TB diagnosis can be done in a number of ways, including an X-ray, but most commonly the standard method is the sputum test. Results from this test can be confirmed within 48 hours. If confirmation fails, a secondary test - a culture - will be obtained and analysed. This can take up to six weeks.

South Africa, particularly Western Cape, continues in the grip of tuberculosis. Each year it is estimated that 377 per 100 000 people are newly infected with TB throughout the country. In the Western Cape it is 559 per 100 000, almost double the rate of all new infections in South Africa. However, since the implementation of the revised National Tuberculosis Programme at provincial level, as recommended by the WHO, the Western Cape has made significant progress in curbing the high incidence of TB. Some health districts even boast of an 85 percent cure rate of all new cases, a goal set by the WHO. In this Sesotho audio report, we hear how one of these districts - South Peninsula - succeeded in treating and curing TB in its community.

The Daily Observed Treatment (DOTS) strategy is universally acknowledged as the standard treatment programme for TB by the World Health Organisation. It encourages a support system to ensure that the patient takes their medication on a regular basis. Once diagnosed with TB, a patient has to visit the nearest TB clinic every morning where they take their medicine under the watchful eye of a health worker so as to avoid patients skipping treatment.

President Thabo Mbeki opted to dedicate a significant chunk of his state of the nation address to health matters, including HIV/AIDS. Although not giving too much away, he touched on the subjects of drugs, the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, the urgent need for  a vaccine, prevention, care and treatment.

Successes made in seeking to achieve the WHO goal to cure 85 percent of new TB cases in South Africa are at a risk of being reversed due to the explosive HIV epidemic. TB is the most common opportunistic infection and cause of death in people living with HIV in the country. This audio report is in Sesotho.

A seaweed-based microbicide gel will be tested on 6 000 South African and Batswana women this year in the hope of finding a safe and effective means to protect women from contracting HIV. Microbicides offer an important way in which women can protect themselves from HIV infection even if their partners refuse to use a condom.

The health department has denied that government does not wish to access money from the multi-billion Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This comes after comments by finance minister Trevor Manual in New York that money was not the issue in the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa, but that it was rather a question of capacity to spend existing budgets.

In defiance of the Patents Act, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have brought generic anti-retroviral drugs into the country from Brazil, a move that is set to spur another showdown with Government. Three TAC members, including the chairperson Zackie Achmat, as well as Cosatu representative Joyce Pekane arrived from Brazil on Monday with a consignment of anti-retrovirals that will be used for the Medicins Sans Frontieres treatment programme currently running in Khayelitsha.

South Africa has the highest rate of mesothelioma in the world, as we were one of a handful of countries that extensively mined the most dangerous "blue asbestos".