The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) says Tuberculosis (TB) is underfunded and progress action against the epidemic is slow. TB has been one of the most important causes of premature death in South Africa, made worse by the HIV pandemic.
In a profession often marred by disillusionment, poor resources and negative publicity, some nurses still manage to uphold their ethics and even risk their lives by working in highly infectious environments.
The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society and the Treatment Action Campaign have demanded that Dis-Chem explain its decision to host vitamin salesman Patrick Holford.
Every child in South Africa will have come into contact with drugs by the time they leave secondary school. One in three will have taken them. Increasingly, the drug of choice is heroin.
TB DOT supporters have a tough job ensuring that patients take their medication and offering them the necessary support. Health-e News Service asked two DOT supporters what truly drives them.
South Africa has a serious TB epidemic and many patients are not even diagnosed. The country also has the third highest TB burden in the world, says head of SA's TB programme.
The health department has bought 30 multi-million rand machines that can diagnose drug-resistant tuberculosis within two hours rather than the usual four weeks.
The city of Johannesburg's Health Department says it is struggling to bring down the rate of city dwellers defaulting on TB treatment. In 2009, the city had a 6.9 % defaulter rate. The target is to bring it down to less than 5%. Health-e News Service visited a clinic in Marlboro to see what the difficulties are.
Extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB has now spread to most parts of KwaZulu-Natal after being confined mostly to the Tugela Ferry area.
OPINION: A whirlybird is a wind-driven roof turbine. We've all seen them. They dot the roofs of expansive warehouses. They aid circulation in modern bourgeois apartments on Knysna's Thesen Island. They sit on the smell-stacks of non-descript out-houses in our townships on the periphery of our cities. By Dalli Weyers.
South Africa is paying exorbitantly high prices for drugs to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis, a new report by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has revealed.
Khayelitsha healthcare providers are once again blazing the trail, finding innovative ways to tackle the drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) epidemic with great success by decentralising the treatment to primary care level rather than relying on the over-burdened hospital system.
The plump young woman sits on a wooden bench in a room at Hout Bay Clinic. Nothing in her unassuming demeanour offers any clue that many people's health and ultimately lives depend on her.
TB is a difficult 'bugger' making it tough for scientists to develop drugs, diagnostics and vaccines to control the epidemic.
BCG vaccine, the only currently available vaccine against TB and despite its limitations, is still one of the most important weapons in the arsenal against TB in young children.
Be in the know with our free weekly newsletter. We deliver a round-up of our top stories and insightful reads from across the web.