The Ebola virus, which causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever, has surfaced for the second time in less than two years in south-central Congo, where there have been 36 suspected cases, 12 of them fatal.
The virus is spread by contact with blood and other body fluids, and once people become ill they can infect others. Family [...]

The world’s most clinically advanced malaria vaccine trials have given new hope in the fight against the disease, which in sub-Saharan Africa kills a child every 30 seconds. Results published on 11 December in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the vaccine candidate RTS,S/AS (made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals), provides both infants and young children with significant protection against malaria.

The new financial commitment would help African countries over the next three years to expand their malaria prevention, care, and treatment programs and to sharply reduce the number of malaria-related deaths and illness that afflict their communities each year.

Uganda is experiencing a resurgence in HIV AIDS twenty years after it successfully reduced the rate of infection. Dr Kihumuro Apuuli, director of the Uganda Aids Commission, said the country was facing a huge challenge to prevent the rise in new infections, and suggested that the rise was due to Uganda’s decision to focus on [...]

Southern Africa: Looking to get circumcised to reduce your risk of HIV infection? If you’re living in Southern Africa, you might have a long wait until services become more widely available.
The demand is there, so is the evidence that male circumcision can work, and even some national policies are in place, but staff shortages and [...]

According to BBC reports:

The UN Children’s Fund in Zimbabwe says it is preparing to deal with a possible 60,000 cholera cases in coming weeks, four times current official estimates.
The Unicef chief in Harare, Roeland Monasch, said such a jump could bring the number of deaths to around 3,000…UK PM Gordon Brown says it is [...]

An international aid agency has warned that hundreds of pregnant women in Zimbabwe face death because of a near total collapse of obstetric health services. The country, overwhelmed by a huge cholera outbreak, cannot provide emergency obstetric services such as Caesarean sections for mothers. Save the Children has warned that the collapse of the state [...]

Overcoming huge odds, 20 doctors and dozens of teachers will graduate from university in Somalia this week, the first graduation ceremony for almost two decades in the failed Horn of Africa state.
Somalis are renowned for their entrepreneurship, resilience and plain ability to survive the anarchy they have endured since the early 1990s. Those skills have [...]

As Zimbabwe battles a nationwide cholera outbreak that has so far killed around 300 people, a surge in anthrax has also hit the south of the country, claiming the lives of villagers and their livestock.
Matabeleland North provincial medical director, Dr Gibson Mhlanga, confirmed the deaths of two people from anthrax, but a report in the [...]

The Zambian social activist, beauty queen, offers her perspective on the global efforts on HIV-AIDS.