U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa

Tel: +27 11 880 4633
Fax: +27 11 880 1421
e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-Up 313
18 - 22 December 2006


CONTENTS:

ANGOLA: Health experts battle unknown disease outbreaks in the north
   and south
ZIMBABWE: Christmas will be merry for only a few
ZAMBIA: Political manoeuvring overshadows development issues
ZAMBIA: Poor nutrition nullifies benefits of ARVs


ANGOLA: Health experts battle unknown disease outbreaks in the north and 
south

Health organisations in Angola are scrambling to identify a disease that 
has surfaced in Uige Province, in the north, and in Huila Province, in 
the south, to prevent further transmission and treat fatally ill 
patients - half of whom have already died. "We have seen more than 35 
cases since November and 50 percent of the patients were dying," Karen 
Godley, head of mission in Angola for Medecins Sans Frontieres 
(MSF)-Switzerland, told IRIN. Although located at opposite ends of 
Angola, Uige and Huila both have a growing number of patients with 
symptoms like "bloody diarrhoea", Godly said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56814


ZIMBABWE: Christmas will be merry for only a few

With a few days to go before Christmas, the streets of Zimbabwe's 
capital, Harare, are teeming with free-spending "returnees" who have 
come home for the holidays. But for the majority, who have not been 
fortunate enough to have found work outside the country, the festive 
season will just be more of the same: a struggle to survive.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56804


ZAMBIA: Political manoeuvring overshadows development issues

Zambia's democracy is being tested, analysts say, by the government's 
recent actions against the main opposition leader, Michael Sata, three 
months after President Levy Mwanawasa was returned to power in a 
controversial election on 28 September. Sata's Patriotic Front party won 
all urban parliamentary and local government seats in the capital, 
Lusaka, and the country's economic heartland, Copperbelt Province, but 
lost in the presidential vote by 28 percent to Mwanawasa's 42 percent.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56797


ZAMBIA: Poor nutrition nullifies benefits of ARVs

The poor nutrition often experienced by HIV-positive Zambians on 
antiretroviral [ARV] drug treatment is nullifying the benefits of the 
medicine, health experts are warning. "Whenever I take my ARVs without 
eating anything, I begin to feel dizzy and sometimes I even vomit - I 
generally feel very weak in my body; I have to be in bed for some time 
unless I took the drugs after eating," Elizabeth Mukwendi, a resident in 
the capital, Lusaka, one of thousands on ARVs, told IRIN.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56770


IRIN-SA
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Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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