While anti-retroviral drugs for mineworkers remain out of reach, most mines have well-developed HIV/AIDS strategies.

A lack of treatment and care options, excessive workloads and defence against self-traumatisation are some of the reasons why doctors at Red Cross Children's Hospital do not form close bonds with their AIDS patients.

It's World Aids Day on Saturday. Kerry Cullinan spoke to two men who have been living with HIV/Aids

It's World Aids Day on Saturday. Kerry Cullinan spoke to two men who have been living with HIV/Aids

A few short months ago, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and government were joined in court action against the pharmaceutical industry. But tomorrow (26th) they meet in the Pretoria High Court as adversaries in what promises to be a bitter and emotional case.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) goes head-to-head with the Health Minister in the Pretoria High Court on 26 November over her apparent failure to implement a national programme to prevent mothers with HIV from passing the virus on to their babies. In this package of three stories, Kerry Cullinan sketches the context of the court case and summarises the different positions taken by TAC and the Health Ministry.

"Public pressure for a cure and for quick solutions, while understandable, could contribute to hasty decisions to assuage the sentiments of the public with extremely negative consequences." - Affidavit from Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, Director General of Health

"I gave birth to an HIV positive baby who should have been saved. That was my experience, the sad one, and I will live with it until my last day." -Busisiwe Maqungo, supporting affidavit for the Treatment Action Campaign.

The crowd of children, aged between 10 and 14, is deeply absorbed in the task of depicting the things that they like about themselves and their world. Their world so far has not afforded them much pleasure. Every child has watched either both parents or their mother die of AIDS. After their parents died, they lost their homes and now all live in a rundown, two-roomed house in Waterfall, near Durban, called Agape.

While anti-retroviral drugs for mineworkers remain out of reach, most mines have well developed HIV/AIDS strategies.

Government affidavits filed in response to a court challenge by the Treatment Action Campaign say the slow introduction of nevirapine through 18 pilot sites is rational and responsible.

A six-month-old baby who contracted HIV from her mother is suing Mpumalanga'€™s MEC for Health, Sibongile Manana, for R700 000.

Controversy over whether mine bosses will give their workers anti-retroviral drugs has promoted the National Union of Mineworkers to call for an HIV/AIDS summit