Counsellors strike, patients suffer Living with AIDS # 521

Some 7 500 HIV counsellors and community health care workers in Gauteng have downed tools after not being paid for months.

Some 7 500 HIV counsellors and community health care workers in Gauteng have downed tools after not being paid for months.

The recent shortage of a crucial antiretroviral drug, Tenofovir, is but just a symptom of an underlying general problem of health management in South Africa. Part of this is the lack of oversight on drug supplies and availability by the national Health Department.

No single infection has probably inspired as many conspiracy theories as AIDS has over the last 30 years. The science of AIDS has endured tremendous attacks from as early as when the virus first appeared. A book entitled 'The AIDS Conspiracy ' Science Fights Back', looks at how science has triumphed and sought to bring sense to a condition that has attracted a flurry of mad conspiracy theories.

The inability of contracted pharmaceutical companies to produce enough of the antiretroviral drug, Tenofovir, has forced the Health Department to increase the number of manufacturers that can produce the medicine in the face of worrying shortages.

Insufficient production of Tenofovir, a crucial antiretroviral drug that is part of the three-drug combination therapy that AIDS patients need to suppress their virus, has left patients in the public sector taking sub-optimal treatment.
The continued stock out of the antiretroviral tenofovir and the failure to advise health workers on how to deal with it is a looming disaster, HIV Clinicians and activists are warning.

The national Health Department is upbeat that the country is making significant progress in dealing with the AIDS epidemic. It says it has reached over 80% of South Africans eligible for antiretroviral treatment in the last five years. But it admits that preventing new HIV infections has been a challenge.

New and bold efforts are needed to reduce the number of new HIV infections amongst young girls and women. This is one of the key focus areas of the new National Strategic Plan on HIV and AIDS, which came into effect last month.

Malaria symptoms are often mistaken for the common flu and many people leave them unchecked. This often leads to severe illness and death, especially in people who have HIV.

About 30 years into the AIDS epidemic, myths around HIV/AIDS and its transmission still abound. A study by a Wits University sociologist in several townships of Mpumalanga shows that AIDS is still misunderstood.

Two years after her diagnosis with HIV, Phindile Sithole-Spong saw no point in hiding her status anymore. Since she came out about her HIV status at the age of 19, the University of Cape Town graduate finds herself doing it over and over again to different audiences, so as to help others.

Healthy eating coupled with regular physical exercise can go a long way in prolonging your life. The World Health Organisation's (WHO's) recent recommendation is for people to take, at least, 30 minutes exercising five days a week.