In 1991, the Nigerian president announced that his country was going to lead the way in Aids treatment. In many respects his government scheme has been successful, but what happens when the money runs out? It is no surprise that those who are getting the subsidised drugs are enormously grateful - whatever the programme's flaws - and those who are not are desperate to join the scheme. So what is the score-card so far?

A group of nongovernmental organizations on Monday called on the Botswana Democratic Party to remove a campaign billboard that features a prominent AIDS advocate and links voting for the BDP with receiving antiretroviral drugs at no cost, Agence France-Presse reports. The billboard includes a picture of Helen Ditsebe-Mhone - who in 1992 became the first person in the country to publicly announce her HIV-positive status and founded the Coping Center for People Living with HIV/AIDS - and includes the words, "Free HIV/AIDS drugs. Vote BDP."

Women and children must be prioritised for treatment for HIV/AIDS, appropriate treatment for children must be developed and healthcare infrastructure must be developed as a matter of urgency. This is according to a report from the Save the Children Fund that aims to examine the implications of expanded access to HIV/AIDS treatment, as exemplified by the 3 by 5 initiative, for prevention of HIV in children and young people, and expanding support and care for orphans and other children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.

The use of condoms has steadily climbed among Malagasy youth as the government and NGOs increase their efforts to raise awareness about the dangers of unsafe sex. According to Population Services International (PSI), an American non-profit organisation, safer sex campaigns targeting young people were as important as service delivery.

The world's developing nations have made "significant progress” in reducing extreme poverty and alleviating hunger and disease, says U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in an year-end review of the U.N.'s much-publicised Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But he warns that progress has been hardest to come by in the 50 ”least developed countries” (LDCs) - described as the poorest of the world's poor - 34 of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. These LDCs range from Afghanistan and Bangladesh to Sierra Leone and Zambia.

In December 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the establishment of the Gates Award for Global Health in the amount of US$1million. Any organisation from any country that is a charitable institution, a private company or a public entity that has contributed to the improvement of the health and lives of the needy can apply for this award.

This research was commissioned by the South African National Department of Health to inform an appropriate and co-ordinated response to the needs of children made vulnerable in the context of the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa.

AIDS prevention efforts and initiatives to support sexual and reproductive health would seem to be natural allies. Why is it then that projects to advance these causes so often proceed in isolation of each other? This question took centre stage recently at ‘Countdown 2015: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All', a three-day conference in London. The meeting, held under the auspices of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and other civic groups, analysed the extent to which goals agreed at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) had been implemented.

Sub-Saharan Africans can enjoy better health quality by taming population explosion and arresting the spiralling maternal and infant mortality rates through effective family planning and improved reproductive health practices, a health management expert has recommended. According a WHO report presented at the just-ended 54th session of the Africa Regional Committee meeting in Brazzaville, Congo, maternal deaths and disabilities in Africa could reach 2.5 million and 49 million respectively, in the next decade if urgent action is not taken to improve maternal health.

An HIV/AIDS testing and counselling centre that will be the template for other such facilities in Swaziland's urban areas opened this week in the centrally located town of Manzini. "This is a holistic centre offering many services - that reflects the holistic approach needed for living with HIV-AIDS: counselling, blood testing, nutrition, exercise and all-round physical and mental health, with the added expertise of legal and other kinds," said Rudolph Maziya, national director of the Alliance of Mayors Initiative to Combat AIDS at the Local Level (AMICAALL).

"We write to you as health professionals from diverse countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Australia who strongly support debt cancellation for poor countries. Debt cancellation is a prescription urgently needed to help heal seriously ailing health systems – some of which cannot even provide minimal care – in many of the countries in which we live and work."

The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Guinea and neighbouring Sierra Leone rose to 86 at the end of August, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported. The Geneva-based Federation said in a statement on Monday that 561 cholera cases and 55 deaths had been recorded in Sierra Leone up to 30 August, giving a death rate of nearly 10 percent.

Some 13 million children in northern Nigeria are being vaccinated against polio in a bid to wipe out the disease. About 250,000 technicians are making house calls to reach all children under five in eight states, which have become the world's polio epicentre.

Eight months after its launch, people living with HIV/AIDS say Angola's programme to fight the epidemic is inadequate and moving too slowly. The US $160 million national strategic plan, a five-year collaboration between the government and the United Nations, is focused on prevention, building institutional capacity and helping HIV-positive people.

Up to 60 percent of Swazi infants are likely to incur brain damage due to vitamin deficiencies, while a wide spectrum of the population are at risk of malnourishment, according to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report released last Thursday. "The price of the current food shortage crisis is being paid by children and others, who are suffering stunted growth and diminished performance at school and on the job," Siddharth Nirupam, UNICEF Swaziland's programme officer for health and nutrition, told IRIN.

More than 120 people have died of cholera in western Chad and nearly 3,000 cases of the water-borne disease have been reported since an epidemic broke out at the start of the rainy season in mid-June, the government told relief agencies this week. "At yesterday’s coordination meeting, the Chadian authorities said they had recorded 2,895 cases of cholera and 123 deaths throughout the territory," Geneviève Salise, the Cholera Coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium told IRIN by telephone from the Chadian capital N’djamena.

The growing number of children living with HIV/AIDS must be a central concern of accelerated efforts to provide scaled-up treatment and care for those living with the disease, health and development experts said. "The global treatment discussion is only beginning to factor in the needs of children, in terms of the kinds of drugs and technologies that are developed and the resources that are allocated," said Peter McDermott, who heads UNICEFs HIV/AIDS programme.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa on Wednesday said that the government by next month plans to provide antiretroviral drugs free-of-charge to people living with HIV/AIDS in the country, Xinhua News Agency reports. Mkapa made the announcement during a ceremony in which the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria granted Tanzania $87.9 million to fight HIV/AIDS, according to the country's Daily News newspaper, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Dr Luis Gomes Sambo was nominated by the WHO Regional Committee for Africa for the post of WHO Regional Director for Africa. Dr Sambo, 52, of Angolan nationality, is currently the Director of Programme Management at the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO), where he is responsible for the management and operation of the programmes of WHO in the African region.

A number of African leaders last week used the second African Traditional Medicine Day (31 August) to confirm their commitment to national efforts aimed at ensuring the safety, efficacy and quality of traditional medicines. In a statement, for example, the African Union (AU) Commission called on its member states to ensure that research on traditional medicine is integrated with HIV/AIDS control programmes, as well as with all aspects of development policy.