Breastfeeding of babies by a non-biological caregiver with HIV is one of the most important factors associated with HIV infection in children. A study released in Cape Town this week also found that there is a potential for health-care acquired transmission of HIV in the maternity, paediatric and dental facilities in the Free State health institutions.
Thousands of teachers have been lost to HIV. An HSRC study has revealed the extent of the epidemic among educators and has called for 10 000 to be placed on anti-retroviral treatment with immediate effect.
More teachers are dying than ever before and most of them are African and women. These and other findings are contained in a report released this week ' Educator Attrition and Mortality in South Africa.
KZN has the most tuberculosis cases in the country, but hospitals are fighting a losing battle against deadly multi-drug resistant TB.
If one is HIV-positive and lives in the developing world is it inevitable that they will also contract tuberculosis? There's no easy answer to that, but because of the sheer scale of TB infection rates among HIV-positive individuals it is becoming standard practice to provide prophylactic medicine to prevent dual infection. But does it work?
Erratic exposure to treatment due to irregular drug supply, inappropriate diagnosis and prescription by health care providers as well as poor adherence to treatment by the patient are all factors leading up to the development of Multi-Drug Resistant TB. Side-effects associated with treatment can also influence patients to stop taking their medication. In this report we visit an MDR-TB referral centre in Klerksdorp, North West.
Jaco Joseph (17) returns to his Vredendal home after almost three years in Cape Town hospitals as doctors battled to cure him of Multi Drug Resistant TB. Jaco will return to his foster parents and six year old brother after losing his mother to the same disease. Anso Thom spoke to him before he boarded a minibus taxi.
The TB rate in Cape Town continues to be among the highest in the world, yet the city has managed to achieve impressive cure rates.
Researchers in Stellenbosch and Zambia are testing hundreds of school children for TB infection as part of a study which aims to cut the TB burden in half.
South Africa has one of the highest TB rates in the world but a cure rate of only 54%. On International TB Day, Health-e investigates the disease that is the country's biggest killer.
In downtown Durban, health experts are pioneering treating TB and HIV together.
Doctors struggle to cure multi-drug resistant TB, while patients experience multiple side-effects. Health-e reports from an MDR-TB referral unit in Klerksdorp.
South Africa is the country with the highest co-infection rate of HIV and TB in the world, with more than half of those who have TB also testing positive for HIV. People with HIV are most likely to die of tuberculosis than any other opportunistic infection. But if detected early, death from TB can be prevented even in the presence of HIV infection.
Government will be able to supply state patients with three antiretroviral drugs (triple therapy) for around R100 a month.
Scientists agree that a short and relatively inexpensive combination of anti-retrovirals could reduce mother to child transmission rates in Africa more effectively than the widely used single combinations, but less than 10 percent of the women worldwide who need it are accessing the drugs.
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