More than 100 people in the Zimbabwean capital Harare and Chitungwiza, a dormitory town 35km southeast of the city, have contracted typhoid this month, and the dilapidated water and sanitation systems are again being blamed for another round of water-borne diseases. According to health officials cited in the local media, 83 cases of typhoid have been confirmed in Chitungwiza and a further 28 in Harare, of which 25 were linked to a supermarket in the Avenues area of the city centre.

Recent weeks have seen demonstrators, for the most part students, take to the streets of Khartoum - and to a lesser extent other Sudanese cities - to protest against the rising cost of living and call for an end to the 23-year rule of President Omar al-Bashir. This IRIN Africa post is a brief overview of anti-government forces which, despite some alliances, lack strong cohesion or coordination among their various elements.

Zambia must engage the public and other stakeholders before deciding whether to start accepting Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) or not, the country’s National Biosafety Authority (NBA) has said. NBA registrar Alfred Sumani said that the Zambian public and stakeholders need to be given balanced information on the merits and demerits of accepting GMOs into the country.

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has killed at least 13 people and infected a further seven in Uganda. The health ministry says emergency measures are in place to deal with the outbreak, which began in late June but has only just been confirmed as Ebola. The cases have been reported in Kibaale district, about 170km (100 miles) to the west of the capital Kampala.

Morocco is on target to be one of the few countries to meet the UN's goal of lowering maternal mortality by 2015, in part thanks to a strong Peace Corps program and smaller families. A woman waiting at a clinic dramatizes how things are changing, in this story from www./womensenews.org.