Nqileni: The E Cape village that fell off the map
There are no services in Nqileni Village in the Eastern Cape and kids are dying from drinking contaminated water. But a conditional grant for the district was returned untouched to the Treasury
There are no services in Nqileni Village in the Eastern Cape and kids are dying from drinking contaminated water. But a conditional grant for the district was returned untouched to the Treasury

The arrival of the first batch of ARVs in June, 2005, at Madwaleni Hospital, in the rural area of Mbashe outside Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape, changed how health-care workers and the community view AIDS.

The health indicators, which provide a snapshot of our nation's health, still paint a picture of a violent, racially divided country where women bear the brunt of disease.

Whether it's to test a vaccine or a microbicide to reduce HIV risk, clinical trials rely heavily on the goodwill of people. Without them, such trials won't take place. But what motivates people to want to be part of these trials?

A single dose of two antiretrovirals given to mothers shortly after giving birth has shown to reduce the chances of the women developing later resistance, a new study from Zambia has shown.

Traditional medicine generates almost R3-billion a year and government needs to urgently remove barriers preventing its practitioners from claiming from medical schemes for services rendered.

South Africa is sitting on a 'future time bomb' as employers remove medical health insurance from employees when they retire.
The recent announcement about the failure of the leading AIDS vaccine candidate developed by Merck & Co. is another in a series of disappointing setbacks in HIV prevention. How we as a global community choose to respond to this news, however, is the real test.

A new organisation supported by US celebrities has caused controversy in northern KwaZulu-Natal, prompting the question: is there enough co-ordination of donor funding of HIV/AIDS?

Good news is hard to come by in rural Eastern Cape, but Madwaleni Hospital's HIV programme is inspiring.

Without a lift to the hospital, Faniswa Methi probably wouldn't have made it.
Government has committed itself to announcing a new protocol for the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programme within the next two weeks.

For weeks, only three people turned up for support group meetings in Nkanya but Kopana and her colleagues didn't give up.

When scientists first started developing vaccines against HIV, they believed that it would take them 10 years to find one. Now, more than two decades later, they say they don't know how long it will take.
In a few week's time, results of a major Phase 3 microbicide trial will be released and the women who took part can't wait for the results