Health e News
An impoverished community and a determined Stellenbosch epidemiologist are on a collision course with local authorities about a river so polluted it’€™s potentially life threatening. By Anso Thom.
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It’€™s almost two years since the first Living with AIDS programme went out on air. In this audio report, we listen back to some of the voices of people whose lives and work highlight key issues that still challenge our society.
Mention the Wold Conference on Sustainable Development and possibly the last image that might come to mind is of the fertile valleys in the Western Cape and the splendour of the Stellenbosch vineyards. However, in microcosm, the issues facing a small corner of this community are the issues that the world summit must address – access to clean water, sanitation and a healthy environment for all. In this audio report, the relationship between high faecal pollution levels in the Plankenbrug River and the dense, informal settlement of Kayamandi are explored and the implications of this for everyone down river.
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What would make you change your sexual behaviour to ensure you were safe from risk? In this audio report, the head of the Centre for the Study of AIDS, Mary Crewe, talks about the shortcomings of many of the messages that have been used in South Africa to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. She argues that until messages acknowledge the context in which people are living and recognise the importance that emotions like desire have in motivating sexual behaviour, AIDS prevention messages are unlikely to help people change their risky sexual practices.
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There are many messages in our media about how to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, but there is comparatively little public information on living with the virus. In this audio report we meet the presenters of the latest series of Beat It – the only TV programme that offers practical information about managing HIV/AIDS and ensuring a better quality of life. Nombeko Mpongo and Vuyani Jacobs are both HIV positive and draw on their personal experiences in hosting the TV series. Beat It! is on e-tv on Tuesdays at 4.30pm and repeated on Sundays at 11.30am. It runs for 12 weeks and ends on November 3, 2002.
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Creative brilliance by a group at UCT’s Mechanical Engineering department has seen the development of novel prostheses for cancer patients at a fraction of the cost. For many patients the alternative is having the limb amputated. Jonathan (19), the first patient to receive a prosthesis recently had a check-up, over a year after receiving the implant. He spoke to Health-e about the experience of having to learn to walk all over again.
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In this audio report, a collage of the sounds and voices from the 14th International AIDS conference that ended in Barcelona on Friday July 12. Voices include Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and Joep Lange (new president of the International AIDS Society).
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A report released at the Barcelona International AIDS conference says that if current trends continue, the number of young people living with HIV/AIDS could rise from the present estimate of 12,4 million to 21,5 million by the end of this decade. This has particular implications for sub-Saharan Africa where large proportions of many country’s populations are under 18 years of age.
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South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat has urged the world to immediately lay to rest the counterproductive debate between AIDS prevention and treatment.
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The fact that South Africa’s HIV prevalence rate stands at well over 20% and that of Thailand at less than three percent, illustrates the choices the two nations made about 10 years ago, according to William Makgoba, president of the Medical Research Council.
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Going for an HIV test is far more successful than mass communication in getting people to change their sexual behaviour. But less than 10% of HIV positive South Africans know they carry the virus.
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The Medical Research Council recently released a policy brief entitled, “Orphans of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic – the time to act is now”. In it, the MRC predicts that if nothing is done, deaths due to AIDS will peak in 2010, while the wave of children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS will continue to increase, peaking in 2015 at around 1,85 million orphans. In this audio report, Sue Valentine hears from researchers in the field about what can be done.