Health e News
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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.
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Always outspoken, World Bank managing director Dr Mamphela Ramphele, has made made it clear that South Africa needs to articulate its AIDS plan to the world, not only via the health minister, but also the president. This AIDS plan should, according to Ramphele, include anti-retroviral treatment for those living with the disease. Health-e caught up with her on a recent visit to Cape Town where she received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Cape Town.
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In this feature we hear from a young Mosotho woman who agreed to tell her story of how she discovered she was HIV positive, because she knows all too well how she was helped by other people who have spoken out about HIV/AIDS.
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The health and social development ministers will be among South Africa’s official delegation to the UN’s special session on HIV/AIDS which begins in New York on Monday. South Africa’s participation in the forum takes place against the backdrop of a newly released UNAIDS report which acknowledges that the epidemic can be contained, but paints a bleak picture of the present situation.
University medical schools are revising their curricula in an effort to produce doctors who are as at home in rural clinics as urban hospitals. In order to attract a wider cross-section of students from all population groups entry levels are to be lowered, but the exit criteria for graduates will remain the same.