This section's articles

• Crisis in Africa

  Fighting the "double whammy" of obesity and hunger

  9 October 2009

  Under-nutrition continues to plague sub-Saharan Africa, where 32 percent of the world's hungry people live. However, those migrating from the countryside to cities are eating too much fatty food, leading to rising rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and high blood pressure, delegates at the International Congress of Nutrition (ICN) in Bangkok were told. “The problem in Africa is [that] both under- and over-nutrition are the worst in the world. We really are facing a double (...)

• Indonesia

  Disease outbreaks feared as rescue efforts halted

  6 October 2009

  Heavy rain drenched parts of West Sumatra on 5 October, bringing fresh air to some but more misery to thousands of people still living without adequate shelter after the magnitude 7.6 earthquake. "It's good there's rain because it will wipe out dust and the air will be cleaner. It's a blessing," said Rustam Pakaya, head of the Health Ministry's crisis centre. Pakaya said the ministry was doing all it could to try to prevent outbreaks of diseases, including (...)

• A new hope

  First positive results from an HIV vaccine

  26 September 2009

  The trial team in Bangkok, Thailand's capital announced on 24 September that rates of HIV infection were 31 percent lower in trial participants who got the vaccine than in those who received a placebo. "These new findings represent an important step forward in HIV vaccine research," said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the main funder of the trial. The study, known as RV144, began enrolling 16,000 HIV-negative men (...)

• Against AIDS pandemy

  Carla Bruni-Sarkozy endorses UNAIDS call to virtually eliminate mother-to-child HIV transmission by 2015

  26 September 2009

  “Around the world only a third of women living with HIV receive the necessary treatment to prevent the transmission. Isn't it an immense injustice, that thousands of children still are born with HIV, when treatment exists, when no baby needs to be born with HIV?” asked the First Lady of France and the Global Fund's Ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS. Ms Bruni-Sarkozy called on global leaders to double the number of HIV-positive (...)

• Agreement signed in New York

  UNAIDS, Millennium Villages join forces to keep children free from HIV in Africa

  25 September 2009

  The Millennium Villages Project, a partnership between The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Millennium Promise, and UNDP, seeks to end poverty by working in rural areas throughout Africa. The new initiative will use the existing infrastructure, human capacity and technical resources in the villages, to help rapidly expand family- and community-centered heath services with focus on stopping new HIV infections among children. UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé and Prof. Jeffrey (...)