The difference between diseases children can easily catch from one another, like flu, and those they can'€™t, like HIV/AIDS is the subject of a new play, "Inside Out", produced by the Arepp Educational Trust.

Flu experts hold different views as to which strain of influenza is going to hit South Africans hardest this winter, but they all agree on one thing: a flu jab is a must. An anti-flu vaccine administered in March will help boost your ability to resist the virus or to recover quicker from the flu should it strike.

Giving some patients priority over over may be tough, but it is necessary if the TB epidemic is to be beaten with limited resources. This is the logic of international experts who are urging South Africa to pour resources into curing new cases of ordinary TB rather than spending any more money trying to treat multiple drug-resistant TB.   "Pay attention to the new cases and fix them the first time around or they become retreatment and multiple drug-resistant cases. First we need to shut the tap," says Professor Don Enarson from the World Health Organisation TB review team.

There has been an alarming increase in the proportion of adolescent patients at drug treatment centres countrywide, according to Charles Parry of the Medical Research Council. In Cape Town, for example, the proportion of patients under 20 drug treatment centres in Cape Town has more than doubled since 1996 from 6% to 15% in 1999.