Research conducted in rural Sudan has shown that an inexpensive programme of breast cancer screening, undertaken by local volunteers, results in earlier detection of breast cancer, allowing improved treatment and management of the disease.
LUSIKISIKI. ' Communities in the Eastern Cape are up in arms about the breakdown in health services in this province and activist groups here are pressurising local and provincial departments for answers and solutions.
VHEMBE. ' Heavy rains have caused serious damage to roads in the Vhembe district causing serious problems for health services in the area.
The Lancet: Feb 4 was World Cancer Day, an opportunity to critically consider progress against cancer. Is it fair to say that the cancer medical community has failed patients living with cancer? This is a harsh statement, but according to respected oncologist, Franco Cavalli, whose Comment leads a discussion about cancer in today's Lancet: "Current strategies to control cancer are demonstrably not working."
VHEMBE. ' A shortage of important medicines at the Tshiombo Clinic in this Limpopo district is posing a serious health risk to the local community.
BETHLEHEM. - Lovelife, the HIV prevention initiative for young people, recently trained 85 new Community Groundbreakers for 2013 in the Free State. The training, held at the Thaba Nchu, Black Mountain Hotel in the Free State, began on 22 January and ended on 1 February.
Older smokers and former heavy smokers should consider low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans to screen for lung cancer.
Vhembe. ' At just three-months-old, a boy from Mabila village in Limpopo lost both his parents to AIDS-related illnesses. Along with three other siblings he now lives with his grandmother.
CAPE TOWN - Cancer survivors gathered in central Cape Town yesterday to protest and raise awareness of the challenges faced by patients in South Africa, saying they are fed up with among others broken radiation machines and poor treatment access.
CAPE TOWN - A critical anti-tuberculosis (TB) candidate vaccine tried in infants, has failed in trials. The MVA85A vaccine candidate was found to be safe and well tolerated, but ineffective in combination with the Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG), the currently used TB vaccine.
Vhembe. ' Grannies from the Mufulwi village in Limpopo are playing soccer to keep fit. This group of women aged between 50 and 75 years call themselves "Nyonyoloso ya vhaaluwa", which means 'excercise for elders'.
Hard-hitting graphic tobacco warnings on cigarette packets are helping smokers from all socio-economic backgrounds to quit, new research suggests. A study by researchers at Legacy and the Harvard School of Public Health provides evidence that bold pictorial cigarette warning labels that visually depict the health consequences of smoking play a life-saving role in highlighting the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit.
Women's risk of dying from smoking is now almost equivalent to that of men.
Lusikisiki. ' For Nontandabuzo Bhokhwayidli, a 43-year-old woman from Mfinizweni Village in the Eastern Cape, an HIV diagnosis in 2004 was only the start of her health problems, because at times the treatment she received for HIV were worse than the disease itself.
Tshwane. - The news that the United States President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) was discontinuing its financial support to non-governmental organisations in South Africa was received with shock by the thousands of patients at Hope for Life, an NGO in Winterveld in the northern region of the City of Tshwane that is now facing closure.
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