The Zambian Government has finally decided not to accept a donation of genetically-modified food for nearly three million of its people facing famine.

Equinet is a network of research, civil society and health sector organisations. Seeking to develop and widen the conceptual understanding of equity in health, Equinet identifies critical areas of work and policy issues and makes visible existing unfair and avoidable inequalities in health. Equinet's main aim is to build alliances leading to positive policies on health at both the local and regional levels. This is achieved by disseminating information and stimulating an informed debate on equity in health in southern Africa. Equinet produces a regular electronic newsletter called Equinet News.

UNAIDS Intercountry Team for East and Southern Africa and Health & Development Networks (HDN) invite you to join a new e-mail discussion forum focusing on HIV/AIDS and stigma, denial, shame and discrimination in Africa. To join send e-mail to: join-stigma-aids@hdnet.org

A Ugandan health official said Monday that his country will need to import 80 million condoms in 2003 to meet the rising demand among the 24.6 million people in this AIDS-stricken country.

Erratic weather patterns in the Horn of Africa are putting more than 12 million people at risk of starvation, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. "We are experiencing a period of unprecedented crises," WFP's executive director James T. Morris told journalists in London. "The Horn has not had adequate rainfall this year." The drought is part of an increasing number of serious and unusual weather patterns in Africa and around the world, he said.

The Senegalese Health Ministry confirmed 41 cases and four deaths of yellow fever as of 24 October, a World Health Organisation update said.

Malaria is responsible for 25-40 percent of outpatient numbers, 20 percent of admission figures and 9-14 percent of deaths of patients admitted to public health facilities in Uganda. Households spend up to 10 percent of their monthly incomes on malaria treatment.

In spite of decades of continued efforts to attain food security, famine continues to stalk sub-Saharan Africa. In six southern African countries, more than 14 million people face critical food shortages, which the UN's World Food Programme has called "the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world today".

Brown bread and mielie meal, the staple food of the country's poorest citizens, will soon be fortified with vitamins to help combat malnutrition. According to draft regulations published by the Department of Health, it will soon be compulsory for the milling industry to add a range of micro-nutrients to their products or face legal action.

It is still not clear whether people living with HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal will ever see any of the $72-million granted to the province in April by the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). The Global Fund has indicated that from this week it will start to disburse money to projects approved in its first round of applications - but unless procedural problems surrounding the KZN grant are cleared up, this province's money will not come through.

Nearly one million Ugandans have died of AIDS-related causes since the disease was first reported in the country in 1983, according to a report issued by the Ugandan Health Ministry.

A recent meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss the uptake of the female condom reported success in its promotion, notably in Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa. There was reported enthusiasm among women and men in certain communities who have preferred the female condom over the male condom.

A number of organisations are challenging governments to fulfill promises made for funds to fight HIV/AIDS. To date, only around $1.8 billion of the $10 billion yearly target has been donated to the Global Fund by rich country governments. Oxfam, Christian Aid, Save the Children and ICASO are all calling for a massive increase in funding from governments and the private sector.

The Zambian government on Wednesday said a final decision on whether it would accept genetically modified (GM) food aid was "imminent". Officials, however, could not confirm an exact date when the announcement would be made.

GAIA, an international NGO alliance with over 320 members in more than 60 countries, has called on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to improve its medical waste management practices and policies which currently threaten public health and the environment.

A cholera epidemic that erupted several weeks ago in Kasai Oriental Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has so far resulted in 89 deaths of a total of 324 reported cases in the region, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Monday.

At least 10 patients have been admitted to the cholera ward at the Mavalane General Hospital in Maputo over the last few days, and the health authorities blame the early outbreak of the disease, before the onset of the rainy season, on deteriorating sanitation conditions in the town, reports Wednesday's issue of the daily paper "Noticias".

Apocalyptic assumptions about the impact of high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates may be unhelpful, as they obscure the complex nature of the development problems facing affected populations. In the area of education, new evidence from Uganda and Tanzania suggests that the impact of HIV/AIDS may not be as simple or direct as has been assumed.

The chairman of the National Aids Commission (NAC), Professor Brown Chimphamba presented MK15 million to several organisations, who are involved in programmes to fight HIV/AIDS in Malawi.

Southern Africa's food crisis has affected animals as well as people, prompting Zambia to start distributing food to the country's starving wildlife, a conservation official said Friday.   Food shortages caused by poor weather and made worse by political problems in southern Africa are threatening not only 14 million people in the region but also thousands of wild animals, said the Zambia Wildlife Authority's director-general, Hapenga Kabeta.