Busi has been too weak to get out of bed for the past two months. Her tiny eight-month-old baby, Nomsa, hangs limply in her listless arms. Even crying takes too much effort. Her home-based carer changes the sheets, which are streaked yellow with diarrhoea. She asks Busi'€™s mother how she is coping, but the mother shrugs and turns away so that we cannot see her tears. Five small children turn their worried faces towards us. "AIDS is not spoken about here," whispers the carer in warning, as I prepare to interview Busi.

One lingering look and Bongi and Elliot knew they wanted to be together. But later, their love disintegrated as lies, infidelity and a retrovirus played on their frailties and fears.

Positive. That'€™s the only way to describe the attitude of Dr Liz Floyd, Gauteng'€™s head of HIV/AIDS, to the province'€™s campaign against the disease over the past year.

Groaning under the weight of HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal's hospitals provide other provinces with a preview of what they can expect as their epidemics mature. Kerry Cullinan reports.

White South Africans know less and worry less about HIV/AIDS than other race groups, while young people are more likely to accept having sex in exchange for money.

While rape survivors country-wide are supposed to be able to get free anti-retroviral drugs to protect them from HIV, the programme is far from easy to implement. Kerry Cullinan reports.

Brown bread and mielie meal, the staple food of the country'€™s poorest citizens, will soon be fortified with vitamins to help combat malnutrition. According to draft regulations published by the Department of Health on Friday (October 18), it will soon be compulsory for the milling industry to add a range of micro-nutrients to their products or face legal action.

It is still not clear whether people living with HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal will ever see any of the $72-million granted to the province in April by the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM). The Global Fund has indicated that from this week it will start to disburse money to projects approved in its first round of applications '€“ but unless procedural problems surrounding the KZN grant are cleared up, this province'€™s money will not come through. Kerry Cullinan reports.

Next time you get a sexually transmitted infection (STI), it may be worth your while to go to your local clinic rather than slinking off to see a private doctor. Researchers have found that the much-maligned government clinics are better at treating STIs than the average general practitioner (GP).

Lack of male involvement in government'€™s prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission programme (PMTCT) is undermining its success, according to HSRC researcher Dr Christine Varga. Kerry Cullinan reports.

Half its patients die of AIDS, and 54% of pregnant women are HIV-infected. In the absence of any national HIV/AIDS treatment plan, the tiny and embattled St Mary'€™s Hospital has started its own projects to try to restore hope to its community

A national hotline has been established to mobilise the community goodwill that exists towards AIDS orphans, according to the Department of Health. Kerry Cullinan reports.