Cabinet is the latest barrier standing between HIV positive pregnant women and the anti-retroviral drug, nevirapine, which can save their babies from the virus.

The social security system is failing hundreds of children in one of the poorest regions of South Africa. Children hospitalised for severe malnutrition in the Mt Frere distrtict are being discharged simply to face starvation again as their child support grants fail to materialise, despite several applications being lodged.

Medical innovations such as the DNA revolution, the microchip and the Human Genome Project, along with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, have shifted the way in which medicine will be practised said Professor William Makgoba in a wide-ranging speech to the South African Medical Association