Health e News

A life worth celebratingLiving with AIDS # 211

Is living with HIV something to celebrate to the extent of throwing a colourful party for more than 200 guests? Peter Busse, a Johannesburg-based AIDS educator recently marked 20 years of living with the virus.

US executions by lethal injection may not be painless

Prisoners executed by lethal injection in the US may have experienced ‘€œexcruciating pain’€ while dying because they were not properly sedated, according to research published in this week’€™s issue of The Lancet.

Nevirapine safe for PMTCT

A review of Uganda’€™s HIVNET 012 drug study has found Nevirapine to be effective and safe in preventing HIV transmission from mother to unborn child.

Free State shares sober lessons about ARV rollout

At the first public forum to discuss the antiretroviral rollout, healthworkers are blunt about their problems.

Witness to AIDSLiving with AIDS #209

In his memoir Justice Edwin Cameron reveals how social and political denial, fear of illness and death, government’€™s reluctance to provide ARV therapy as well as the double stigma of being homosexual and infected, impacted on his life.

Shared breastfeeding contributes to HIV transmission

Breastfeeding of babies by a non-biological caregiver with HIV is one of the most important factors associated with HIV infection in children. A study released in Cape Town this week also found that there is a potential for health-care acquired transmission of HIV in the maternity, paediatric and dental facilities in the Free State health institutions.

Young, rural teachers most at risk

Thousands of teachers have been lost to HIV. An HSRC study has revealed the extent of the epidemic among educators and has called for 10 000 to be placed on anti-retroviral treatment with immediate effect.

Home sweet home for Jaco

Jaco Joseph (17) returns to his Vredendal home after almost three years in Cape Town hospitals as doctors battled to cure him of Multi Drug Resistant TB. Jaco will return to his foster parents and six year old brother after losing his mother to the same disease. Anso Thom spoke to him before he boarded a minibus taxi.

‘€˜Little things’€™ bring big success to local TB programme

The TB rate in Cape Town continues to be among the highest in the world, yet the city has managed to achieve impressive cure rates.

Working towards a TB-free generation

Researchers in Stellenbosch and Zambia are testing hundreds of school children for TB infection as part of a study which aims to cut the TB burden in half.

Provincial failures drive TB epidemic

South Africa has one of the highest TB rates in the world but a cure rate of only 54%. On International TB Day, Health-e investigates the disease that is the country’€™s biggest killer.

Tackling the twin menaces

In downtown Durban, health experts are pioneering treating TB and HIV together.

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