Harare, Zimbabwe ? As many as 300,000 people in southern Africa could die from preventable diseases in the next six months if hunger and malnutrition are not addressed, health officials warned Tuesday.

Disease and declining health services have made the lack of food faced by 14 million people across southern Africa the region’s worst humanitarian crisis, said Gro-Harlem Brundtland, head of the World Health Organization.

“A famine is about health. Food shortages are followed by illness … food aid must combined with health services,” she told a meeting of regional and international health officials.

HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases have increased the risk of death in vulnerable, impoverished groups suffering from malnutrition, she said.

The meeting of officials from U.N. agencies and 10 regional governments ends today. Most officials will then travel to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa.

Carol Bellamy, head of the U.N. Children’s Fund, said AIDS and the recruitment of health professionals by countries outside the region drained already weak health services.

In areas where up to a third of all adults are infected with HIV, “young girls are selling themselves for shelter and food,” she said.

“Whenever the word food comes up, it is difficult to get anyone to focus on anything but food. Our new crisis is far deeper. The implications … are enormous,” she said.