In last week'€™s Living with AIDS feature, we heard from two university students how HIV can affect the youth. This week, we hear how joining a support group of similar people could unlock the lonely and fearful world that young people suddenly find themselves in upon discovering that they have HIV.
Oral sex is not as safe as many of us assume it to be. Research shows that it is one of the leading causes of oro-pharyngeal cancer, which occurs in the mouth area.
Pneumonia remains the leading cause of death among children under five years of age, with HIV contributing a large share to the burden of disease. But since the 1980s, there has been no updated knowledge of what causes child-hood pneumonia. A new international study involving about 12 000 children is investigating the causes of this disease.
In 1996, when South Africa returned to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the country made a resolution that declared violence a public health priority. But violent crime still remains endemic, with women and girls especially at risk.
The rape of girls and women remains a major concern in South Africa, and the health care sector needs to be better equipped to collect evidence to prove sexual violation to help secure the conviction of perpetrators by the courts.
Recognising the need to improve child health, KwaZulu-Natal became the only province to scrap the provision of free formula milk in favour of promoting exclusive breast-feeding among pregnant women attending government antenatal facilities at the beginning of the year. By so doing, the province set the national agenda.
In a strong move to encourage breast-feeding as a key intervention to promote child survival, the national Health Department has decided to promote exclusive breast-feeding for the first six months of an infant'€™s life even for those with HIV-positive mothers.
The community of Soweto, the sprawling township to the south of Johannesburg, has welcomed the rollout of medical male circumcision in the area.
This week government finally released the Green Paper on the National Health Insurance system, which seeks to provide better health care for all. The paper will be followed by consultations with various stakeholders and the public over the next three months.
As part of the country'€™s effort to roll out medical male circumcision in a bid to reduce HIV infection among men, the Gauteng Health Department has set itself a target to circumcise about 125 000 men by March next year.
Ahead of next week'€™s launch of the National Health Insurance (NHI) proposal, Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, made several announcements on Thursday, including a plan to employ hospital managers who will ensure better health outcomes.
Medical male circumcision has helped reduce HIV acquisition among men in the Orange Farm area, south of Johannesburg, by about 76% since the rollout of the intervention three years ago.
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