"The University of California, Berkeley, has signed an agreement with the Samoan government to isolate from an indigenous tree the gene for a promising anti-AIDS drug and to share any royalties from sale of a gene-derived drug with the people of Samoa. The agreement supports Samoa's assertion of national sovereignty over the gene sequence of Prostratin, a drug extracted from the bark of the mamala tree (Homalanthus nutans)."

"Traditional healers have been urged to assist with the rollout by referring people to the existing service points."

"Part of their mandate is to encourage sharing of experiences of PLWHA to break the silence about the epidemic and fight the associated stigma and discrimination. In this area, the expectation is that legislation would be introduced to tackle HIV-related stigmatization and discrimination. Laws are to be instituted along with other necessary steps to ensure non-discrimination towards persons faced with all forms of HIV-related prejudice and stigma."

"Several public health, AIDS advocacy and development groups are urging finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations to support eliminating debt in more than 30 countries, saying that if developing nations spend less on paying down debts, they will have more money to spend in the fight against HIV/AIDS, VOA News reports."

"Service providers in developing countries with catastrophic AIDS epidemics have very little access to journal articles and HIV prevention research advances. Dr. Kelly and his team wondered if there was a way to get practical information about the latest developments in HIV prevention science to service providers that went beyond just sending copies of journal articles."

"Only a quarter of all companies surveyed had implemented a formal Aids policy, while less than a fifth had a voluntary counselling and testing programme, or provided care, treatment and support to infected workers."

"Despite the lack of financial incentive, Novartis isn't the only pharmaceutical heavyweight to get involved in developing cures for diseases afflicting the Third World. In addition to British companies like GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca working to develop medicines against tuberculosis, malaria and visceral leishmaniasis also known asÊkala azar, a handful of German drug giants too have indicated a willingness to play a part."

"The Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia will provide a critical boost to the capacity of Ethiopia's Ministry of Health, helping it to succeed in its bold plan. The center, which started its work in August 2004, is staffed by Ethiopian professionals with extensive experience and training in planning and health systems development, epidemiology, vector biology, and prevention and control of infectious diseases, The Center's staff have a special focus on malaria and HIV/AIDS, data management and program evaluation."

"The "deadly interaction" of TB and HIV threatens to evolve into a global public health crisis and called for urgent action to stop the co-epidemic, said Mario Raviglione, head of the WHO fight against TB. The danger is compounded by the appearance of drug-resistant TB strains."

"We must not let the achievements of recent years be rubbed out by a return to an Africa in which millions are plagued by terrible violence," Annan told a summit of the 53-member African Union.

"However, Mr. Lewis said, "what is happening now should have happened and could have happened several years ago," and he said funding in global anti-AIDS initiatives still lagged behind what was required. The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria needs more money, he said, to pay for the so-called "3 by 5 initiative," which calls for 3 million HIV/AIDS sufferers in developing countries to receive anti-retroviral therapy by the end of 2005."

"According to Richard G A Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, "India has the 5.1 million HIV positive people and could become another South Africa or Botswana where the disease has turned into an epidemic. The Geneva-based financial organisation is among the five largest bodies dedicated to funding the fight against AIDS. It also focuses on tuberculosis and malaria through its 300 programmes in 130 countries including India."

"South Africa's leading AIDS treatment lobby is taking the government to court, accusing the authorities of falling behind their own targets to give drugs to people with HIV, the group's lawyer said on Wednesday."

"Regardless of substantial progress made from 1988 to limit the wild polio virus to only eight out of the 37 states in Nigeria, the picture is quite different today as virtually the entire country is now infected by the virus. Apparently, this is as a result of very low routine immunization coverage lowering their immunity levels especially in previously polio free areas, poor quality of supplementary immunization activities and prolonged polio safety, controversy as well as funding shortfalls amongst others."

"In a country of 1.2 million people where blackouts are common and thousands of families still brighten their nights with candles, it's a good question, one that AIDS advocates here say the Swaziland government should have asked before deciding to commit millions of dollars in international aid to the computer system. Even before they are brought online, the computers are being dismissed by some critics as a waste, the latest example of the Swaziland government's misguided, if well-meaning, efforts to fight AIDS."

"Even after UNICEF delivered new vaccines, continuing problems with the power supply made it difficult for local clinics to keep them properly cooled, while fighting and street violence hampered distribution."

"A new study looks at the challenges African media face in covering health issues on the continent. "Deadline for Health: The Media's Response to Covering HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria in Africa" looks at African media's response to covering HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It is available online at http://www.awmc.com/pub/p-8392/e-8393/ch-8410. The study is a joint project of the Washington, D.C.-based International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) and its African Women's Media Center (AWMC) in Dakar, Senegal. Researches analyzed media coverage based on newspaper content, and interviews with individuals and focus groups from media outlets, government groups and nonprofit organizations."

"Health workers in Kano and seven other northern states with high polio-infection rates began a week-long, house-to-house polio immunisation of under-fives for the second time since Kano lifted an 11-month ban on a batch of polio vaccines which Islamic clerics claimed were laced with substances that could make girls infertile. "

"While stressing the importance of timely action, Feachem admitted to sharing the view that not enough is being done by the Indian government and the corporate sector in terms of funding and support to make a difference in the fight against HIV/AIDS in particular. "Yes I do share this view. Concerning the private sector, it is clear that the corporate sector in India has a key role to play in fighting HIV and aids, starting with prevention and treatment programmes for the workforce."

"According to Prof. Amoah, the campaign against the HIV/AIDS pandemic had gone down well with the Ghanaian populace, therefore enhancing their behavioural change towards the epidemic. He noted that if people's behaviours had not change for the better, for the twenty years of the existence of the menace in the country, the prevalence rate would have shot up astronomically toplace Ghana at par with other African countries."

"The Global Fund, created in 2001, wants to increase public awareness of its role in raising and distributing funds to fight the diseases. It has made financing commitments of up to $8 billion over five years to projects in more than 100 countries but already faces a shortfall of $2.5 billion on grants earmarked for next year."

"These findings could have potential public health relevance because interventions to prevent placental malaria during pregnancy might reduce the risk of HIV transmission from mother to child and this could augment current approaches using anti-retroviral drugs. Randomised trials of intensive malaria control in HIV-positive women are urgently needed, said Branmbhatt."

"The launch took place in Paris yesterday under the theme "big problems require big solutions." A statement released following the launch explained the chosen strategy for the campaign saying it was necessary to use a global solution in battling global killer diseases that killed six million people yearly. "In order to reach its ambitious goals and fight these diseases, the whole world must be mobilised and engaged."

"ReleasedÊJulyÊ6Êin Bras’lia by the United Nations HIV/Aids Program (UNAids), the document cites the increase in condom consumption as a positive item. According to the Ministry of Health's National STD/Aids Program, condom consumption grew from 150 million in 1994 to over 600 million in 2003. The report also highlights Brazil's progress in the treatment of carriers of the disease. Of the 400 thousand people around the world who have access to anti-retroviral medicines, 140 thousand live in Brazil. The Brazilian government spends US$ 229.6 million (R$ 700 million) annually on Aids treatment; 60% of this total is used to purchase medications. "This policy of furnishing universal treatment to carriers of the virus made it possible to reduce mortality by 50% and enabled the National Health System (SUS) to save around US$ 2 million (R$ 6.1 million) in the past five years," affirms the Director of the Ministry's STD/Aids Program, Alexandre Grangeiro. The report also underscores Brazil's leadership in cooperative efforts among Southern hemisphere countries, especially those in Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, which receive donations of medicines from Brazil to treat the disease."

"In the next six years, the number of Tanzanians killed by malaria could be halved. They just need to start using insecticide-treated nets. "Treated nets can reduce mosquito bites by more than 80 percent and kill more than 50 percent of all mosquitoes that enter houses," Alex Mwita, manager of Tanzania's National Malaria Control Programme, said. Medical experts say the use of bed nets would cut the number of children killed by the disease by 27 percent."

"More than 2.6 billion people - over 40 per cent of the world's population - do not have basic sanitation, and more than one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water, warns a major report released today by WHO (the World Health Organization) and UNICEF."

"Now some of those same soldiers man the checkpoints along the 600 km road from Odienne to Abidjan, demanding bribes or unofficial taxes from nurses making the journey to get medicines for the already cash-strapped clinic. "Today we have problems getting medicine. We go to Abidjan but at the checkpoints we always have to pay. Even though we were there for those people and have stayed," she said, the anger rising in her voice."

"The W.H.O. estimates that 3,900 children die each day because of dirty water or poor hygiene. Diseases transmitted through water or human excrement are the second-leading cause of death among children worldwide, after respiratory diseases, Vanessa Tobin, chief of sanitation for Unicef, said. An additional 400 million children are infested with round worms or whip worms because of poor hygiene."

"WHO had been hoping to eradicate polio by next Jan. 1, but African immunization efforts stalled in the face of resistance in northern Nigeria's heavily Muslim Kano state.The immunization program resumed in Kano two weeks ago, but the disease had already spread to Guinea and Mali, WHO said."

"Gilead Sciences announced on Wednesday that it will offer its once-daily, fixed-dose combination antiretroviral drug Truvada through its Global Access Program to 68 developing countries at the not-for-profit price of 99 cents per patient, per day -- or $29.75 for a 30-day supply."

"The rest of the world has contributed so little to the fight against AIDS that the United States cannot make its full contribution this year, according to President George W. Bush's global AIDS coordinator, Randall Tobias."

"U.S. global AIDS coordinator Randall Tobias echoed generations of fundraisers Wednesday by saying he would extend a deadline for other nations to donate to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria so that the United States could supply every penny of matching funds allowed by law."

The most important [part] for us is to have a policy. Most of the time developing countries that have to handle these very delicate negotiations don't have an abiding policy. If they want to move the country ahead, it is usually easier to persuade funders to buy into the policy.

Second, you need diplomacy to negotiate space and ensure that people understand where you are coming from, because sometimes even when you have said something, they still have the tendency to go in the direction of space that you don't want them to go. "

"The communist country had declared the bird flu vanquished at the end of March, but the disease, highly contagious among birds, reignited in the past month, prompting the cull or death of 33,847 poultry since July 9."

"Without a change in treatment policy and progress in prevention, HIV/AIDS will become the single largest cause of death in the world's second most populous nation, accounting for 17 percent of all deaths and 40 percent of infectious deaths, by 2033, the bank said in a report on HIV/AIDS in India."

"I formally tender my apology on behalf of the Nigerian government for this development and at the same time pledge to work harder to make polio a history by the end of this year," Professor Lambo told the health ministers of the six countries at a one day joint meeting of the ministers on cross border immunisation strategies, in Abuja at the end of July. "The postponement of immunisation activities in some key states of Nigeria resulted in a marked increase in the number of polio infected and paralysed children and the reinfection of previously polio free states in Nigeria and exportation of the virus in at least six neighbouring countries," he said.

"At the moment we think our best shot is at preventative treatment," spokeswoman for the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) Michelle Galloway said. "There's an international move toward teenagers. Scientists are saying that at some point we are going to have to involve teenagers in trials because they are the most at risk group," she told AFP.

"The principal reason Zimbabwe is falling behind is that President Robert G. Mugabe's increasingly repressive government has lost foreign donors' trust that it will fairly or honestly channel money for antiretroviral drugs to those who need it."

"Partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the proposed trial would have recruited almost 1,000 sex workers, who are at high risk for becoming infected with HIV. The trial was to have given one group Viread and another a placebo over a period of a year to see if those taking the drug had a statistically lower incidence of HIV infection. The trial was to be conducted by researchers from the University of California San Francisco and the University of New South Wales, with additional funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health."

"The report says the Sudanese government appears oblivious to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and described the persistent denial of the disaster by most government officials as "shocking"."

"The World Health Organization (WHO) has removed three generic HIV medicines manufactured in India from its prequalification list , which is supposed to help governments and others chose good-quality drugs to use in their public health campaigns. The three combination antiretrovirals, manufactured by Ranbaxy Laboratories, were taken off the list because a contract research organization (CRO) that had done bioequivalence studies on behalf of Ranbaxy was found to be noncompliant with good clinical and laboratory practices."

"President A P J Abdul Kalam, today said that further tests on the HIV/AIDS vaccine, being developed by country's scientists, may be possible in one-two years."

"Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday he opposes the testing of drugs on Cambodians, a position that could derail a planned trial for an anti-AIDS medicine here. His remarks seemed directed at a test, partially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, of the drug Tenofovir DF by the California-based biotech company Gilead Sciences Inc. "Please, don't use Cambodians for (any drug) trial," Hun Sen said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a hospital, noting that his country had been selected to test AIDS medication. "If a trial is needed, please do it on animals, and don't use Cambodians."

"Now that the vaccine had been cleared, Shekarau urged those undertaking the immunisation campaign to do the work thoroughly. According to the WHO, Kano's failure to vaccinate over the past year has led to the poliovirus prevalent in Northern Nigeria infecting people in 10 other African countries."

"Since the boycott began in August 2003, polio has spread from Nigeria across West and Central Africa, infecting polio-free countries and threatening a U.N.-backed drive to eradicate the disease worldwide by next year. The number of cases in Nigeria has increased fivefold from last year, to 430 since January - nearly 90 percent of the 494 cases worldwide. ``The suspension of immunization activities in the north led to a steep increase in polio cases,'' said Gerrit Berger, spokesman for the U.N. Children's Fund in Nigeria."

"Good national cancer control programs address prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care. In particular, early diagnosis and treatment can maximize patients' chances of survival. This study indicates that cancer patients in Sub Saharan Africa would certainly benefit from earlier diagnosis and better access to treatment facilities. "Equitable distribution of resources is an important ethical concern in cancer treatment," the authors conclude. "It is clear that, in Zimbabwe at least, and probably in much of the continent, there is plenty of scope for improvement in this respect."

"The discrimination that girls with HIV/AIDS face in the home, community and at the work place has remained largely invisible to government policy makers. There are no programs that focus on their problems," said Kousalya Perisamy of the Positive Women Network, an activist group working in southern Tamil Nadu state."

"In an interview with IPS, Dr. John Kunene, principal secretary for the health ministry, said, "We plan to achieve our goal whereby any Swazis living anywhere can have access to HIV testing within a reasonable distance from his or her home, along with the counselling that is so necessary both before and after testing."

"The country's public health authorities are promoting the use of impregnated nets to fight the disease, but adequate nets are not always easily available and at 3,500 CFA francs ($6.5) they are often too expensive for the average household."

"Mr. Arrow says an ACT fund will give drug manufacturers the financial incentive to ramp up production, so that there will be enough ACT to treat the millions of malaria-affected people in Africa. He adds that creating this large market for the medicine will also drive down its price. Finally, Mr. Arrow says the fund will subsidize ACT so that it will be as inexpensive as chloroquine."

"Yale University today announced that its Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) has received a $2.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support HIV prevention research among high-risk populations in India."

"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made a $US16 million grant to fight malaria among African infants, the United Nations announced today. According to the UN, malaria causes an estimated 1 million deaths every year among African children -- who collectively present a half billion clinical cases every year."

"Peter McDermott, the head of UNICEF's HIV/AIDS program, praised the role Australia was taking in the fight against HIV/AIDS. "They've tried to keep it on the political agenda and they've also led by putting money on the table," he said."

"The Bush administration has been under repeated attack this week from activists and world leaders, such as Annan and French President Jacques Chirac, who say the U.S. is not contributing its fair share to the global anti-AIDS effort. They also say U.S. policy is putting too much emphasis on abstinence rather than on condoms and blocking Third World countries from producing their own versions of drugs patented by major pharmaceutical companies."

"The Seattle-based foundation said the money will pay for three large-scale community studies in Africa and South America over seven years. Earlier this year, the Gates foundation donated $82.9 billion for research into a vaccine to prevent tuberculosis, which kills an estimated two million people every year."

"A voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) program using a mobile van to travel to marketplaces in townships and villages overcomes the structural barriers to HIV testing in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to UCSF researchers."

"In a report by UNAIDS and the Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum (APLF), which urges the region's leaders to act quickly on the HIV/AIDS crisis, Wang writes: "Spurred by China's experience with SARS, the central government is scaling up its response, politically and financially."

"Contrary to widespread assumptions, UCSF researchers have found that an HIV-infected African cohort successfully followed a medication regimen, taking almost all of the anti-HIV drugs as prescribed and at a rate as high or higher than observed in published studies of HIV-infected cohorts in rich countries."

"The bulk of U.S. AIDS prevention dollars are destined for the five-year, $15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which aims to treat 2 million people with antiretroviral drugs and prevent 7 million new HIV infections over the next five years. Despite its size and ambitions, the plan has been criticized. Complaints include the decision to limit aid to 15 countries; the promotion of AIDS-prevention strategies that emphasize abstinence; and the requirement that foreign-made generic drugs used in the program must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration."

"The price of AIDS medicines has fallen to as low as $140 per person for a year's supply, and more governments and organizations are funding treatment. But developing countries face a challenge in training health care workers to ensure that patients not only take the drugs but also stay on them, and to monitor their condition and prevent further spread of infection."

"Leadership and government commitment to closing the global vaccination gap have to come from the affected countries. It is the only way to make a credible case for help from the developed world. The seriousness of the task has to be matched with the magnitude of local investment in health. Governments of these countries must place disease prevention above political conflict or weapons purchase. Strong leaders are needed to mobilize local communities and entire nations for the administration of vaccines, as was the case in Central and South America, where "Immunization Days" or "Immunization Weeks" resulted in the eradication of paralytic poliomyelitis. Clear demonstrations of societal will and leadership for change are not evident today in affected countries; they are glaringly absent."

"UNAIDS launched the "2004 Report on the global AIDS epidemic" on 6 July. The flagship report provides the latest global HIV and AIDS estimates."

"The cost of the AIDS epidemic in Asia could jump by more than $10 billion annually by 2010 unless countries in the region take urgent steps to halt its spread, the Asian Development Bank and United Nations said Thursday. Failure to bolster current HIV treatment and prevention programs could result in about 10 million more infections by the end of the decade, according to a joint report by UNAIDS and the ADB."

"The lethal spread of the HIV/Aids pandemic across the globe is speeding up, in spite of intensifying efforts on the part of UN agencies, the US, Britain and other European governments to turn the tide. A record five million people were infected by the virus last year and nearly three million died."

"Njehu said that inclusion in AGOA requires countries to comply with "structural adjustment" conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- austerity policies that widen the gap between rich and poor and exacerbate already difficult conditions for the most impoverished and for women and children in African societies."

"He argued that by applying scientific and technological know-how, the continent could generate its own green revolution for the 21st century. This would involve the expansion of small-scale irrigation, the improvement of soil health, electrification and the provision of access to information technology and hunger early warning schemes. Annan also dwelt on the AIDS pandemic, which is claiming 6,500 African lives a day, thereby robbing the continent of a generation of farmers. "In Africa, fighting hunger and fighting AIDS must go hand in hand," he said."

"Despite appeals from neighbouring countries to vaccinate its population, the conspiracy theorists in Nigeria got their way. Now, as expected, polio is beginning to spread among children in the region. Now the local authorities are appealing for urgent assistance."

"A major study into HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa between 1997 and 2002 has found that while the growth rate of the epidemic has slowed, only eastern Africa has seen an actual decline."

"The paper's lead author, Ruair Brugha, Senior Lecturer in Public Health at LSHTM, comments: 'The Global Fund is one of several new global initiatives to finance HIV/AIDS control, each superimposed on the systems which already exist in the countries being targeted. What our interim findings show is that the Global Fund's goals will only be met if there are clearer guidelines, significant improvements in co-ordination among donors, and with simpler and more straightforward funding, planning, management and reporting systems'."

"Government measures therefore appear necessary to provide better regulation of import and distribution of good quality generic medicines, fraud control and training (health authority personnel, pharmacists, medicines, etc.), in order to improve access to treatments, medical follow-up of patients and to contribute effectively to malaria control."

"In a recent survey released buy the Global Economic Initiative of the World Economic forum, it was found that nearly two thirds of African businesses believe that AIDS will affect their bottom line, and that many are beginning to take steps to fight the epidemic. Companies considering doing business in South Africa should therefore realise that measuring and managing the risk of HIV/AIDS in the workplace is the only way to achieve sustainable profits in the African business environment."

"UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said ensuring that refugees benefited from effective prevention efforts meant that traumatised people, forced to flee their homes, could avoid the further devastation of AIDS. "UNHCR is absolutely vital in the fight against HIV/AIDS," he added."

9. We recognise the positive response of many private sector corporations, foundations, trade unions and associations, non-governmental and faith-based organizations, and associations of people living with HIV/AIDS in responding to the pandemic. We call for a strengthening of this response and a deepening of collaboration between the EU and U.S. private sectors, with a view to investing in programmes that are directed at the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV/AIDS, particularly in the most affected or threatened countries. We call, in particular, for new efforts to explore opportunities for a greater, better-coordinated engagement by these organisations in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

"Yet in the past few years, epidemiologists have stepped up attempts to characterize HIV's spread across Asia as a whole, forcing many to rethink how the virus moves around the continent and, ultimately, how to design targeted prevention programs. Beyrer and his co-workers used molecular biology to track how various HIV subtypes spread out from heroin-producing Myanmar and Laos along drug-trafficking routes in India, China, and Vietnam. Brown spearheaded the development of a fascinating computer model that analyzes the specific characteristics of Asian epidemics. And Pisani and two dozen colleagues in an informal network called Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic have just completed a detailed report on AIDS in Asia that incorporates this new understanding of the epidemic across the continent. They plan to release it in July at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok. Its title: "Face the Facts!"

"In what is being described as a groundbreaking shift in vaccine development, the Serum Institute of India (SII) will apply a US-developed technology to a molecule produced by a Dutch company in order to develop a new vaccine."

"The WHO wants to spend $100m ( 63m) over the next two years intensifying its vaccination campaign. There is a particular drive to vaccinate in Africa before the polio "high season" begins this autumn, when thousands of children will be at high risk of permanent paralysis. WHO officials have been in discussions with the Nigerian government and local politicians in Kano state to try to allay fears over the safety of the vaccine. The governor of Kano has agreed to resume inoculations using a batch imported from Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country."

"Health experts have long warned of epidemics in Darfur, where thousands have been killed and more than 1 million left homeless in a 15-month conflict between government-backed Arab militias and the black African Muslim population. The battle against the disease has stalled in the face of resistance to immunization programs in Nigeria's heavily Muslim Kano state. Some Islamic leaders claimed that the vaccines were part of a U.S.-led plot to spread infertility and AIDS among African Muslims. Nigerian federal officials and the United Nations deny the claims."

"A study carried out by scientists in Nigeria says Aids could now be responsible for more than half the deaths in these services."

"Undernutrition is the underlying cause of more than 53 percent of all child deaths that occur annually, including those from infectious diseases, pneumonia, diarrhea, measles and malaria, according to a new analysis by researchers with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the World Health Organization."

"Botswana's campaign against AIDS is the region's most vigorous. In the last three years, it has recruited doctors, built clinics and bought drugs, reporting an annual budget of $110 million to the United Nations in 2002. That included about $40 million in contributions from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Merck Company Foundation, the U.S. government and the United Nations among other donors. But despite the torrent of money, the struggle was showing little progress as recently as December."

"African countries have doubled spending against HIV/AIDS over the past decade, but far greater funding and a better distribution of treatment are needed to curb the pandemic, African ministers and U.N. officials said Friday at a continentwide population conference."

"A new level of global collaboration in AIDS vaccine research and development is critical, so that the most promising vaccine candidates, regardless of country of origin, are prioritized for human testing. "

"For years the South African government warned that nevirapine had dangerous side effects and could not be reliably administered without drastically improving the quality of care available at state-run hospitals. Since then, there has been little evidence of dangerous side effects from nevirapine, though there is evidence that use can create resistance to it and similar anti-HIV medicines. Researchers fear that women who use nevirapine during the births of their children will be resistant to other anti-retroviral drugs later, when they develop AIDS."

"In the last decade, the World Health Organization identified filariasis as one of the few diseases that can realistically be eliminated as a public-health threat - polio and leprosy are among the others. A campaign to stamp out filariasis by 2020 is in full swing in countries such as India, which accounts for about 40 percent of the world's cases."

"The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today announced the launch of BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH), a new nonprofit organization that will work to enlist the biotechnology industry in the fight against neglected diseases. BVGH has received a $1 million start-up grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A bold new experiment, BVGH will work with companies, donors and investors to bring new vaccines, therapies, diagnostics and delivery tools to market in developing nations. The announcement was made at BIO 2004, the biotech industry's annual convention."

"Multinationals and big local firms in South Africa including Anglo American, BMW, ChevronTexaco and Unilever have all put in place plans to treat employees with anti-retroviral drugs -- in many cases helping sick workers get well enough to be back on the job. Taylor said such programmes were most effective when corporate leadership took a direct role in promoting AIDS awareness and treatment, helping to overcome the stigma associated with the disease and encouraging people to seek testing or further medical help. "It is not unusual to see companies with just four to five percent uptake on testing programmes," Taylor said. "This is terrible, as testing is the only way people are going to get treatment and care."

"The effectiveness of many interventions to improve health in poor populations in the developing world remains untested and therefore unproven. It is sometimes assumed that what works is known and that the only challenge is to make interventions widely available to underserved populations worldwide, the so-called know-do gap. However, other than vaccination, few global health interventions are evidence-based."

"Kraft Foods Inc. has reported on the progress it has made since announcing its global health and wellness initiatives last July. The company is implementing a wide-ranging program to improve the nutrition profile of its portfolio, adjust its marketing practices and policies, provide consumers with more information to help them make informed food and activity choices, and advocate for constructive public policy changes. Kraft's action plans benefit from the guidance of its Worldwide Health & Wellness Advisory Council, a group of 10 recognized experts from key health and wellness disciplines."

"Only 33 percent of children aged from nine-17 years old claim to know 'a lot' or 'something' about HIV-AIDS," the UN children's fund said in a statement. Awareness fell as low as 12 percent in Laos and 1.0 percent in East Timor. "As many as 58 percent of this age (nine-17) say they know nothing about the dangers of illegal drug use," it said.

"But the deputy chairman of the National Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, Stavros Nicolaru, argued the government had been unable to provide the industry with an accurate estimate of the supply needed. "If you say you need 10,000 anti-retrovirals next week, you will not get them because the process takes time," he told the paper. TAC supported this view. "Our own investigations show that both the generic manufacturers and the brand-name pharmaceutical companies have sufficient stock supplies," Zackie Achmat said."

"AIDS remains a taboo subject for leaders of too many Asian nations, while China has been making strides to catch up with an openness exemplified by Thailand, according to a United Nations special envoy."

"The Global Health Fellows program represents a new approach by Pfizer to corporate philanthropy. The program pairs highly skilled Pfizer colleagues with NGOs for up to six months to fight ravaging diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in developing countries. The Global Health Fellows model was presented to the United Nations Global Compact in December 2003 as an innovative way to tackle devastating health problems internationally."

"Medical experts want strict measures enacted to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola into Kenya. The experts made their recommendations on Tuesday following confirmation by the World Health Organisation that Ebola had killed five people in southern Sudan. The team from the Ministry of Health met under the aegis of the Disease Outbreak Management Unit."

"Richard Feachem, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told South African media this week that Pretoria was failing to get international grant money to organizations fighting the disease on the ground. "It's intolerable that the money gets stuck in Pretoria and if Pretoria can't move it for any reason, we will simply withdraw it and establish direct relationships with the people actually doing the work," Feachem said."

"During 2001 Implats commissioned a study to measure the impact of HIV and AIDS on the company and discovered that if all the relevant costs were considered, Implats could incur an additional cost of R86 million per year in 2011 due to HIV and AIDS. Halving the rate of new infections would reduce the estimated cost to R46 million, Implats found."

"In other parts of Africa where the virus is still present, 21 countries including Nigeria, Niger and Chad have instigated a catch-up plan. Synchronized mass immunization campaigns will begin across these countries later this year. Additional mop-up campaigns will be instigated as necessary to help control the spread of the disease."

"Merck & Co. Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Gilead Sciences Inc. say they plan to develop a one-pill combination of three HIV drugs in response to U.S. government calls for medications for use in developing countries."

".... Yes, the counterattack against HIV/AIDS is based on prevention which is extremely important, and we need to do a lot more in the field of prevention. Second, on voluntary counseling and testing, encouraging people to come forward and determine whether they are HIV-positive or negative. And third, treatment and the availability of antiretroviral medicine."

"In its Annual World Health Report 2004, the WHO said that more donor funds than ever before, at least $20.5bn ( 11.5bn; 17.3bn), are available for AIDS relief in the world's poorest countries, but a huge concerted effort will be needed to get antiretroviral drugs to millions of people who need them before it is too late."

"Some countries are only just emerging from suspicion towards costly and complex anti-retroviral drugs and the taboo surrounding Aids. Half the treatment needs centre on six African countries and on India, while South Africa alone accounts for about one-sixth of the Aids victims who are in urgent need of medical care, it added."

"The Chinese government finally has acknowledged the rampant spread of the AIDS epidemic across the world's most populous country, and it is calling for urgent measures. The communist government for a long time played down the scale of the problem -- and punished those who sought to publicize it. But on Sunday, the Chinese state council, or cabinet, published a document admitting the spread of the fatal disease, and setting out steps aimed at changing the situation."

"Randall Tobias, the global AIDS coordinator for the Bush administration, said the goal is to make sure Africans receive the same high-quality AIDS treatment as anyone in the United States. He claims the long-term effect of using the generic drugs remains unknown and could even breed drug-resistant strains of HIV, the AIDS virus. "We shouldn't have two categories of AIDS drugs," Tobias said. "Drugs that are good for the citizens of the United States and other drugs that are good enough for the rest of the world."

"Anyway, firms make most compounds available at a steep discount, often less than charged for generic knockoffs. Companies such as Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck, and Pfizer donate AIDS medicines and run treatment programs for tens of thousands of people.

Inadequate health care systems pose a far greater barrier to AIDS care. Observes Dr. J.W. Lee, Director-General of the WHO: "Today, we have medicines to treat AIDS patients for a dollar a day or less, but these medicines are not getting to the people who need them."

The drugmakers undertake a variety of initiatives directed at malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases, as well. U.S. firms also make free or low-cost medicine available to needy Americans. The number of people benefiting from the latter initiatives has risen from 1.5 million in 1998 to 5.5 million in 2002."

"The leader of South Africa's Zulu-dominated Inkatha Freedom Party, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, has revealed that his son Prince died of Aids. "I reach out to all the other people who died of HIV/Aids. My son did," the country's Sunday Independent quoted the former home minister as saying. The comments have been hailed as a move which could help break the stigma surrounding the disease."

"The study in the journal, Science, attributes the decrease to a successful public education campaign. This has led to a reduction in the number of people having casual sex, as well as the willingness of Ugandans to openly discuss HIV issues."

"According to Harry Longwell, Director and Executive Vice President, "Africa is a significant contributor to the provision of global energy needs, and ExxonMobil maintains operations in 30 African countries. As a partner in the communities in which we operate, ExxonMobil is committed to improving African health care to protect not only our employees and their families from this disease, but also our retailers and customers, and to expand that commitment to local communities."

"These data will be very useful as treatment of HIV and opportunistic infections become more available for persons in developing countries. We will be able to measure the treatment's effect on progression and survival after HIV infection," said Dr. Nelson, who said that he would like to do a follow-up study on this cohort of men.

"The strategy is based on achieving at least 80% routine measles immunization coverage in every district, and ensuring that all children get a second opportunity for measles immunization either through routine services or periodic Supplemental Immunization Activities (SIAs) every three to four years, whereby every child from nine months to five years of age is immunized over a one to two week period."

"Better treatment is available and must be delivered urgently to the people who need it most," Lee Jong-wook, the head of the World Health Organization, said in a statement. But drugs are only one response to the problem. Activists are trying to increase the use of mosquito nets impregnated with insecticide, which they say can reduce mortality by 20 percent among children. They have also been working to educate local communities on the dangers of malaria."

"Key donors including the World Bank, Britain, the United States, the Global Fund for AIDS and the United Nations agreed on the sidelines of the bank's spring meeting to craft a single action plan to coordinate their work. "It is not just about raising resources, it is about making sure these resources are spent wisely to help countries mount sustainable and effective AIDS strategies," said Peter Piot, UNAIDS executive director."

"To allay local fears, the standard oral polio vaccine being used worldwide was recently tested -- and proved pure -- under the auspices of a committee that included Nigerian religious, governmental and medical leaders. In the last month, the United Nations agency UNICEF also procured a large supply of the vaccine made in Indonesia, a Muslim country, for Kano officials to use. Neither development, however, has persuaded the local government to join the "national immunization days," which will try over four days to give a dose of polio vaccine to all 42 million of Nigeria's children younger than 5."

"Joel Rehnstrom, country coordinator of UNAIDS China, said he was "very encouraged by the commitment of central government in China to provide free testing and treatment." He added, however, that there would no doubt be setbacks: "I believe it will be an enormous challenge to provide free testing and treatment across China. My sense is that every country in the world should probably have woken up earlier to HIV/AIDS. China is no exception." UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) has been involved with the scheme, including the development of guidelines for testing, voluntary counselling, and antiretroviral treatment."

"It would be nice if these findings could eliminate some of the fears and suspicions that hang over polio vaccines currently in countries like Nigeria. Polio vaccines weren't infected with AIDS viruses in the 1950s, and they're not now either, and driving that message home can only be a good thing," said Worobey.

"As the world continues its search for vaccines for diseases such as, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, the development of a safe and effective malaria vaccine has become a global priority Malaria is presently not just a disease of developing countries as regions hitherto certified malaria free now suffer malaria epidemics."

"The Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis has released a progress report on the treatment campaign. The group says eighty-million people have begun treatment against the disease. Two drug companies, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, are providing medicines for free."

"India is going to follow in the steps of Africa in as much as they have this rampant epidemic that's growing every day because there s no prevention coming from the political will at the top of any of the states yet, and of course not at the federal."

"The $15 billion initiative was launched by President George Bush in 2003, of which $350 million has been allocated to HIV/AIDS-related programmes in 14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean this year. Over a five-year period, PEPFAR hopes to treat at least two million HIV-infected persons with antiretroviral therapy, prevent seven million new infections and provide care for 10 million infected or affected persons, including orphans and vulnerable children (OVC)."

"India's on the brink of success. And one of the only things that stands in the way of that, achieving the incredible potential that India has, is making sure that there's not a widespread AIDS epidemic," says Gates. For now, Bill Gates' priority in India, he says, is to save the next generation by funding AIDS education and outreach programs: "India faces a catastrophe that would set the country back a generation."

"The third choice is that African governments must be held accountable for the prudent use of domestic, continental and international resources mobilized to fight HIV/AIDS in the continent. If the silent tug-of-war between rich nations and African governments continues on this issue, then the capacity to mobilize huge resources will be severely damaged."

"In Malawi malaria still claims more lives each year than Aids, but attracts a fraction of the attention. Coachloads of overseas visitors come to view the Aids drugs projects run by Medicins Sans Frontieres outside Blantyre, which hand out free antiretrovirals, to people with HIV, but few are interested in malaria.

"The Global Fund is a public-private partnership that raises money to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. UNICEF has expertise in procuring drugs, assessing demand and creating distribution networks. By banding together, the groups expect to guarantee generic manufacturers large sales, along with longer contracts and bigger upfront payments -- all of which lower the risk for manufacturers and the cost for participating countries. "

"The largest province in South Africa began distributing free anti-HIV drugs last week, raising hopes of stemming an AIDS pandemic that has devastated the nation. The move, in a country seen as the epicenter of the worldwide AIDS crisis, was hailed by activists as a significant milestone after a long battle with a recalcitrant government."

"The government has been slow to act in the face of the pandemic. President Thabo Mbeki startled the world health community in the late 1990s by publicly doubting that HIV caused AIDS, and then by championing the drug Virodene, a so-called AIDS cure that turned out to be little more than a toxic industrial solvent."

"By allowing HIV 'hotspots' to be quickly and easily identified, the test could help decision makers assess which groups of people should be the top priority for AIDS prevention strategies, such as promoting condoms or AIDS education. It could also give a rapid indication of the success of these strategies, as well as of the effectiveness of vaccines and microbicides undergoing clinical trials."

"Because of the funding crisis, the agency had already planned to cut food handouts in Angola by 30 percent starting Thursday, April 1. Now, because of the rejection of the U.S. grain shipment, Mr. Sackett says the food rations will be cut by half instead."

"International health officials worry that the boycott will undermine attempts to eradicate polio worldwide by the end of this year. The World Health Organization says Nigeria accounted for nearly half of the 782 confirmed cases of polio last year, and that the disease has spread to eight other countries in the region."

"Almost two million Angolans may face food shortages after the government's decision to reject genetically-modified food aid, the UN has warned. "

"Immunization has eradicated polio as an endemic disease in Somalia, showing the crippling disease can be defeated with sufficient funds and effort, the United Nations said Monday. "If polio can be stopped in Somalia, it can be stopped anywhere," said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund."

"Treatment for Aids and tuberculosis patients needs to be co-ordinated to address the growing twin epidemic of the two diseases in Africa and other parts of the developing world, the World Health Organisation said yesterday. Health officials have become increasingly concerned about the medical link between the spread of the two diseases and are urging developing country governments to develop joint treatment programmes."

"The Indianapolis drugmaker came to play a part in Farmer's once-lonely fight against multidrug- resistant tuberculosis in 1998, making two of its antibiotics available for use. A year ago Lilly anted up $70 million through 2006 to help build production plants for the antibiotics in China, Russia and other nations where TB runs rampant, and to train workers to run the plants and medical personnel to treat patients."

"International AIDS experts urged Asian governments and communities on Wednesday to step up efforts to stop the deadly disease from spreading in the region. "We don't need just doctors. We need everyone to help," Mechai Viravaidya, a Thai senator and family planning expert, told a discussion panel in Hong Kong."

"The Kano State government appears to have refused the federal government's request to resume vaccination with the oral polio vaccine with its delegation not making head-way to convince Kano people that the federal government vaccine was safe."

"The world body has unveiled ambitious plans to get anti-AIDS drugs to three million of the world's poor by 2005. "The drugs are available, the costs are down, there is enough practical experience to make these programs sustainable," said Wolvaardt, who was conference director in Durban. "What I would hope is that governments will go back and realize this is something they can do," he added."

"The controversy over the oral polio vaccine (OPV) which some Northern states claimed was unsafe, was laid to rest on Wednesday as the Joint Federal Government/Jama'atu Nasir Islam (JNI) all-inclusive Final Verification Committee declared it fit for human use."

"Patients in former Soviet states such as Kazahkstan, Uzbekistan and Estonia are 10 times more likely to have multi-drug resistant TB than in the rest of the world, reveals the World Health Organization report. The new report also reveals disturbing levels in China."

"Research and development into new TB drugs is also urgently required to shorten the length of treatment and to treat drug resistant strains. After a 40 year standstill in TB drug development, R&D investments are critical now to expand treatment options and overcome resistant strains. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, a WHO partner, is building a pipeline of promising new drugs and uniting public and private researchers in the search for a faster cure."

"Studies have shown a simple two-drug, once-yearly treatment is 99 percent effective against lymphatic filariasis, or LF, the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis said in its report. The disease can cause the enlargement and disfigurement of the arms, legs and genitals known as elephantiasis. Two of the drugs are being donated by their manufacturers: GlaxoSmithKline is providing albendazole, and Merck & Co. Inc. is giving Mectizan. Both companies are members of the alliance."

"Education Minister Andrew Mulenga said condoms were encouraging young people to have premarital sex. The directive contradicts the health ministry's campaign against the disease within educational institutions and has been condemned by activists."

"Last September, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced a $168 million grant for malaria research - $100 million to try to develop a vaccine, $28 million for drug treatment aimed at babies, and $40 million for new medicines for drug-resistant strains."

"Experts at an international conference on infectious diseases in Atlanta this month said they believe Islamic clerics in Kano are trying to encourage public mistrust of the Nigerian government, which supports polio vaccination. World Islamic leaders are working behind the scenes to break the logjam. The Nigerian government sent the vaccine to South Africa for tests to prove its safety, but the positive results were not accepted by the Kano leaders."

"Health ministers of 10 Latin American nations last June signed a landmark agreement with pharmaceutical companies to fix a maximum price for anti-AIDS drugs because some countries were paying up to 10 times more for the same drug. But Lee said the drugs were not always getting through to those who needed them most and that more government testing was necessary to identify people requiring treatment."

"Paul Zeitz, of the Washington-based Global AIDS Alliance, said that European governments should "unleash" the EDF money. "It is an outrageous situation that money is unspent when millions are dying in the face of the AIDS crisis," he said."

"But the Nigerian clerics' decision to take a stand against polio vaccination is a curious one, as few campaigns enjoy such uniform worldwide support. If Islamic leaders in Nigeria's north want to pick a fight with the federal government or renounce Western culture, there are plenty of other issues to seize upon. They should choose one that does not charge a toll on crippled children."

"This will move vaccines closest to the target beneficiaries and will limit the need for local health workers and authorities to come all the way to Monrovia for the vaccines, especially during the rainy season when most roads in the country are impassable," she explained."

"WHO and Nigerian federal officials have given assurances that the vaccine is safe and that any hormones found at the levels alleged would be harmless, amounting to less than that found in breast milk or even drinking water in some developed nations. "The solution has to be a Nigerian one," said Dr Heymann, adding that only the Nigerian president and his federal government could break the deadlock over the polio vaccine."

"In the February campaign, some parents in the north carried children across state or national borders to have them vaccinated. The president of Niger participated in the program in an area where the two countries share a border. Many Muslim imams in Niger preached about the value of vaccination in Friday sermons before the start of the campaign."

"The all inclusive final verification committee on the safety of oral polio vaccine has ruled that the vaccine is safe. The committee reached the conclusion after travelling to South Africa, Indonesia and India. In its final report, the committee said "based on all the evidence before us, including interactions held with professionals and scientists in various countries it is the considered opinion of the committee that the oral polio vaccine when used as recommended in the polio eradication programme in Nigeria is safe. "

"Secretary-General Kofi Annan will open the panel, which will include several global experts addressing this year's International Women's Day theme, "Women and HIV/AIDS." Mr. Peacock will speak about EngenderHealth's groundbreaking "Men As Partners" (MAP) program, which has garnered international attention for its innovative approach to challenging gender constructs in order to reduce violence against women and prevent HIV/AIDs in South Africa"

.

"The University of California, Santa Barbara announced today that it has donated all rights to a patent that covers the novel use of an established class of cardiovascular medicines as a potential new drug against a global parasitic disease. The Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, will use the UCSB discovery and the wealth of data associated with the medicines to accelerate drug development for treatment of schistosomiasis."

"The World Health Organisation and United Nations Children's Fund said they hoped another round of immunisation planned for next month would cover the recalcitrant states, where Muslim leaders fear the vaccine is contaminated and is part of a western plot to cause infertility."

"UNICEF spokesman Gerrit Beger said authorities of Niger and Bauchi states suspended any cooperation with a 2-day-old emergency immunization campaign pending findings of a government investigation into the vaccine's safety."

"Three Muslim states in northern Nigeria had banned the polio vaccine. Islamic leaders there have declared the immunization campaign a U.S. plot to render Muslims sterile or kill them with AIDS, and say their own tests have shown the vaccine to be contaminated. Leaders of one of the three states, Kaduna, lifted the ban for Monday's launch of the emergency vaccination campaign."

"I have a double message for EU leaders," Piot said. "Don't think the problem is fixed in your own region -- we're seeing a slow but steady increase in new infections in every country. Secondly, at your eastern borders there is a huge AIDS epidemic that is going to have major implications within the EU."

"Most visible has been GlaxoSmithKline PLC, of London, which has developed an entire business plan around serving the vaccine market throughout the world, not just in the rich countries. Merck, of Whitehouse Station, N.J., has also taken an interest, and both companies are funding huge, expensive tests of new vaccines that are likely to be useful mainly in poor countries."

"While sub-Saharan Africa is home to 70 percent of the world's HIV and AIDS patients, and in some countries at least one in three adults is HIV-positive, Uganda's HIV infection rate has plummeted from 30 percent to 5 percent in slightly more than a decade. At the same time, the taboo against talking about HIV and AIDS has disappeared in the country. Even young schoolchildren joke that they want to know each other's status."

"What we need is good organisation, good collaboration to improve our strategies, make active screenings and improve our coverage. We need to find an alternative drug, and to improve our technique for screening patients so that not so many slip through the net."

"[Carter] explained that the guinea worm disease had been eradicated in some countries without the provision of boreholes, saying, "the key to eradicating the disease is education and commitment of the people to practise safe ways of preserving their drinking water". He said there was no excuse whatsoever for leaders in West Africa to fail their people in the fight to eradicate the guinea worm disease."

"Angola, emerging from almost three decades of civil war, faces the threat of a massive spread of HIV/AIDS and religious leaders must join the fight against the pandemic that has ravaged much of Africa, Christian Aid said."

"Amid rising Muslim-Western tensions worldwide, Nigeria's Muslims are heeding allegations that the vaccine is a US plot to spread Aids or infertility. Since October, three northern Nigerian states have banned door-to-door vaccinations until they are satisfied the vaccines do not contain harmful substances."

"Countries attending the conference, sponsored by the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, are sharing ideas like that, in an effort to promote AIDS awareness in their armies. The participants are expected to sign a detailed plan on how to implement their ideas when the conference ends Wednesday, and to send that plan to the ministries of defense in the region."

"The controversy over the administration of poliomyelitis vaccines in northern Nigeria has taken a new turn as traditional rulers from the region have asked the Nigerian government to stop administering the vaccine because of fears that it is contaminated."

"He said there was no excuse for the people to suffer, unnecessarily from the guinea worm diseases, adding: "In Ghana the ability, resources, knowledge and the support to fight and eradicate the disease were in place," and called on the Government to commit itself to the challenge by taking swift and immediate action to fight the disease."

"Dirty needles play only a minor role in spreading AIDS in Africa, according to a review sponsored by the World Health Organization and UNAIDS. The study comes in response to growing controversy over the roles different risk factors - such as unsafe sex, healthcare and intravenous drugs - play in the epidemic."

"South Africa's fight against HIV and AIDS has received a shot in the arm with the US government's announcement today of an initial US40 million Dollar (R275.86 million) allocation towards combating the global epidemic. The allocation forms part of a US2.4 billion Dollar programme announced by President George W Bush in his State of the Union last year."

"While many people know that the U.S. military cooperates with African nations in fighting international terrorism, very few are aware of the broad support the military gives to health care projects on the continent -- from building clinics to supplying ambulances and even hospital beds -- Pentagon official Lorraine Dasch told the Washington File during a recent interview."

"Mr. Carter says eradicating Guinea worm can also inspire doctors and health workers around the world to get rid of other diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria and H-I-V/AIDS, affecting mostly the poorest countries."

"Rich countries should do their part to combat AIDS, and President Bush should start using political capital to get on track his $15 billion pledge to fight AIDS over five years. The administration is far behind on its own goals for that initiative. But African governments must also be taken to task. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), launched in 2001 and conceived of by African leaders, focused on making financial aid contingent on reform and results. That is the right approach. The governments of AIDS-afflicted countries should be rewarded for progress and held to account for failures. The TAC deserves credit for doing so."

"The problem is geopolitical, not a health matter," said political commentator Pini Jason. "The controversy over the vaccine is similar to the debate over Sharia. Those who oppose the vaccine are making a global political statement against the United States as regards its foreign policy to Islamic nations," he said.

"We decided on giving anti-retroviral drugs to our employees because of the government's policy at the time. It (the government) wasn't providing AVR therapy ," Mike Folan, DCSA group human resources manager told Reuters.

"The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today a plan to expand collaboration between national Tuberculosis and HIV/Aids programmes to curb the growing pandemic of TB/HIV co-infection, with a principal focus on Africa where 70% of the world's 14 million people who are co-infected live."

"In the Lancet , health scholar Amir Attaran from the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs and colleagues from Africa, Asia and Europe cited many examples where the old drugs were funded for countries with drug-resistant malaria. Many malaria programs are financed by the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, set up in 2002 to channel money into fighting the three diseases."

"Five leading medical technology companies have agreed to make major cuts in their prices of laboratory tests for HIV and AIDS to help millions of people in Africa and the Caribbean, former president Bill Clinton announced on Wednesday."

"The Muslim leaders spread the word that the U.S. government had tainted the vaccine drops with either the AIDS virus or infertility drugs. "In a very fluid political situation like that there are an awful lot of tensions, and often a lot of jockeying for attention and visibility. The polio issue became a useful vehicle for some opinion leaders in the north," explained Bruce Aylward, a Newfoundland doctor who heads the global initiative to eliminate polio. "You can demonstrate your power by making something happen, or by stopping something," he added."

"Another custom observed is wife inheritance, whereby a brother-in-law or any suitor chosen by the village elders, inherits widows. It is said the practice ensured the widow s sexual needs were provided for and her children taken care of. But this tradition is becoming a major cause of HIV/AIDS transmission. "Every culture has a basis for their practices although the reason behind some of them has changed or is no longer valid," said Khama. These practices are slowly being abolished."

"A team of experts from around the world says an ancient Chinese remedy when used in combination with modern drugs can beat these strains of the disease. Their claims, made in the latest issue of The Lancet, follow a review of 16 clinical trials involving almost 6,000 people since 1992. They say the remedy called artemisinin may even help to eradicate the disease."

"The research-based pharmaceutical industry recognizes that access to health care, including pharmaceuticals, is a critical problem in developing countries. The barriers to access include: inadequate budgetary resources, ineffective public health policies, and lack of basic infrastructure, sanitation and health education systems. Affordability is also an issue in countries burdened with external debt and where public health sectors are close to the bottom of the budgetary hierarchy. The pharmaceutical industry has partnered with the World Health Organization to identify and address these barriers to access to medicines."