HIV prevention messages appear to be having an impact on the sexual behaviour of South Africans who also have a very clear understanding of the key aspects of HIV/AIDS.

The world'€™s most powerful weapon against HIV/AIDS -- anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs '€“ dominated public debate about the disease in South Africa this year. By Kerry Cullinan.

While activists, big business, government and HIV/AIDS groups squabble about whether anti-retrovirals should be dispensed in the public health sector, a pilot project in Guguletu, Cape Town, has quietly gone ahead, successfully treating 150 people in a primary health care setting. Anso Thom of Health-e News Service reports.

Busi has been too weak to get out of bed for the past two months. Her tiny eight-month-old baby, Nomsa, hangs limply in her listless arms. Even crying takes too much effort. Her home-based carer changes the sheets, which are streaked yellow with diarrhoea. She asks Busi'€™s mother how she is coping, but the mother shrugs and turns away so that we cannot see her tears. Five small children turn their worried faces towards us. "AIDS is not spoken about here," whispers the carer in warning, as I prepare to interview Busi.

One lingering look and Bongi and Elliot knew they wanted to be together. But later, their love disintegrated as lies, infidelity and a retrovirus played on their frailties and fears.

Positive. That'€™s the only way to describe the attitude of Dr Liz Floyd, Gauteng'€™s head of HIV/AIDS, to the province'€™s campaign against the disease over the past year.

Groaning under the weight of HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal's hospitals provide other provinces with a preview of what they can expect as their epidemics mature. Kerry Cullinan reports.

West Africa, the poorest region in the world, is preparing to treat 400 000 HIV positive people with anti-retrovirals within the next three years. This translates into anti-retroviral access for at least one-third of the people in the region in need of treatment. Currently, some 10 000 people in West Africa have access to anti-retroviral treatment.

White South Africans know less and worry less about HIV/AIDS than other race groups, while young people are more likely to accept having sex in exchange for money.

Since its launch on World AIDS Day two years ago, the Diflucan partnership between the government and the drug company, Pfizer, has brought relief to thousands of South Africans. By Khopotso Bodibe.

While rape survivors country-wide are supposed to be able to get free anti-retroviral drugs to protect them from HIV, the programme is far from easy to implement. Kerry Cullinan reports.

Non-governmental organisations are providing sterling service when it comes to the provision of Home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS says Dr Fareed Abdullah of the Western Cape Department of Health. In this report we talk to patients who benefit from the Red Cross Society'€™s Home-based Care Project in Khayelitsha.

In a move that could be viewed as another positive step towards the roll out of anti-retroviral treatment for HIV positive adults, activists have reviewed their December 1 deadline and have agreed to give Government until the end of February to adopt a national treatment plan.