Health e News
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The French humanitarian group, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders is calling upon the South African government to remove restrictions which prohibit nurses from prescribing antiretroviral treatment from the scope of nursing practice.
‘Consensus’ is the theme of the third South African AIDS conference, which opens in Durban today (5 June) and, for the first time ever, it appears that agreement is possible between government, scientists and AIDS organisations on a wide variety of issues.
The lack of public sector antiretroviral programmes is no longer the reason why many HIV-infected people in Africa will die prematurely. A chronic shortage of staff to administer these programmes has now become the greatest challenge to saving lives.
The Health Products Association ‘ the umbrella body for the complementary and alternative medicines industry – has criticized the government for failing to create regulations the industry.
A lack of guidelines regulating the multi-billion rand complementary medicines industry makes it difficult to control against false medicinal claims. This places consumers at the mercy of charlatans who claim that they can cure AIDS and other conditions.
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Ambiguous statements by political leaders about HIV/AIDS could cause massive damage to the response to the pandemic, Dr Donald Dickinson an Associate Professor at Wits Business School has said.
The South African Security Forces Union filed court papers against its employer, the South African National Defence Force, this week. The union seeks to challenge five SANDF policies which it says discriminate against HIV-positive soldiers.
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Despite the existence of interventions to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, the number of AIDS orphans also infected with HIV is increasing in the country.
HIV-positive people living in Graaff-Reinet and surrounds are dying as they wait for the long-promised arrival of antiretrovirals, leaving hospice workers in the Eastern Cape town to care for the dying patients and the children they leave behind.
The townships’ terminally ill get dumped in unprepared rural homes.
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Workplace HIV/AIDS peer educators can have an impact far beyond their place of work into their communities, according to a report released recently.
Hospice workers become the voice of the vulnerable, supporting those at the end of their lives.