Although the "dop" system, whereby wine farmers pay their workers with alcohol has largely disappeared, many farms supply wine to workers on credit, contributing to poor health and social conditions. This is according to a recent survey conducted by the Dopstop Association, which found that the health and environmental conditions were significantly poor on several Stellenbosch farms where alcohol was easily available on credit or through sales. ANSO THOM reports.

Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has indicated that role-players are "working with a sense of urgency to apply our minds reasonably and carefully to the possibility of providing drug therapy to HIV positive pregnant women".

A cheap prophylaxis drug, trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) cotrimoxazole, has shown to prevent the unnecessary death of many HIV infected infants who succumb to a deadly strain of pneumonia, according to University of Cape Town (UCT) researchers.

University of Cape Town researchers have found a less invasive and more reliable method of confirming pulmonary tuberculosis in infants and young children, especially those who are HIV infected.

The Chamber of Milling, a body representing the maize and flour industry, has come out in support of moves by Government to enrich the staple foods of South Africans, such as maize meal, bread flour and possibly sugar despite concerns over the cost implications.

South Africa is considering enriching staple foods such as maize meal, bread flour and possibly sugar following the finding of a health department survey that one in five children between the ages of one and nine years is stunted.

Busisiwe Maqungo (28) had her suspicions that she was at risk of being HIV positive long before receiving confirmation via a test. In fact she was told her baby was HIV positive, before undergoing a test herself.

It is impossible not to notice how thin Feroza Mohamed is. The several layers of clothing she wears fails to protect her frail and disease-ridden 27-year-old body from the Highveld winter. Mother of six-year-old Ismail, Mohamed arrived at Nkosi'€™s Haven, in December - HIV positive, destitute, shunned by her Muslim family and three months'€™ pregnant. Nkosi'€™s Haven is a Johannesburg shelter for HIV positive mothers and their children.

Although there is no cure for HIV/AIDS it is easily preventable. You can only get HIV if you get infected blood or sexual fluids into your system. To infect someone, the virus has to get past the body'€™s defences such as the skin and saliva.

While government make final preparations to host the final meeting of President Thabo Mbeki'€™s international AIDS panel, tasked with discussing the link between HIV and AIDS and anti-HIV therapies, UNAIDS has revealed that South Africa has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS (4,2-million).

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) has denied allegations by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) that the U$100-million HIV/Aids grant made by the pharmaceutical giant last year to five southern African countries, including South Africa, was an attempt to "silence the voice of affordable medicine".