In this feature on "Living with AIDS" the World Bank's Dr Mamphela Ramphele speaks about the merits of loans to combat HIV/AIDS. Sue Valentine spoke to Dr Ramphele when she visited South Africa last week and asked her as a medical doctor and as a South African, how she felt about South Africa' s response to HIV/AIDS.
The pressure of responsibilty for holding down the top AIDS job in the country weighs heavily on the slight shoulders of Dr Nono Simelela, head of the national HIV/AIDS Directorate. However, there is no doubting her her commitment to facing up to the challenges that confront her.
Dr Mamphela Ramphele is one of five managing directors at the World Bank in Washington. On a recent visit home to South Africa she spoke out about the need for African governments to value intellectual rigour, the need for incentives for skilled professionals and the value of investing in anti-retroviral treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS
The Western Cape has announced its intention to expand significantly the anti-retroviral drug programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This move is in sharp contrast to the national Department of Health's slow roll-out of the mother-to-child prevention programme which is limited to pilot sites around the country - most of which have yet to get underway.
Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week addressed the United National General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in New York. She said singling out the issue of anti-retroviral drugs was undermining the efforts made by many developing countries in dealing with pandemic. This is the full speech she delivered to the assembly.
As part of its offer of cheaper anti-malarial and certain HIV/AIDS drugs to the developing world, GlaxoSmithKline will extend the offer to non-government organisations and employers in Africa that provide HIV/AIDS treatment to their staff.
Always outspoken, World Bank managing director Dr Mamphela Ramphele, has made made it clear that South Africa needs to articulate its AIDS plan to the world, not only via the health minister, but also the president. This AIDS plan should, according to Ramphele, include anti-retroviral treatment for those living with the disease. Health-e caught up with her on a recent visit to Cape Town where she received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the University of Cape Town.
Clinics in Umlazi, Durban have launched a new "Men and Maternity"programme offering couple counselling classes to men and women expecting babies. The programme aims to encourage men to take more responsibility for their children, improve maternal health and offer better services at antenatal clinics.
In this feature we hear from a young Mosotho woman who agreed to tell her story of how she discovered she was HIV positive, because she knows all too well how she was helped by other people who have spoken out about HIV/AIDS.
The health and social development ministers will be among South Africa's official delegation to the UN's special session on HIV/AIDS which begins in New York on Monday. South Africa's participation in the forum takes place against the backdrop of a newly released UNAIDS report which acknowledges that the epidemic can be contained, but paints a bleak picture of the present situation.
It is one month since the Gauteng province started its mother to child HIV prevention programme. Since May 16, pregnant women on the East Rand of Gauteng have responded enthusiastically to the provincial government's offer of free nevirapine to prevent HIV positive women from transmitting the virus to their babies.
Although an independent nation, the kingdom of Lesotho, surrounded on all sides by South Africa, is heavily dependent on its wealthier neighbour for jobs and foreign revenue. Like so many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, any development gains Lesotho might make are likely to be wiped out by the impact of HIV/AIDS on the tiny kingdom. In this first in a series of several features on HIV/AIDS in Lesotho, we focus on the silence and stigma that dominate the epidemic.
Magalane Moela is 72-years old. She was born in the south-eastern region of the Northern Province and began working on an asbestos mine when she was in her early twenties, much older than many of the other widows in the area, some of whom started working for the mines from as young as six. She is one of many former asbestos mine employees trying to get compensation for the debilitating disease of asbestosis.
The Cape plc court case has captured world headlines, but workers at other, now defunct, asbestos mines in the Northern Province are struggling to gain compensation for the work that has crushed their health.
Medical personnel from across Africa will soon be trained on the "latest HIV/AIDS treatment options and bring the highest standard of care to patients" at a clinic to be built at Uganda's Makerere University and funded by the Pfizer Foundation. The Kampala clinic, which is expected to open by the end of the year, will train at least 80 doctors per year in the latest AIDS treatment techniques. One of the goals of the clinic will be to put more patients under anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment and use diagnostic technology to monitor them and determine what kind of ARV treatments would be appropriate for Africa. Health-e reports.
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