Despite research findings that 30% of SA children under six are Vitamin A deficient, the Medicines Control Council has failed to fast track the registration of the life-saving supplement. Poor co-operation between the MCC and the Department of Health along with unnecessary stalling has allowed tens of thousands of children to continue to suffer Vitamin A deficiency in this country, a condition that has seen thousands die because their immune systems are compromised. Health-e investigates why Vitamin A needs to be distributed as a matter of urgency.

A recent conference has called on the church to play an important and meaningful role in educating people about HIV/AIDS as well as offering much-needed support to people who are infected and affected by the virus.

New research shows that HIV positive mothers who breastfeed their babies are more likely to die than those who use formula milk.

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.