If party political promises would translate into improved basic health care, the lives of many underprivileged South African would be transformed - and yet when it come to health issues most parties are only interested in beating the HIV/AIDS drum to woo voters. By Anso Thom

The Medicines Control Council last week approved a new HIV/AIDS antiretroviral drug that combines AZT and 3TC. But it's going to cost patients over R1 000 per month. By ANSO THOM.

Evidence from over 35 studies is increasingly showing that male circumcision provides significant protection against heterosexual HIV infection and that circumcised males are two to eight times less likely to become infected by women with the virus. Some researchers say the jury is still out on the procedure, others are calling for immediate implementation. Anso Thom investigates

The health department and the SA Bureau of Standards have been caught with their pants down. Clinics have run out of condoms, while the Department of Health claim they have received no requests for additional stocks from the depots that supply the clinics.

Child survivors of rape are being denied access to anti-AIDS drugs following a move by Mpumalanga Health MEC Sibongile Manana to bar rape volunteers from storing or dispensing the drugs on Nelspruit and White River hospital premises. ANSO THOM reports.

Mpumalanga MEC Sibongile Manana has set her sights on another successful non-governmental AIDS organisation, this time ordering an investigation into the Mpumalanga Project Support Association'€™s (MPSA) operations. ANSO THOM investigates.

Six months after five major pharmaceutical companies and the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) declared their intention to make HIV drugs more affordable to poor countries, South Africa has yet to express formal interest in entering negotiations.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has challenged pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to take action against it for defying their patent on Fluconazole and importing the generic version from Thailand at a fraction of the cost of what it is being sold in South Africa. ANSO THOM reports.

Despite "longer than desired" waiting lists for surgery, Groote Schuur'€™s Breast Clinic is able to offer hundreds of woman treatment for breast cancer. ANSO THOM reports.

Statistics from the Cancer Association of SA (Cansa) show that one in every 36 women in South Africa has breast cancer, now the most common cancer among South African women. ANSO THOM reports.

Two organisations, both representing South African doctors and specialists, have in the past week come out in support of the widely accepted and scientifically proven theory that HIV causes AIDS.

"The success the world has had in protecting children'€™s rights and realising human potential is captured far more eloquently in flesh and bone than in concrete or steel, far more tellingly in the height of children than that of skyscrapers."

What is cholera, how is it transmitted, what can be done to prevent its spread? This summary answers all your questions about the disease.

In the latest South African Airways advertisement the airline talks about the one thing that gives it more pleasure than flying South Africans to a foreign destination: flying them home. "Because the grass may not always be greener on the other side," the narrator says.This is a concept that young community service doctor Colin Wittstock can relate to.