A feasibility study in preparation for Phase 3 clinical trials involving microbicides is underway at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, in Soweto.

A court case that could have a significant impact on the protection of the rights of workers living with HIV is to be heard in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday, the 27th of May. This is a matter between Rustenburg Platinum Mines and the Chief Inspector of Mines together with the Ministry of Minerals and Energy Affairs, wherein the mine is the applicant. Khopotso Bodibe gives us more details on the case.

Today the challenge brought by Rustenburg Platinum Mine against Mavis Anne Hermanus '€“ the Chief Inspector of Mines '€“ and the Ministry of Minerals and Energy Affairs will finally be heard in the Pretoria High Court. In the following report, the spokesperson of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) explains to Khopotso Bodibe the consequences of ruling in favour of the mine.

We follow up on the story we aired in our last Living with AIDS slot. A major court challenge against the Chief Inspector of Mines, Mavis Anne Hermanus and the Ministry of Minerals and Energy Affairs, brought by Rustenburg Platinum Mines gets underway in the Pretoria High Court tomorrow (Tue, May 27). A decision made by the Chief Inspector of Mines in January 2001, to classify the death of a HIV positive miner, Jose Mulungu Cossa, as a mine fatality and the resultant levy imposed on the mine, are at the centre of the court challenge. Khopotso Bodibe reports on this significant matter.

Last week, ahead of Workers'€™ Day 2003 - which is being celebrated today - the National Union of Metalworkers'€™ of South Africa (NUMSA) demanded that employers provide anti-retroviral drugs to HIV positive employees.

In South Africa the spread of HIV has largely been associated with men'€™s sexual athleticism, their unwillingness to use condoms and the uneven gender relations that often render women unable to negotiate safe sex.

The chairperson of the South African Medical Association, Dr Kgosi Letlape, has often said that doctors are ethically bound to serve their patients; that the government'€™s policy of no treatment for AIDS is not acceptable to the medical profession; and that doctors must stand up for the health of their patients. And stand up for the health of their patients is exactly what doctors did at various hospitals and clinics nationwide this past Monday and Tuesday. Doctors at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto also took part in this solidarity action. Khopotso Bodibe was there.

Prof. Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria is concluding a week-long fact-finding mission to South Africa, which is expected to culminate in the signing off on a document that will see the first funds of a promised total of $US 150 million (R1.2 billion) released to the government.

As the TAC'€™s civil disobedience campaign against government'€™s tendency to drag its feet in introducing a comprehensive AIDS treatment programme in the public health sector continues, Khopotso Bodibe went out to seek the views of ordinary South Africans on this heated and somewhat controversial debate.

The battle for AIDS treatment is getting escalating with the TAC intensifying its civil disobedience campaign on the one hand and government buying media space in newspapers to do damage control on its confusing position on the protracted AIDS debacle on the other.

The sign-off on the proposed NEDLAC Framework Agreement with government, business, labour and AIDS community on a National HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment Plan still remains a bone of contention. In an effort to force government back to negotiations on the plan and to secure its commitment to it, the Treatment Action Campaign has mobilised 600 of its members nationally to participate in a civil disobedience campaign, scheduled to take place tomorrow '€“ Human Rights Day. Khopotso Bodibe of Health-e News Service spoke to one of the expected participants in the campaign and filed this report.

Possibilities of adoption for a child infected with HIV depend on nothing more than compassion, as opposed to a primary need to have a child or give a home to a child who deserves to grow in a stable family unit. In the following report by Khopotso Bodibe, we hear that more and more social services organisations have come to realise that placing HIV positive children in adoptive homes can be a futile attempt.    

The uncertainty around whether long-awaited HIV vaccine trials scheduled for the first quarter of this year will eventually take place in South Africa, appears to have been cleared up. That'€™s if a consultative workshop hosted by the Medicines Control Council (MCC) last Friday (21-02-03) is anything to go by. At the workshop, attended by pharmaceutical company representatives, clinical researchers, scientists and ethicists, the MCC unveiled a draft document of guidelines and ethics for anticipated HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trials. Khopotso Bodibe attended the workshop and filed the following report.

Thanks to donations from the public, government departments and business, the Sparrow Rainbow Village that opened last year is able to provide destitute adults and children terminally ill with AIDS with holistic care in a loving and dignified environment. Last week (Friday 14/02/2003) the centre, situated on the corner of Lola and Nadine Streets, in Maraisburg, Johannesburg, announced that it is extending its services and will now cater for 200 terminally ill people. This makes the Sparrow Rainbow Village the largest live-in hospice for AIDS-infected adults and children in South Africa. Khopotso Bodibe of Health-e News Service visited this unique centre, and filed us this report.