A few weeks before Nkosi Johnson collapsed and fell into a coma, he spent seven days on holiday in Cape Town. He stayed with his long time friends Anso Thom and Gerda Kruger and their son, Siya. Everywhere they went, from Cape Point to Camps Bay, Nkosi was recognised and greeted by people who told him of people they knew living with HIV/AIDS. As the vigil next to his bedside continues, Anso and Gerda have written a personal reflection of the impact this little boy has had on their lives.

Government'€™s failure to prevent mothers from transmitting HIV to their babies means that South Africans should get down and start such programmes themselves, says Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille.

Doctors meeting at the World Congress of Family Doctors in Durban have commmitted themselves to ensuring that affordable anti-AIDS drugs become available to the world'€™s poor '€“ not just to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, but also as treatment for those living with the virus.

AIDS activists will picket outside the Johannesburg Hospital's HIV clinic today (Friday) in protest against understaffing and poor resources which have rendered the clinic virtually inoperable over the past few months. As Anso Thom reports, the sorry state of affairs at the clinic has existed for some time.

The pharmacy industry has moved swiftly to prepare itself for the implementation of the much disputed Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act that is set to bring huge changes to the entire medical industry. The price of prescription medicine is likely to fall as pharmacists  swop their profit margins for a professional fee. Anso Thom reports...

The Treatment Action Campaign plans to intensify its campaign to pressurise government to extend its prevention programme against mother-to-child-transmission of HIV. TAC wants government to offer HIV positive pregnant women access to the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine at 18 sites countrywide.

Swiss drug company Novartis has indicated that is in the final stages of negotiating a slash in the price of a malaria drug, a move that would benefit South Africa as well.