Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala Msimang sent a letter this week to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria requesting that its R720-million grant to KwaZulu-Natal be channelled through the SA National AIDS Council to be disbursed throughout the country.

The Special Envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis says while  scientists are doing their utmost  to address HIV/AIDS, politicians have shown little  commitment. Proof of this is the struggle to raise the 10 billion dollars needed for the  United Nations Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria to save the lives of more than 2 million Africans.  Only two billion dollars of  the ten billion dollar target has been raised.

A recent study conducted among a sample size community of 90 pharmacists in the Western Cape indicates that over half of them - 60 percent - diagnose and treat sexually transmitted infections. This, despite the fact that legislation forbids pharmacists - as dispensers of medication - from treating disease as they are not trained to do so. Kim Ward is the researcher who carried out the study. In this report she tells Khopotso Bodibe that even though pharmacists are not trained to treat STIs, people opt for their services because it is affordable and there are seldom long queues.

The United Nations' Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria is committed to ensuring that money reaches community-based and non-governmental organisations as much as it also funds government departments and agencies. This commitment is based on the belief that NGOs and faith-based organisations are strategically placed to deal first-hand with the impact of these diseases. So how does the Global Fund plan to distribute its? Khopotso Bodibe attended a briefing addressed by the chairperson of the Fund, Dr Richard Feacham.

In this audio report in English and isiXhosa, Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane says there's a need for religious communities to involve themselves in HIV/AIDS and for government to provide better leadership on the pandemic. Ndungane recently called on the health minister to resign and for wrangling over the Global Fund on AIDS, TB and Malaria to end so that funds can reach those who need them most.

The impasse between the Minister of Health and KwaZulu-Natal over the R720-million grant ($72-million) to the province to fight HIV/AIDS is far from over, despite the "final meeting" on 17 July to resolve the matter.

What about the "mother" part of mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT) programmes? That has been a key question raised over the past few years by AIDS activists concerned that the programmes are saving babies but condemning them to live as orphans.

A traditional African herbal medicine, METRAFAIDS, has shown to substantially reduce the viral loads of HIV positive patients and increase their CD4 (immunity) counts, it was announced at the International AIDS Conference today (Thursday).

World AIDS conferences always provide an opportunity for rich countries, aid agencies and international agencies to announce new funding initiatives to fight HIV/AIDS and gain maximum public relations exposure.

Most countries African countries had no or very little patent laws denying them access to cheaper drugs, according to Amir Attaran of the Kennedy School at Harvard University. Attaran, who received a mixed reaction from his audience at the International AIDS Conference (he was booed by some activists), said that South Africa was an exception with extensive patent coverage, but that more than 50 of the 53 countries reviewed had less than 4 out of the 15 essential anti-retrovirals patented.

he Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) desperately wants to work with Government at all levels and has called for an end to the stand off between the two parties. TAC chairperson Mark Heywood claimed at a media gathering at the International AIDS Conference that some health officials had been instructed not to work with TAC.