Almost half of South Africa's 15-year olds will become infected with HIV during the course of their lifetime. And the probability of die before the age of 60. But it is important to unpack these frightening figures in order to make sense of them. Jo Stein reports
Read More » 45% of adults will become HIV infectedSix months after five major pharmaceutical companies and the Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) declared their intention to make HIV drugs more affordable to poor countries, South Africa has yet to express formal interest in entering negotiations.
Read More » South Africa yet to express interest in UNAIDS drug offerNew research provides direct evidence that anti-retroviral drugs can prevent HIV infection after sexual intercourse. This research comes amid a series of controversial decisions regarding the provision of AZT to rape victims in South Africa. The new national guidelines for HIV care launched on Tuesday (24th October) deny the use of anti-retroviral drugs to rape survivors but the Western Cape will provide AZT to rape survivors nonetheless. Jo Stein reports.
Read More » New evidence that drugs prevent HIV infection after rapeLucky is not a word usually applied to people living in wind-swept Khayelitsha. Yet this is how Pumeza Bikwe and over a thousand other mothers feel, thanks to a unique health programme that may have saved their babies'€™ lives.
Read More » Khayelitsha women get lucky
Experts believe "the benefits outweigh the potential adverse effects" in the use of antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.
Read More » World experts give antiretrovirals the go-aheadIn this week's feature on "Living with AIDS", we take a look at the fuss surrounding a generic version of the patented drug, fluconazole, which was imported illegally from Thailand recently as a protest action by the Treatment Action Campaign.
Read More » Living with AIDS – October, 26While politicians and health economists debate the cost implications of offering mother to child treatment programmes, health workers face HIV positive men, women and children on a daily basis.
Read More » Living with AIDS – October 19, 2000
South Africa has six times the number of very low birth weight babies than developed countries but there are more low birth weight babies born in the Western Cape than in other provinces. The Western Cape department of health is introducing "kangaroo care" as the preferred method of treating low-birth weight babies after research at Tygerberg Hospital showed the method reduced infant mortality and saved the hospital R1-million a year. Jo Stein reports
Read More » Caring for low-birth weight infants in the Western Cape will be kangaroo styleThe growing number of women who smoke and have become addicted to nicotine was among the issues highlighted at the public hearings held by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last week as a precursor to this week's negotiations leading to a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Read More » Women smokers on the increaseThe Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has challenged pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to take action against it for defying their patent on Fluconazole and importing the generic version from Thailand at a fraction of the cost of what it is being sold in South Africa. ANSO THOM reports.
Read More » TAC defy drug patentsIntergovernmental negotiations that will lead to a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control governing the sale and marketing of tobacco are set to begin in earnest today (Tuesday).
Read More » Tobacco talks slowly swing into action
There are many men in South Africa who have sex with other men but don't consider themselves "gay". In the absence of funding for research, the extent of HIV infection among homsexual men in South Africa is largely unknown. But recent research conducted by the Triangle Project in Cape Town shows that risk-taking behaviour among gay men in the Mother City is alarmingly high. Jo Stein reports.
Read More » The gay community: a hidden HIV/AIDS epidemic?
In early 1999, Sister Thulisiwe Luhabe sent in an anonymous blood sample of her own blood to the laboratory at the hospital where she worked because she suspected she might be HIV+. The test result confirmed her suspicions. Two years later, after successful treatment for TB, Sister Luhabe is more motivated than ever to share her knowledge of HIV with her patients.
Read More » Nurse with HIV is positive about her workNegotiations for a world treaty on tobacco control begin here today (Monday) among members of the World Health Assembly under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Read More » Tobacco control – talks underwayThe Tobacco Products Control Amendment Act, which comes into effect on October 1st, imposes tight controls on smoking in restaurants, pubs, shebeens, hotels and workplaces, as well as limiting tobacco advertising and the sale of tobacco products.
Read More » Smoking ‘€“ what the regulations say