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.

Health workers and AIDS activists have applauded the Pretoria High Court decision which instructs government to extend their mother-to-child HIV transmission prevention programme throughout the country. In this editorial, Kerry Cullinan welcomes the judgment.

Laboratory rats deprived of sleep die within two to three weeks. A lack of sleep in humans makes us less productive and more accident prone. Kerry Cullinan takes a look at what researchers do and don'€™t know about getting a good night'€™s sleep. Next time your partner kicks you in his sleep, be tolerant. He may have "restless leg syndrome" '€“ one of a range of problems causing sleep disorders.

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

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.

"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 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

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.