Health e News
HIV and AIDS, drought and conflict make it hard for developing countries to feed their children properly. Ultimately, this pushes up the mortality rate of children under five. This is according to the United Nations Children’€™s Fund’€™s annual report on children’€™s progress.
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In times of trouble some of us find it much easier to speak to a total stranger for advice. Counsellors, in the form of psychologists, social workers and others, are often the strangers we confide in. In the area of HIV and AIDS, these professionals often play an invaluable role. Nditsheni Ratshitanga is a counsellor with the youth health awareness programme, loveLife.
Dr Steve Wootorton, a doctor living in the United Kingdom, recently did a three-month stint at Nkandla Hospital in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Wootorton shared his impressions in an article he wrote for the British Medical Journal.
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The Treatment Action Campaign will reject government’€™s invitation to participate in the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS) at the end of May unless its ally, the Aids Law Project is also invited.
After 18 months of preparation, the Department of Health has finally released its Human Resources for Health Plan. One of the Plan’€™s key objectives is to attract more students in the health sciences disciplines.
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They say in life situations come and go. But when myths around HIV and AIDS come, do they really go away? If they persist, what effect do they have on people and their perception of HIV risk and prevention?
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In the Western and Northern Cape have some of the worst rates of foetal alcohol syndrome in the world. In the Western Cape 40 out of every 1000 children in their first year of school suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). The urban black communities are also worst hit areas. This is according to Professor Arnold Christianson, co-author of a global report on Birth Defects.
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’€™s irresponsible HIV statements are causing confusion, prompting a body representing more than 12 000 HIV specialists to clarify matters.
The World Health Report 2006 paints a dire picture of massive healthworker shortages in poor countries, especially sub-Saharan Africa where the rich developed nations plunder the African health workforce.
Health workers save lives and we have to value them as an investment. That is the message from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to all governments of the world, this World Health Day.
A first in HIV vaccine trials is taking place in South Africa. A vaccine will be tested on people already infected with the HI-virus in the hope that it will delay or prevent their progression to full-blown AIDS.
Thousands of women in South Africa and elsewhere have volunteered for the world’s largest clinical trials to test the efficacy of a range of microbicides, that, if successful, could prevent at least 2,5 million new infections in the developing world, over the next five years.