An unemployed mother of two, Busiswa Magqazola (28) first realised she was ill last April while pregnant with her second child.

RIO DE JANEIRO - As over a thousand researchers, scientists, health leaders, community organisations and tuberculosis experts descend on Rio de Janeiro for the 3rd Stop TB Partners Forum this week more people are dying of this curable and preventable disease than ever before.

KHAYELITSHA - The tall woman walks from window to window, undoes the latches and flings them open. Next she negotiates her away through the throngs of people sitting on benches against the walls, some collapsed in the laps of their minders, others coughing behind thin, white, paper masks. Children squeal and run around, bored from waiting in the stuffy clinic. A stray dog is shooed away by a security guard.

Seven years ago, Nothando Mkhize'€™s* life changed when she was diagnosed HIV positive and told that she also had tuberculosis.

The Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) network has made considerable progress towards the goal of developing an effective vaccine against HIV.

The AIDS epidemic hit South Africa harder than most places and the same can be said for Drug-Resistant TB (DR-TB). The latest 2007 data is that more than 7300 people have multi drug resistant (MDR) TB and that over 500 extensively drug resistant TB cases have been diagnosed in South Africa.

Discovery, the medical and life assurance provider, has launched a new healthy eating initiative, in partnership with Pick n Pay for members of its Vitality programme.