Health e News

Suicide prevention through Mental Health First Aid

First Aid is a very well known and important procedure in society. But, Mental Health First Aid is something new in this country. It was imported from Australia where it was developed. South African experts identified the need for this program as a result of rising numbers of cases of patients with mental illnesses.

Govt acts against Rath at last

The National Health Department has for the first time taken firm steps against vitamin seller Matthias Rath by confiscating consignments of his flagship multi-vitamin VitaCell in Durban and Cape Town and opening criminal cases for his alleged contravention of the Medicines Act.

OPINION: Snipping away at HIV: male circumcision and HIV prevention

In this opinion piece Nathan Geffen and Paul Booth make the case for the male circumcision debate to put to rest and for the urgent development of an ethical national voluntary male medical circumcision policy.

Hope in attempts to find alternatives to ARV therapy as a prevention tool

A lecture given at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) held in Montreal, Canada, recently highlighted the extent to which Antiretroviral therapy (ARV) has become central to today’€™s attempts to prevent HIV infection.

Sexual offence victims need immediate health care

Apart from the physical, psychological and emotional pain that comes with being raped, survivors still deal with being stigmatised and cast out of their families and communities. A report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reveals that sexual abuse victims, especially in countries facing humanitarian crises, do not receive emergency medical attention.

OPINION: Crisis as Free State ARV programme collapses

The AIDS epidemic in our country, over more than 10 years, has had sadly many more downs than ups.

OPINION: The Victims of ‘€˜Success’€™

Somewhere around 1 November 2008 the death penalty was reintroduced in the Free State. Quietly, with the stroke of a pen, an official in the Department of Health in Bloemfontein signed a memorandum introducing a moratorium declaring that no new patients should be put on anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment. This was to be for the next five months ‘€“ until the new financial year, April 1 2009 — when the funds would return.

Manto uses UN meeting to call for ARV monitoring

SA NGOs condemn statements made by former health minister at UN session of the Commission on the Status of Women looking at caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS

One love could lower infection rate

JOHANNESBURG:(PlusNews) – 2009 might just be the year that HIV prevention finally takes centre stage in South Africa. Years of workshops and speeches in which AIDS experts and politicians talked about the need to prioritise prevention are, at last, translating into action.

Female condom shortage

MOMBASA:(PlusNews) – A shortage of free female condoms in public hospitals in Kenya’s Coast Province is compromising the ability of women to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

Hundreds of thousands die due to delay in ARV rollout – Studies

The latest edition of the HIV Treatment Bulletin contains a report on two studies calculating the excess number of AIDS deaths in South Africa resulting from a delay in governmental roll-out of highly active ARV treatment (HAART) and in preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).

Lesotho nurses show the way in HIV and TB treatment

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has released a report on the feasibility of a groundbreaking nurse-driven HIV and TB care and treatment programme following a three year stint in Lesotho.

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