Fighting prejudice and the disease
Seven years ago, Nothando Mkhize'€™s* life changed when she was diagnosed HIV positive and told that she also had tuberculosis.
Health
Read More » Fighting prejudice and the disease
ARV Moratorium had devastating effects in Free State
The controversial moratorium imposed by the Free State Health Department on the provision of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) to new AIDS patients, has hit patients and their families hard.
Medical Scheme Offers Cash Back For Healthy Food
Discovery, the medical and life assurance provider, has launched a new healthy eating initiative, in partnership with Pick n Pay for members of its Vitality programme.
Treating drug-resistant TB at home
KHAYELITSHA - The tall woman walks from window to window, undoes the latches and flings them open. Next she negotiates her away through the throngs of people sitting on benches against the walls, some collapsed in the laps of their minders, others coughing behind thin, white, paper masks. Children squeal and run around, bored from waiting in the stuffy clinic. A stray dog is shooed away by a security guard.
Rio conference hopes to raise awareness of TB
RIO DE JANEIRO - As over a thousand researchers, scientists, health leaders, community organisations and tuberculosis experts descend on Rio de Janeiro for the 3rd Stop TB Partners Forum this week more people are dying of this curable and preventable disease than ever before.
Network Successful in Uniting Vaccine Researchers
The Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) network has made considerable progress towards the goal of developing an effective vaccine against HIV.
‘€œPeople would stare when we started wearing masks”
An unemployed mother of two, Busiswa Magqazola (28) first realised she was ill last April while pregnant with her second child.
Free State making little progress
Less than 600 patients have started antiretroviral treatment since the Free State province lifted the moratorium on treatment and the waiting list of 15 000 grows daily.
Free State AIDS patients in the dark about services Living with AIDS Programme 382
While the Free State Health Department maintains that last November'€™s moratorium preventing about 15 000 new patients from getting antiretroviral treatment has been lifted, patients and civil society organisations paint a different picture.
More people report sexual violence in SA ‘€“ MSF
The humanitarian medical aid agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), has reported an increase in rape cases reported to its various clinics in South Africa and worldwide. MSF recently released a report detailing the nature of cases patients present their aid workers with.
FS health workers abandon patients to do ANC electioneering
Despite a health crisis in the Free State caused by a funding shortage, the provincial health department has granted 160 health workers who are members of the ANC-aligned National Education Health and Allied Workers'€™ Union (NEHAWU) paid leave for six months to do election campaigning for the ANC.
Suicide prevention through Mental Health First Aid
First Aid is a very well known and important procedure in society. But, Mental Health First Aid is something new in this country. It was imported from Australia where it was developed. South African experts identified the need for this program as a result of rising numbers of cases of patients with mental illnesses.
Govt acts against Rath at last
The National Health Department has for the first time taken firm steps against vitamin seller Matthias Rath by confiscating consignments of his flagship multi-vitamin VitaCell in Durban and Cape Town and opening criminal cases for his alleged contravention of the Medicines Act.
Hope in attempts to find alternatives to ARV therapy as a prevention tool
A lecture given at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) held in Montreal, Canada, recently highlighted the extent to which Antiretroviral therapy (ARV) has become central to today'€™s attempts to prevent HIV infection.
Sexual offence victims need immediate health care
Apart from the physical, psychological and emotional pain that comes with being raped, survivors still deal with being stigmatised and cast out of their families and communities. A report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reveals that sexual abuse victims, especially in countries facing humanitarian crises, do not receive emergency medical attention.