There is no longer any reason to believe that it should not be possible to get anti-retrovirals to poorer nations, the World Health Organisation said today (Monday). Addressing the first session of the 14th International Conference on HIV/AIDS, Dr Bernhard Schwartlander, director of HIV/AIDS at the WHO said Brazil had shown the way in that it actually cost less money to give people anti-retrovirals that to just let them die.
The scale of the worldwide AIDS crisis now outstrips even the worst-case scenarios of a decade ago with even worse yet to come. The latest report released by the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that the epidemic is still at an early stage of development and its long-term evolution is still unclear.
Could there be light at the end of the tunnel? Is the HIV/AIDS epidemic stabilising? The results of the 2001 National HIV Sero-Prevalence Survey show that there was a minimal rise of 0,3% compared to the previous year. Anso Thom reports.
Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang delivered her budget to Parliament this week. Criticised by the opposition  who  accused  her of a lack of leadership in tackling HIV/AIDS, Tshabalala-Msimang announced her priorities. These included a number of issues ranging from the measures to tackle the AIDS epidemic to the improved training of health professionals. But she also highlighted the need for the Global Fund to disburse much needed money and technical support to the least developed nations.
The Boland Districts Municipality has stopped an innovative  scheme in Robertson, in which patients attending local clinics  gave a small medication  donation and  managed to raise a significant amount of money  to finance  a wide range of health services not covered by government. Health-e visited the Boland town to investigate the issue.
Underspending of provincial budgets is one of the main problems in delivering health services to the country's most needy citizens. Judging from the budget presentations made to the Parliamentary health portfolio committee by the nine provinces, the provinces that need the most support are the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga.
The beleaguered Eastern Cape health department, serving one of the poorest communities in the country, has reported massive underspending on services, amounting to a whopping R328,4-million - a large amount being funds earmarked for the primary school nutrition programme. Anso Thom reports on parliamentary health budget hearings.
The young girl who shot herself in the stomach to get rid of her unwanted pregnancy has always stuck in Elizabeth Serobe'€™s mind.This image is one the main driving forces behind this Soweto midwife's commitment to providing women in Soweto with a choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. This week doctors, midwives, social workers and researchers shared their assessment of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) Act with Parliament.
It is crucial that women, especially those living in less developed parts of the world such as Sub-Saharan Africa, have access to termination of pregnancy (TOP) services, according to Dr Helen Rees of the Reproductive Health Research Unit at Chris Hani Barangwanath Hospital. Rees was one of several TOP experts who made submissions at the national oversight hearings into the implementation of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act held in Parliament this week.
Providing nevirapine to pregnant women was inevitable and would probably have been rolled out at the end of the year had a Constitutional Court ruling not forced her to announce it sooner, said Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. In an exclusive interview,  she  talks about the surprise decision to provide anti-Aids drugs to rape survivors and calls on South Africans to tackle the epidemic as partners, not enemies.
Ten out of 14 vaccine manufacturers have partially or totally stopped production of traditional childhood vaccines, creating shortages serious enough to jeopardise immunisation programmes in both developing and industrialised countries. ANSO THOM reports.
Exactly what infrastructure and staff are needed in order for a clinic or hospital to offer effective prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission? There is no doubt about the urgency of expanding such services - 70 000 HIV positive babies are born in South Africa each year - but implementing an effective service requires more than dispensing a pill.
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