Health e News
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After four years of calling for a comprehensive programme to prevent the mother to child transmission of HIV, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) will take the Minister of Health and all nine MEC’s for health to court in an attempt to ensure that a national plan is implemented.
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An interview in Sesotho and English with the head of the Medical Research Council, Prof Malegapuru Makgoba. He explains that HIV is the only cause of AIDS. Poverty can only exacerbate the impact of the virus.
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The anti-retroviral therapy programme being offered free of charge to adults in Khayelitsha, Cape Town by the Western Cape government and Medecins Sans Frontieres aims to show that it is possible and economically sensible to treat people living with HIV/AIDS.
Despite the fact that most rural doctors work in more difficult conditions than their urban counterparts, they generally enjoy fewer benefits and are often treated as second class citizens by the medical fraternity. In a presentation to the annual conference of the Rural Doctors Association of South Africa this past weekend the dean of the medical faculty at Wits University, Prof Max Price, suggested a new approach to begin to value rural doctors for their skills.
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Few would disagree that there could be a more worthy winner in the health category of the Shoprite Checkers/SABC 3 Woman of the Year than Veronica Khosa, or Mama Khosa as she is known in the Gauteng community of Mamelodi.
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Earlier this week the Lovetrain was launched in Cape Town as part of the national loveLife campaign to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and HIV among South African teenagers. The campaign, funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the South African government is the largest initiative of its kind in the country. It’s aim is to halve the number of HIV infections among South African youth within the next five years. But what are young people themselves saying about the challenges they face socially and sexually?
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Despite the fact that TB can be cured, TB infection rates in South Africa have almost doubled in the past five years. Against a backdrop of stark statistics the government has committed itself to a plan of action to achieve a cure rate of 85% in the next four years.
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The cost of anti-retroviral therapy as well as the complicated logistics that are involved in administering it have been cited as reasons why it is impossible to implement a national programme of this kind in South Africa. However, others argue that not only is anti-retroviral therapy manageable, even a long patients from poor backgrounds, it offers people hope, an important ingredient in the response to HIV/AIDS. This audio report airs different views on the pros and cons of anti-retroviral therapy.
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None of the rape survivors given anti-retroviral drugs by Sunninghill Hospital has become HIV positive, according to Dr Adrienne Wulfsohn who heads the hospital’€™s accident and emergency unit. Kerry Cullinan reports.
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From Sunday (1 July) the ban on smoking in public places was enforced. Smoking is now only allowed in specially designated areas that do not take up more than 25% of the public space and are separated from the non-smoking area by a solid partition. Kerry Cullinan reports.
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The Western Cape has announced its intention to expand significantly the anti-retroviral drug programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This move is in sharp contrast to the national Department of Health’s slow roll-out of the mother-to-child prevention programme which is limited to pilot sites around the country – most of which have yet to get underway.
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Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week addressed the United National General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in New York. She said singling out the issue of anti-retroviral drugs was undermining the efforts made by many developing countries in dealing with pandemic. This is the full speech she delivered to the assembly.