I've been collecting some bits of related news from Africa lately, and a Saturday like this one seems a good time to pass along some of them to those of you who might be interested in happenings on the continent.

For a look at some big and positive changes on the way in the world of aid to Africa, please see this on the Africa Adoption Blog

Another story with a positive spin is one from Nigeria about an HIV positive couple who adopted a seven-year-old HIV positive girl.

With bias against those carrying the virus strong and isolating and those infected being sneered at and shunned by relatives and neighbors, tales of matchmaking that makes families where there were only shadows of families is a very positive step.

More good news, according to the UN and officials in Kenya, has it that the distribution of treated mosquito nets has cut the rate of children's deaths from malaria in Kenya by more than 40% in five years.

Experts are now hoping to replicate the success in other parts of Africa, saying that for every 1,000 nets used, seven children are spared death by malaria.

Sounds simple enough, but in true UN fashion, it can't be.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is now recommending that effective nets should be "distributed free, rapidly and widely in malaria-endemic areas", but there has been raging debate over how to do pull this off.

After several years of using a combination of free distribution and sales, the Kenyan government last year conducted a massive, almost military-style campaign to distribute without charge 3.4 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets over three days in 46 malaria-endemic districts across the country.

WHO's recent stand on not charging even a nominal fee for the nets, insisting that malaria will be reduced when everyone has a net, makes a lot of sense given the fact that mosquitos die on contact with a net ... the more nets, the more dead mosquitos, therefore fewer mosquitos to breed making more mosquitos leading to a big reduction in the total number of mosquitos ... but the organization has no power to order this to be the case.

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