Malawi's government has set itself a major challenge this year, announcing plans to more than double the number of people receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to half a million by the end of 2010. The country recently adopted new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines that raise the threshold for starting antiretroviral (ARV) therapy from a CD4 count (a measure of immune system strength) of less than 200, to a CD4 count of 350, regardless of whether the patient is displaying symptoms.

Among adolescents in Harare, Zimbabwe, HIV is now the single most common cause of acute admission and in-hospital death, Rashida A. Ferrand and colleagues reported in a study published in the February online edition of PLoS Medicine.

There is a high prevalence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis amongst patients with HIV in South Africa, investigators report in the April 1st edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The number of cases of typhoid fever in Harare is increasing, raising fears of another serious health crisis in the country. More than 140 cases of typhoid have been reported in the Mabvuku-Tafara suburb of Harare, up from 40 cases reported last week. At least five people are known to have died so far from the mainly water borne disease. Typhoid, which is very similar to cholera, is transmitted by food or water contaminated with waste from an infected person. The Harare City Council has now ordered all food handlers to undergo medical tests to try curb what appears to be the rapid spread of the disease.

The first international conference on HIV/AIDS ended Wednesday in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, with a call on the people to fight against stigmatization and seek ways of re-integrating HIV-positive patients into the society.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners hope to eliminate the circulation of the polio virus in West Africa as soon as June by launching the first round of national synchronised immunisation days against the debilitating disease

“Kenya’s Hunger Crisis – the Result of Right to Food Violations” is the title of a report launched today by FIAN International and RAPDA. These words also capture the main findings of a mission report by a joint international delegation of the African Network on the Right to Food (RAPDA) and FIAN International. The mission was carried out in September 2009 and investigated the implementation of the human right to food against the background of drought and wide-spread famine in some parts of the country.

Japan International Cooperation Agencyis building a new development model to encourage increased agricultural production in Africa, both to help prevent another global food crisis and to deter a land grab by foreign enterprises across the continent, according to Senior Vice President Kenzo Oshima.

Delays in registering antiretroviral (ARV) medication may keep cheaper, more patient-friendly drugs out of reach as South Africa prepares to launch the world's largest tender for medicines. In a letter to Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, the Minister of Health, the South African HIV Clinicians Society called on the country's drug registration body, the Medicines Control Council (MCC), to fast-track the approval of certain ARVs, the generic versions of others, and fixed-dose ARV combinations that combine multiple ARVs into a single pill.

Pressure is building on governments of wealthy nations to make clear where they stand on funding their promises to achieve universal access to HIV treatment, care and prevention, following a meeting of ministers and civil society advocates from countries with high HIV burdens in London this week.

A deadly strain of tuberculosis has reportedly hit Epworth, amid a rapidly worsening health crisis and critical shortages of food across the country. One case of the deadly multi-drug resistant TB strain has been confirmed in the high density area of Epworth and two more people in the same area are suspected to be infected. Zakaria Mwatia, from Epworth Clinic, confirmed the cases to local press, explain how the disease attacks those with already weakened immune systems.

One in three Africans is chronically hungry, despite $3 billion spent on food aid for the continent annually and $33 billion in food imports, the director of the food security at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has warned.

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

Many are saying food is becoming the new oil. In the past two years there has been a remarkable increase in purchases of large-scale farmland by foreigners throughout Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) Department of Food Systems, Culture and Society are partnering to offer a fully accredited, online certificate in Food Security: Assessment and Action.

Medical male circumcision is now widely recognized as an important HIV prevention tool, and several African countries have included it in their national HIV strategies. IRIN/PlusNews lists the progress of 13 nations in eastern and southern Africa identified as priority countries for male circumcision scale-up by the UN World Health Organization.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has signed a grant agreement of US$8 million with the Republic of The Gambia to improve the production and marketability of livestock and horticulture products, specifically targeting rural women and youth nationwide.

A severe shortage of highly-trained medical personnel is one of the many challenges to providing health care at a local level across Africa. Task shifting - permitting less-specialized people to carry out certain functions - is one proposal to over come this, but it is meeting resistance.

Slower progress towards achieving Millenium Development Goals on health is strongly correlated with a country’s burden of HIV disease and non-communicable diseases, according to an analysis by researchers from the London School of Hygiene, Oxford University and the University of California San Francisco published today in PLoS Medicine.

A study presented at the recent Seventeenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections founds that Ugandans presenting at a TB clinic grossly overestimated the likelihood that they had HIV. It also found that those who thought they had HIV were significantly less likely to refer members of their household for HIV testing than those who did not think so.