ISTANBUL, Turkey ' Only 5.4% of the world's population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws in 2008, up from 3.1% in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today in its second report on the global tobacco epidemic.
GENEVA ' Tobacco control that focuses on cigarette smokers in Cambodia misses a huge number of women who chew tobacco, according to research published today in the international public health journal, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
HIV-positive babies will have an improved chance of survival following the implementation of government's revised anti-retroviral (ARV) policy. All children living with HIV under one year of age will receive treatment as soon as they are diagnosed.
Some 36 million people have been cured of tuberculosis (TB) over the past 15 years through a rigorous approach to treatment, according to the World Health Organisation. However, last year 1.8 million people died from TB including half a million deaths associated with HIV - many of them because they did not access antiretrovirals.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has welcomed King Goodwill Zwelithini's announcement this weekend that he supports medical male circumcision and will encourage his followers to undergo the procedure which could prevent up to 60% of men acquiring HIV.
President Zuma finally ended any ambiguity in the government's response to AIDS when he announced changes to improve AIDS treatment this week. But for these policy changes to be real, the new-found political commitment must be accompanied by the commitment of resources.
Activists are concerned that the limited access to female condoms as a means of HIV prevention compared to male condoms is a violation of human rights. Annually, the government distributes over 400 million condoms compared to three million female condoms.
In June 1999 Thabo Mbeki became president. And so began one of the most destructive episodes in our recent history ' AIDS denialism. Mbeki questioned the very existence of a sexually-transmitted virus that caused AIDS.
South Africa's top scientists and researchers have come out in support of health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi after the furore over Home Affairs supplied AIDS death statistics he quoted recently - which may have been incorrect.
President Jacob Zuma has announced the most significant government-led interventions to stem the AIDS epidemic since its emergence more than 20 years ago, stating that extraordinary measures are needed.
South Africans may soon be able to get an HIV home test kit to enable them to find out their HIV status in private.
In the district worst hit by HIV/AIDS, a small organisation battles to support thousands of orphans.
Western medicine and traditional healers have long been at odds with one another about how to treat HIV/AIDS. But in the Umgungundlovu district, which has the highest HIV prevalence in the country, integration of the two is starting to happen.
Diabetes patients treated at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital will benefit from advanced education and support at the hospital's new 'Diabetes Conversations Room'.
Preliminary results from a study conducted in Johannesburg show that women with HIV have a higher risk of developing cervical cancer than women who are HIV-negative.
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