Disaster

AFRICAN Governments need to mobilise sufficient resources if people's reproductive health requirements are to be met, a Population Report has said. The report, published by the Info Project, Centre for Communication Programmes at the John Hopkins Bloom-berg School of Public Health in America said the burden of injury and infectious diseases made the situation in Africa worse as healthcare systems were already struggling to meet people's needs.

Avian Influenza (Update of INFOSAN Information Note No. 2/04 - Avian Influenza, 17 Dec. 2004) Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in poultry and in humans: Food safety implications

A skin-worm sickness which has broken out in the Mafikeng area has been identified, the provincial health department said on Wednesday. The condition is Cutaneous Myiasis, a skin condition caused by Cordylobia Anthropophaga (tumbu fly, mango fly, putsi fly).

Promising findings from two studies are offering the hope of a safe and effective vaccine against the most common cause of childhood diarrhoea.

Geneva - Some 90 million girls are being excluded from primary schools around the world because of outdated stereotypes defining a female's place as in the home and social pressures for early marriage, the United Nations said.

Violence against women is one of the four major causes of death in the world today along with disease, hunger and war, according to the head of a Swiss defense institute that recently published a major study entitled Women in an Insecure World.

As concern mounts over the potential spread of avian flu to humans, researchers believe they've discovered one reason why the infection can prove so deadly.

One of the most puzzling diseases, and most vexing to patients, is called lupus, or systemic lupus erythematosus. It is an auto-immune rheumatologic disease in which the immune system, which normally defends the body against infections, attacks the body instead.

In response to growing alarm over Swazilands HIV infection rate, a draft law proposing the death penalty for child rape and the intentional transmission of the virus was released this week.

Almost daily, stories raise fears of bird flu and a looming epidemic, or worse a pandemic. Such an outbreak would clearly be devastating. However, right now another epidemic has been raging for years but hasnt gotten the attention it deserves.