The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) goes head-to-head with the Health Minister in the Pretoria High Court on 26 November over her apparent failure to implement a national programme to prevent mothers with HIV from passing the virus on to their babies. In this package of three stories, Kerry Cullinan sketches the context of the court case and summarises the different positions taken by TAC and the Health Ministry.
Two of the country's most powerful figures in health yesterday crossed swords at the Health Summit over whether government should investigate providing anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to people with HIV/AIDS.
Matthew Damane is 26 years old and lives in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. In June this year, with his CD4 cell count down to 138, he decided to take up the offer of free antiretroviral therapy as supplied by doctors working for the international non-government organisation, Medecins Sans Frontieres. It's been almost six months since he started taking the drugs and he is delighted with the results. The Khayelitsha drug therapy programme is one which is highlighted by the Treatment Action Campaign in its latest call on government to seriously consider rolling out a national antiretroviral therapy programme.
The Treatment Action Campaign says the benefits of antiretroviral therapy far outweigh the risks and has called on delegates at the National Health Summit to begin to examine how such therapy can be made available to South Africans with AIDS through the public health service. by Tim Dodd
JOHANNESBURG - The absence of anti-retroviral drugs in the public sector had led to the misconception that nothing was being done by government for people with HIV, Dr Nono Simelela, head of government's HIV/AIDS Directorate told the Health Summit yesterday (Mon).
The crowd of children, aged between 10 and 14, is deeply absorbed in the task of depicting the things that they like about themselves and their world. Their world so far has not afforded them much pleasure. Every child has watched either both parents or their mother die of AIDS. After their parents died, they lost their homes and now all live in a rundown, two-roomed house in Waterfall, near Durban, called Agape.
For most South Africans anti-retorviral drugs are unaffordable from private doctors and unavailable through the public health system. Like all drugs they have side effects, but taken under correct medical supervision they can be life-saving.
For doctors who qualified in the 1970s or 80s, the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa in the past 10 to 15 years has left many of them ill-equipped to respond to the needs of patients with HIV or AIDS. In an effort to solve the problem, the South African Medical Association (SAMA), has been running three-day courses for General Practitioners in various parts of the country. At one of these courses in Cape Town, the association invited Elaine Maane, Provincial Co-ordinator of the National Association of Persons Living with HIV and AIDS (NAPWA), to talk about how people with AIDS want to be treated by doctors.
Wednesday, November 14th was observed internationally as World Diabetes Day. To some people the day doesn't bear any significance whatsoever, but to others like Michelle Kannemeyer, a travel and tourism student at Cape Technikon, the day has greater significance. Michelle Kannemeyer is 18. When she was eleven months old she was diagnosed with diabetes. Doctors refer to this disease in children and young people as Type 1 diabetes. To survive for the past 17 years, Michelle has been on a strict programme of insulin injections because her pancreas cannot produce insulin naturally. In this audio report in Sesotho and English, Michelle speaks about life with diabetes and how she copes with it.
Dr Nigel Hoffman and Dr Clare Hoffman are a husband and wife team who've worked at Rietvlei Hospital in the Eastern Cape for the past 14 years. However, as the number of patients with HIV/AIDS has increased, so their "cure rate" of patients has decreased. A demoralising situation for doctors who wish to heal their patients. In a context of grinding poverty and the absence of anti-retroviral drugs, all they can do is treat the illnesses they see and offer palliative care. More recently, the option of Nevirapine for pregnant woman has become available, but because of the need to have an AIDS test and the stigma related to the virus, woman are reluctant to access the programme.
How does a child begin to understand that her mother is going to die because of AIDS? This is the story of the Letsoalo children, who live in the village of Segoreya, Mentz, outside Pietersburg in the Northern Province. The head of this family is a young, unemployed, widowed HIV-positive mother. She lives with her five children in a one-roomed corrugated iron house. Like many other families in South Africa who have someone who is HIV-positive, the Letsoalo's experience rejection in their community. And it is the children who suffer the most. This audio report is in Sesotho.
In preparation for the testing of an AIDS vaccine early next year, medical workers find that the real test they have to deal with now is the recruitment of people to participate in the trials for the vaccine initiative. One hospital encountering this challenge is the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital, in Soweto. Keletso Mmoledi, a Research Nurse and Co-ordinator of the hospital's Vaccine Research Unit, talks about efforts to encourage people to register as participants for the trial programme. This report is in Sesotho.
Medical practitioners and researchers are working against time to find a vaccine against AIDS in South Africa. The first Phase One human trials are scheduled for early next year at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. Other sites around the country will also conduct trials as soon as they are ready. Keletso Mmoledi, is a Research Nurse and Co-ordinator of the hospital's Vaccine Research Unit. Here she tells us where they are with the process. This audio report is in Sesotho.
The widespread presence of STIs in South Africa is one of the driving forces behind the spread of the Aids epidemic. If sexually transmitted infections are treated correctly, the rate of new HIV infections can be halved. Contrary to general expectation, the best place to go for effective treatment of an STI is a public sector clinic. The private sector has a poor track record when it comes to successfully treating STIs. At a recent workshop in Johannesburg, doctors and researchers met to find ways to improve the private sector's peformance when it comes to treating STIs.
A frequently asked question by those who might consider volunteeting to be part of the Phase One trials to test for an AIDS vaccine in South Africa is, "how will this benefit me?" Keletso Mmoledi, a Research Nurse and Co-ordinator of the Aids Vaccine Research Unit at the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital, talks about some of these benefits. This report is in Sesotho.
Be in the know with our free weekly newsletter. We deliver a round-up of our top stories and insightful reads from across the web.