United Nations officials in Liberia have welcomed the launch of a new national strategy to combat HIV/AIDS, stressing the importance of tackling the disease before infection rates become high in the West African country. Liberia’s National AIDS Commission yesterday launched a strategic framework for 2010 to 2014 in the capital, Monrovia, with the target of containing the spread of HIV at its current rate of 1.5 per cent among the general population.

UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have appealed for the participation of all sectors of the Angolan society to ensure the vaccination of about 5.6 million children under five years against polio 6-8 August and 10-12 September. A joint statement by the two UN agencies said the exercise was aimed at protecting children in the country against the crippling disease, and a forerunner to Angola's plans to carry out a national vaccination campaign in 2011.

New research is challenging conventional medical wisdom, forcing health workers and governments in cash-strapped countries to confront new risks and rethink old ones. IRIN looks at what has been accepted as medical truths - until now.

As many African countries battle to bring down staggering rates of maternal and child mortality, maternal and child health made for a fitting theme at the African Union (AU) Summit this week in Kampala, Uganda. At the summit, African leaders came under fire for failing to live up to the 2001 Abuja Declaration, in which they agreed to commit at least 15 percent of their national budgets to health. To date, only about five countries have done so.

Continuing high rates of low to follow-up in antiretroviral treatment programmes among people already on treatment and those waiting to start treatment are a symptom of health system failures, not the fault of patients, the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference heard last week. In a session at the International AIDS Conference that focused on retention in care of ART patients, studies from Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique were presented that dealt with reducing loss to follow up and treatment default.

In Kampala, Uganda, men who have sex with men who have suffered homophobic violence or abuse are five times more likely to be HIV-positive than other men, Joseph Barker told the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference on Tuesday. Just under 40% of men had ever been physically abused, four out of ten had been blackmailed at some point, and a quarter had been forced to have sex.

Ghana has achieved 99.99 per cent reduction of the Guinea Worm disease since its inception two decades ago. From a high of 4,136 cases recorded during the peak of its outbreak in 2006, only eight cases have been reported in Ghana since the beginning of January 2010, the last case was recorded in May.

The Horn of Africa is once again free of polio, with Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda having reported no wild poliovirus cases for more than a year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners have announced. “Today marks a step towards the achievement of a major objective of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s new strategy – stopping polio in Africa,” the agency stated in a news release.

The high-level debate which opened in Kampala, Uganda, yesterday on “Promoting Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa, ended this evening with an agreement by Africa’s leaders on an action plan to kick-start the effective implementation of existing resolutions and decisions on maternal, infant and child health in the continent.

Ugandan First Lady, Janet Kataha Museveni, today presided over an important session of the meeting of African First Ladies, devoted to the theme of the debate that Heads of State had just concluded on “Promoting Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa". The move was seen as a strategic success and welcome to governments and organizations promoting maternal and child health in Africa, because African First Ladies have traditionally focused their work on HIV and AIDS their umbrella organization: Organisation for African First Ladies Against AIDS (OAFLA).

Edition 6 of the Chruch Land People newsleteer share some aspects of these different places and the struggles of the people there. There are many things in common across the different experiences and places. But it is also very important to understand the actual situation of each place. In each case, it is necessary to respect the thinking, strategies and leadership of the people over their own lives and struggles. When those who suffer take back their own peoples’ power and take their own struggles forward, then there is the possibility to really transform the situation for the better and to really ensure that others and outsiders (like the government or NGOs) work in a positive way with the people to achieve that transformation.

Seraphine Kabasinga, mother of four, has always been scared of malaria. She lives in an endemic zone, just an hour east of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. “I would use tree branches like cypress as mosquito repellents on windows and close our doors before sunset to protect my family from mosquito bites,” she said. “Today, young mothers are luckier than I was, because if you are pregnant and you go to a health centre for regular checkups, the government gives you a free net.”

The Zimbabwean Ministry of Health has announced that it plans to do away with hospital and clinic fees for pregnant women in a bid to reduce maternal deaths, particularly in rural communities, and has also resolved to establish maternity waiting homes, again emphasizing improved maternal health care in the countryside. The ministry will look to international donors to help fund such new policies and amenities for expectant mothers.

Following food crises in 2005 and 2008, Niger is once again reeling under a famine that has reached Chad and northern Mali, with repercussions for other countries in the Sahel region. As appeals for solidarity increase, Tidiane Kassé cautions that by tackling the consequences rather than the causes of the crisis, the region’s people are likely to remain vulnerable to hunger.

Three journalists were formally charged after refusing to reveal to Ivory Coast's state prosecutor their sources for a corruption story based on a document leaked from the prosecutor's office. The journalists could face up to 10 years in prison. Managing Editor Stéphane Guédé, News Editor Théophile Kouamouo, and Editor-in-Chief Saint-Claver Oula of the daily Le Nouveau Courrier were charged with "theft of administrative documents," defense lawyer Désiré Gueu told CPJ. The three are expected to be transferred from police custody to a prison in the commercial city of Abidjan pending trial, he said.

Food shortages and high rates of malnutrition have long been a reality in the Sahel, but the understanding of malnutrition has drastically changed since the prolonged drought in the early 1970s. "Food and nutrition used to be seen as one, so the response to malnutrition was through food security; we started talking about nutrition security relatively recently.

Suddenly, after 20 years of relative neglect, African agriculture is a hot topic, with a substantial growth in production and a new interest among major donors in funding the sector. That is the message emerging from a series of seminars now taking place in London looking at the constraints and opportunities facing Africa’s farmers.

Because of societal pressure and the criminality associated with men who have sex with men (MSM) in Kenya, Omondi Maina* married a woman. This is despite being involved in a homosexual relationship for the last 10 years. And Maina is not the only gay man in Kenya having sexual intercourse with both a homosexual man and heterosexual woman. New research has found that the strain of HIV among gays in Kenya is 100 percent similar to the HIV strain found in heterosexuals in the country. It is unlike the clearly defined strains of HIV found among homosexuals and heterosexuals in most countries.

At a local maternity clinic in one of Bulawayo’s high density suburbs, midwives are at pains to explain to a pregnant 15-year-old girl why she must be tested for HIV before she gives birth. But the teenager, who lightly beats her chest in an effort to pacify what seems like a painful cough, will not hear of it. She is afraid that her worst fears will be confirmed as she already suspects she could be HIV-positive.

In Niger 90% of the population depend on Agriculture. But with last year’s rain failure, the country is facing a catastrophic food crisis. Concern Worldwide, an international aid agency, is tackling the crisis by providing drought resistant seeds, distributing cash through mobile phone technology and using local food markets to provide aid. All this makes for a unique approach towards humanitarian aid.