| In Brief: Aid flows should be “scaled up” - IMF |
 DUBAI, 4 March 2009 (IRIN) - A new IMF report has highlighted the impact of the global financial crisis on 26 low-income countries. It says poverty and political instability could increase unless at least US$25 billion is injected into 22 of these ailing economies this year.
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| In Brief: Drugs of the future – sea sponges? |
 DAKAR, 3 March 2009 (IRIN) - Zoologists from Tel Aviv University are diving deep into the sea to gather marine sponges containing chemicals that could become antibiotics. Led by Micha Ilan, the team has identified thousands of chemicals that help sedentary sponges, glued to the sea floor, fight off predators.
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| MAURITANIA: Food spoilage investigations underway |
 NOUAKCHOTT, 3 March 2009 (IRIN) - Six thousand tonnes of donated food went unconsumed in Mauritania in recent years due to mishandling and possible corruption, according to the government’s Commission for Food Security (CSA).
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| In Brief: H5N1 conquered in lab |
 DAKAR, 26 February 2009 (IRIN) - Scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and the Burnham Institute for Medical Research have engineered antibodies that can fight off multiple influenza strains, including the highly contagious H5N1 avian flu virus.
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| In Brief: Fake pharmaceutical companies feed illicit drug trade |
 DAKAR, 20 February 2009 (IRIN) - Criminal networks are setting up fake pharmaceutical companies in Africa to transit substances used to make street methamphetamines, according to the International Narcotics Control Board’s (INCB) 2008 Annual Report.
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| In Brief: Unleashing mutated mosquitoes to fight malaria |
 DAKAR, 19 February 2009 (IRIN) - Anopheles gambiae may meet its match in Medea.
Scientists hope a synthetic gene known as Medea can wipe out the most common mosquito species that spreads malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists are trying to pinpoint the malaria-transmitting gene in mosquitoes and engineer genetically-modified mosquitoes (GMM) that lack the deadly gene. The hope is that GMM will prevail in a survival-of-the-fittest struggle between disease-carrying mosquitoes and the genetically-modified variety.
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| In Brief: Financial speculators and the food crisis |
 DUBAI, 8 February 2009 (IRIN) - A food security expert has said that the involvement of financial markets in basic food commodities was the biggest factor in the worldwide food price hikes over the past couple of years.
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| WEST AFRICA: When there is no village doctor |
 DAKAR, 4 February 2009 (IRIN) - An international financial recession threatens to worsen the “severe medical workforce crisis” faced by almost 60 African and Asian countries, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO). The fewer health workers there are, the less chance a woman has to survive childbirth and a child his or her infancy, according to WHO.
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| MAURITANIA: New identity cards for repatriated refugees |
 ROSSO, 2 February 2009 (IRIN) - One year after the first convoy of Mauritanian refugees departed Senegal for Mauritania more than 7,000 people have returned, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), but many still lack citizenship papers.
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| WEST AFRICA: 2009 may wipe out recent employment gains - ILO |
 DAKAR, 28 January 2009 (IRIN) - The global economic meltdown originating from high-income countries may reverse recent employment gains for workers in the poorest nations, according to International Labour Organization’s (ILO) latest Global Employment Trends Report.
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