
‘Bazooka’ against TB launched
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 health department has bought 30 multi-million rand machines that can diagnose drug-resistant tuberculosis within two hours rather than the usual four weeks.

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 is moving towards decentralising the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) care to primary care level, but will continue to hospitalise those patients who are ill or infectious.

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.
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.
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.

South Africa is paying exorbitantly high prices for drugs to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis, a new report by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has revealed.

Extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB has now spread to most parts of KwaZulu-Natal after being confined mostly to the Tugela Ferry area.

Countries with high numbers of people living with HIV, especially where access to antiretroviral treatment is patchy, are sitting on a drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) time bomb, which may have in some instances already exploded.

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.

TB is a difficult 'bugger' making it tough for scientists to develop drugs, diagnostics and vaccines to control the epidemic.

The quality of care that a baby gets while still in the womb and in its early years of life has an impact on its future development. A study has found that the first 1000 days of life are crucial in shaping the next 18 years of a young individual.

Bringing up a child born with HIV can be daunting, especially when the child reaches adolescence and starts being curious about sex. But, finally, there is some help for teens with HIV and their families.

Alcohol and drug abuse as well as drug trafficking will receive renewed and more energetic attention from government, President Jacob Zuma announced this week.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has announced that former President of Botswana Festus Mogae and former American Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt will lead an independent and thorough review of the fund's financial safeguards.