When Agnes Nyamayarwo's son, Peter, was four years old, he discovered from a boy at his school that his mother was HIV positive."This boy warned the other children not to share Peter's food because they would get AIDS from him," says Nyamayarwo."I felt very bad that he heard it from school. We think we are protecting them [by not telling them about our HIV status] but somehow they get to know
While central government is pursuing further pilot studies on the use of the drug nevirapine to prevent mother-to-child (MTC) HIV transmission, the Western Cape is rolling out an MTC prevention programme using the drug, AZT.
The punitive measures that Swaziland and Botswana want to introduce for HIV positive people are unfortunate, says AIDS expert.
When Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang assumed power last year, she promised a new health bill this year. But this has been delayed yet again, in a saga that is over five years' long.
Few township residents have ever met a psychiatrist. But in two Khayelitsha clinics, three women are reaching out to mothers and babies in need of psychological support.
Older people, particularly women, bear the brunt of caring for AIDS orphans. However, many of these people are not yet 60 years old and have no access to pensions. For this reason, some organisations are calling on government to lower the pension age to ease the burden of care on "underage" grandmothers and grandfathers.
AIDS pandemic forces communities to confront two of the world's most uncomfortable taboos: death and sex, conference learns.
Nelson Mandela has joined the powerful chorus of voices appealing to government to approve "large-scale actions for PMTC" at the close of the international AIDS conference in Durban.
It came unexpectedly: the question that most parents try to rehearse the answer to, but inevitably mess up when reality strikes. My six-year-old turned to me out of the blue and said: "But what I don't understand is how the seed from the man gets into the woman's egg."My initial response was to gloss over her question. After all, at six a child shouldn't know about sex, I reasoned. But she persisted, so I had little option but to dive into a quick-'n-basic lesson on anatomy ' which both amused and fascinated her.
Law experts are unlikely to recommend that government introduce HIV-specific laws to punish those who knowingly infect others.
"I refuse to be identical to a statistic. I feel, I get sexy, I get hungry. Whatever you feel about your sexuality, I also feel," declared Brigitte Syamalevure, mother of 11 and an HIV positive Zambian.
"Very high" medicine prices have prompted HIV/AIDS activist organisation to mount "legal action" against [drug company] Pfizer, to bring generic medicine into the country from Thailand to help treat HIV positive people.
