Antiretroviral drugs have made a significant improvement to the life expectancy of many people living with HIV/AIDS in Western countries. Although there is still no cure for the disease, Professor Robin Weiss of the Windeyer Institute of Medical Sciences at University College London, says antiretroviral drugs have reduced the number of AIDS-related deaths by 60 percent.
A handful of countries continue to achieve a downward trend while in the rest of the world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, the AIDS epidemic continues to reverse development gains, rob millions of their lives, widen the gap between rich and poor and undermine social and economic security. Health-e reports on an update released by UNAIDS.
In this report, Khopotso Bodibe sketches the arguments from both sides in the court case.
It's World Aids Day on Saturday. Kerry Cullinan spoke to two men who have been living with HIV/Aids
It's World Aids Day on Saturday. Kerry Cullinan spoke to two men who have been living with HIV/Aids
A few short months ago, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and government were joined in court action against the pharmaceutical industry. But tomorrow (26th) they meet in the Pretoria High Court as adversaries in what promises to be a bitter and emotional case.
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.
"Public pressure for a cure and for quick solutions, while understandable, could contribute to hasty decisions to assuage the sentiments of the public with extremely negative consequences." - Affidavit from Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, Director General of Health
"I gave birth to an HIV positive baby who should have been saved. That was my experience, the sad one, and I will live with it until my last day." -Busisiwe Maqungo, supporting affidavit for the Treatment Action Campaign.
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.
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