On World AIDS Day (Dec.1) paediatricians throughout the country launched a protest campaign against government's failure to fast-track plans to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.An estimated 200 HIV positive babies are born every day in South Africa, but this figure could be halved if all HIV positive mothers were given anti-retroviral drugs during pregnancy and labour. KERRY CULLINAN reports.
Read More »Paediatricians take on government
An initiative, aimed at striking a balance between the need to sustain and conserve the natural medicinal plant resources and the growing demand for products from traditional healers, will be launched in Mpumalanga at the end of this month. ANSO THOM reports.
Read More »Balancing traditional medicine’s demands and conservation
Entering the gates of Luhlaza High School, the oasis of green spinach and buffalo grass bordering the entrance is in stark contrast to dusty and windswept Khayelitsha on the far side of the fence. Encouraged by her love for the environment, science and biology teacher Elizabeth Le Tape started the Luhlaza Environmental Club last year.
Read More »From dustbowl to oasis
Treatment Action Campaign chairperson, Zackie Achmat is often in the news. Most recently he made the headlines for importing a quantity of cheap, generic anti-retroviral drugs from Thailand. It was a deliberate act, calculated to show that access to affordable treatment is possible. But who is the man behind the political campaign, what motivates him and how does he feel about living with AIDS? SUE VALENTINE reports.
Read More »Living with AIDS – weekly audio seriesTreatment Action Campaign chairperson Zackie Achmat has been both condemned and praised for smuggling cheap medicines into the country as part of his organisation's challenge to drug companies. ANSO THOM tries to find the person behind the controversy.
Read More »Zackie Achmat…openly gay, HIV positive, humanitarian, intensely private
South Africa has six times the number of very low birth weight babies than developed countries but there are more low birth weight babies born in the Western Cape than in other provinces. The Western Cape department of health is introducing "kangaroo care" as the preferred method of treating low-birth weight babies after research at Tygerberg Hospital showed the method reduced infant mortality and saved the hospital R1-million a year. Jo Stein reports
Read More »Caring for low-birth weight infants in the Western Cape will be kangaroo style
In early 1999, Sister Thulisiwe Luhabe sent in an anonymous blood sample of her own blood to the laboratory at the hospital where she worked because she suspected she might be HIV+. The test result confirmed her suspicions. Two years later, after successful treatment for TB, Sister Luhabe is more motivated than ever to share her knowledge of HIV with her patients.
Read More »Nurse with HIV is positive about her work
The overwhelming bulk of evidence presented on the second day of World Health Organisation's hearings into the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control called on the international health body to impose tough restrictions on the sale and marketing of tobacco.
Read More »Overwhelming call for global tobacco control
You don't like condoms? Try this for size: 45% of South African adults will be infected by HIV within the next ten years. Jo Stein reports.
Read More »Try this for size
Phelophepa, Transnet's mobile health train that has bought primary health care to thousands of rural South Africans, is managing to reach almost 5 000 individuals every week. Within four years the train has managed to reach a total of 67 855 patients, who receive quality and in most cases, free health care. ANSO THOM reports.
Read More »Keeping healthcare on track
Every afternoon at about 5pm a red van stops next to an open piece of land in Masoyi near the Kruger Park. A woman gets out and looks around, sometimes staring at the piece of land, other days "shoo-ing people who have erected shacks overnight". Behind this piece of land lies a dream. "I must dream, I must'¦," Lucy Ngobeni whispers.
Read More »Daring to dream
"Never give up. No, never give up. Never, never, never give up. No, never give up." Swaying and clapping in unison, the women of Mzinoni outside Bethal seem to draw strength from singing before dispersing to visit their patients.
Read More »Community caregivers refuse to give up
After Mercy Makhalemele disclosed that she was HIV positive, she lost almost everything. But she fought back and is now presenter of a TV series that offers practical advice to people living with HIV/AIDS. Kerry Cullinan reports.
Read More »Angel of Mercy
Mpumalanga women in Bethal have banded together to visit bars and shebeens on a daily basis to arm their community against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Anso Thom joined them during one of their campaign visits.
Read More »Mpumalanga women go to ‘war’
Nkosi Johnson is 11 years old and is living with AIDS. His mother died from AIDS when he was very young and he has grown up in Johannesburg with his adopted mother, Gail Johnson. Among the giant sets and razzmatazz of the opening ceremony of the 13th International AIDS conference in Durban in July, Nkosi cut a small figure as he stepped onto the stage to deliver his poignant message to the world.
Read More »Nkosi Johnson talks to the world
