Malawi is facing a health crisis as trained nurses leave to seek better wages abroad. More than half come to Britain to work for the NHS and private hospitals. Last year over 12,000 nurses from outside the European Union registered to work in the UK. In contrast Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, trains around 60 nurses each year.

The polio outbreak that originated in northern Nigeria after suspension there of immunization last year has now spread to 12 other countries, underscoring the threat of a major epidemic across West and Central Africa and the urgent need to fill a $100-million funding gap, the United Nations health agency has warned.

The Health Department of South Africa's Gauteng province says it is ready to begin the third leg of its antiretroviral (ARV) rollout, scheduled for early September. The rollout forms part of government's national Comprehensive Plan for the Management, Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS, which aims to have 10,000 HIV-positive people on treatment by end of March 2005.

The University of Swaziland last week became the first site of a new rapid HIV testing procedure which allows a greater number of people to be tested. "The approach of 'Negative Determination' is designed to make it easy for those who may still be negative to find that out, without having to go to hospitals or special voluntary counselling and testing centres (VCT)," said Tizzy Maphalala, programme coordinator for the UN children's fund (UNICEF).

The East African Community - which consists of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - on Friday agreed to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to manufacture generic antiretroviral drugs locally and distribute them at a lower cost in the region, Xinhuanet reports. EAC reached the agreement during a meeting at the group's headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. Currently, only 10% of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region are able to afford antiretrovirals.

The majority of world population growth by 2050 is expected to occur in developing nations despite higher HIV prevalence and infant mortality rates than those of developed nations, according to the annual Population Reference Bureau report released on Tuesday. The world's population is expected to rise 45% to nearly 9.3 billion by 2050, including a 4% increase in the population of developed countries to more than 1.2 billion and a 55% increase in developing nations' populations to more than eight billion.

A meningitis vaccination campaign that began on 24 July in parts of northern Burundi was extended on Monday to two areas where six people were reported to have died from the disease last week, a health ministry official told IRIN. The six deaths occurred in the two communes in the northern province of Kayanza.

Resistance among malaria parasites in Africa to a widely used drug is due to 'migration' of resistant parasites from South-East Asia, according to research published in Science. The study, led by Cally Roper of the UK London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, compared the genetic makeup of malaria parasites from South-East Asia and Africa. Its results suggest that parasites resistant to sulfadoxine pyrimethamine (SP) originally arrived in Africa from South-East Asia, where resistance is common.

A World Health Organisation official has urged traditional medicine practitioners in Africa to register their products to gain more benefits - including international trade - from their use. Speaking at the first scientific meeting of the Western Africa Network of Natural Products Research Scientists, which focused on malaria and HIV/AIDS, Charles Wambebe said that only 22 of 46 African countries have policies or laws covering traditional medicine.

The urgent need for additional alternative daily sources of information, including an independent national broadcaster, was further confirmed by the government-controlled media’s censorship of reports disproving claims that the country had produced sufficient food, according to the latest edition of the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ).

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Nigeria is appealing for US$248 million to help it provide subsidised antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for 200,000 people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said. Lambo told journalists on Wednesday that most of the money for this ambitious programme would probably come from the United States.

Kenya's maternal and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world. One out of every 20 women is likely to die during child delivery, said Dr Metin Gulmezoglu, a scientist based at the World Health Organisation headquarters in Geneva. This compares unfavourably to one in every 1100 women in most countries in Europe, he said, adding: "The risk of a woman dying before or during child birth is 200 times more in Kenyan than is the case in Europe."

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has created a body to coordinate the national response to HIV/Aids. Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, who serves as chairman of the National Action Committee on Aids, works with Nigeria's Ministry of Health, other government agencies, NGOs and international organizations to develop a comprehensive strategy. He spoke to AllAfrica's Tamela Hultman.

An investigation by the Eastern Cape's Joint Anti-Corruption Task Team has revealed that one of the directors of Nutri-Products Africa, a company hired by the government to supply food parcels to the poor, was paid "confidential procurement commissions" of at least R495,000 via a bank account in the name of his five-year-old daughter.

Combination therapy with three generic antiretroviral drugs in a single tablet has been validated for the first time in an open clinical study in a developing country. Follow-up of 60 patients treated in Yaoundé, Cameroon, has demonstrated the excellent efficacy and safety of a generic fixed-dose combination, says MSF.

An outbreak of cholera in Guinea is being brought under control, the number of new cases is falling and fewer victims of the highly infectious disease are dying, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday. Amadou Balde, an official at the WHO office in the Guinean capital Conakry, said only three people had died last week compared to six a week earlier, and the number of new cases had slid to 51 from 59.

January 2005 will be a nerve-wracking month for hundreds of newly-qualified professional nurses who will be waiting to be told where they will serve a year’s community service. But it will be an even bigger logistical nightmare for the Department of Health with just five months to ensure the latest programme of compulsory community service kicks off smoothly at the beginning of next year. In July, Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang announced ahead of her budget speech in Parliament the introduction of community service for nurses.

The number of Ethiopians in need of food aid has risen to more than 7.6 million as a result of crop failure and lack of pasture following poor or erratic rains earlier this year, the country's disaster prevention commission reported this week.

Officials from the 13 member nations of the Southern African Development Community this week at a nine-day summit in Mauritius are expected to discuss a new strategy for fighting HIV/AIDS in the region, Xinhua News Agency reports. Government leaders from Angola, Botswana, Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe are expected to attend the meeting.