Johannesburg - The new head of the United Nations AIDS agency on Tuesday called for global spending on HIV/AIDS programmes to be nearly doubled, but acknowledged that securing 25 billion dollars in the current economic climate would "not be easy."

Speaking in Khayelitsha, a sprawling township outside Cape Town, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said: "We cannot let the economic crisis paralyze us.

"We cannot let down the 4 million people on treatment and millions more in need today."

Despite efforts of scientists all over the world there has been no cure for AIDS. The U. S. government is motivating scientists to find a cure against HIV. The need to find a new cure for this deadly disease has been intensified after Merck & Co.'s Ad5 vaccine, the most promising effort to date that flopped in 2007. HIV virus affects 2.7 million new patients each year

Recent Scottish Government's 2009/2010 budget has allocated £8.64bn to each health board.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said that it means health boards will have the resources they need to progress their plans and offer a first class service to patients across Scotland."

She added: "With nearly £400m for NHS building projects across Scotland, it also shows that this government will do everything within its power to support sectors of our economy, like construction, that are suffering most during the recession."

Hanoi - A man suspected of being infected with the H5N1 avian flu virus is in critical condition at a hospital in northern Vietnam, health officials said Saturday.

Ly Tai Mui, 23, has been hospitalized since February 3 at Quang Ninh general hospital, 150 kilometres west of Hanoi. Mui, a member of the Dao ethnic minority, had eaten the meat of a sick chicken in his village in rural Quang Ninh province some days before falling ill.

Bangkok - Thailand's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has certified the quality of the Indian-made generic heart drug Clopidogrel which is 23 times cheaper than its patented alternative Plavix, media reports said Saturday.

"We confirm that every lot of Clopidogrel imported from India has been tested, with its quality and efficacy approved by the Department of Medical Science before being distributed to hospitals," FDA deputy secretary Veerawan Tangkaew said in an interview with The Nation newspaper.

Scientists have developed a male contraceptive injection. Soon the worldwide clinical trails to test the effectiveness of the injection as the only form of contraception will be conducted. Studies have shown that male contraceptive works in similar way as female contraceptive.

Lead researcher Professor Rob McLachlan says that the treatment keeps men's testosterone levels normal while the progestin fools the brain into not producing hormones needed to stimulate sperm production.