especially around national elections. This punctuates a background intimidation that prevents people from engaging in open discussion, especially where it is different from the official version. Doctors are afraid to challenge the violence because they are afraid of being labeled anti-government or belonging to the opposition, or simply afraid of what 'might' happen to them if they stick their necks out.

There have been situations of doctors refusing to see or avoiding patients who are victims of organised or state violence. In one case a well-known human rights lawyer was denied treatment at a health facility because a health care worker was afraid to implicate himself if the matter went to court. Such is the atmosphere of intimidation. Violence and torture is carried out to make people support the ruling party and government, or at least make them too afraid to oppose it.

Thousands of young Kenyans “rocked” against AIDS in Nairobi in sweltering temperatures in recognition of World AIDS Day. The concert, held on December 5, was the first of its kind in Kenya. For a week prior to the concert, seven disc jockeys who helped host the event attended an HIV/AIDS reporting workshop provided by Internews’ Local Voices project. At the training, DJ trainer Georges Collinet coached them in how to talk about HIV/AIDS in an accurate, yet “cool” and accessible way so that their messages could be understood and absorbed by the mostly youthful concertgoers.

A motion calling for a ban on genetically modified food was brought before the House last week. Saboti MP Davies Nakitare (Narc) said this should be done in view of the fact that the government had no policy on such foods. He said most developed countries have banned genetically modified foods because of the danger they posed to humans.

At least USD$75 million have been pledged to support the health sector in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, in an effort to hasten the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). To ensure success, a joint three-tier budget, involving the federal and state governments as well as donor agencies, will be adopted. Funke Adedoyin, Minister of State for Health, was cited by the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday as saying Nigeria was "scaling up its health activities in 14 pilot states where indices indicate that there have been a steady increase on child mortality and HIV/AIDS prevalence."

Since the first three cases of AIDS were reported in 1983, HIV infection has spread throughout the country and thousands of people in all walks of life have lost their lives. Surveillance reports indicate a two fold increase of HIV prevalence from 7.2 to 13.3 per cent among female blood donors. The devastating impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic is now being experienced throughout our society.

When the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was signed in 1994, the United States, Europe and Japan dominated the world's software, pharmaceutical, chemical and entertainment industries. The rest of the world had little to gain by agreeing to these terms of trade for intellectual property. They did so because a failure of democratic processes nationally and internationally enabled a small group of men within the United States to capture the US trade-agenda-setting process, to draft intellectual property principles that became the blueprint for TRIPS and to crush resistance through US trade power.

Hunger and malnutrition cause tremendous human suffering, kill more than five million children every year, and cost developing countries billions of dollars in lost productivity and national income, according to FAO's annual hunger report, 'The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2004'. "More than 20 million low birth-weight babies are born in the developing world every year," the report says. These babies faced increased risk of dying in infancy, while those who survive often suffer lifelong physical and cognitive disabilities.