Once again the battle against the South African AIDS epidemic has been dealt a blow with controversy and politicking surrounding the long awaited announcement of the National AIDS Council.Now the danger, according to AIDS activists, is that as in the past with Sarafina 2 and Virodene, good intentions on the side of government, will do more harm than good.
AIDS orphans are to get special attention after President Thabo Mbeki and Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) this week agreed that HIV/AIDS would be a major focus of Unicef's work in this country.
"Mama Khoza" spends most of her weekends at graveyards, not really to honour those who have already moved on, but as she puts it "to bury the cream of Mamelodi". "I told someone last week. We are burying the cream of Mamelodi - youngsters who are in the process of completing their degrees," says Veronica Khoza, a retired nurse, who now runs Tateni, a community-based home care project.
Community service for doctors in South Africa was conceived amid controversy, but has emerged as a symbol of the commitment of the health department and the medical establishment to equity in the health system, according to the SA Health Review. But a concern remains the fact that unclear policy guidelines in the first year of implementation lead to only 259 (less than 25%) of the community service doctors being placed in rural hospitals, while 55% were working in regional, tertiary and specialised hospitals.First year intakes for medical students have shown a trend towards a more equitable racial distribution of students with a decrease in white students and an increase in the number of African students, the SA Health Review has revealed.
Most of the doctors who completed their community service year at the end of 1999 intended remaining in the public service, while a large percentage were planning to go overseas.
February 7 to 12 is National Condom Week, yet despite the HIV/AIDS epidemic, most people are still not using condoms. Efforts to give teenagers access to condoms are hampered by conservative attitudes. One AIDS educator says although he'€™s conducted workshops at more than 400 schools in Gauteng, only five schools have allowed him to distribute condoms.
Children with learning difficulties not only have to live with their problem, but also the labels that go with them. While some learning difficulties are neurological, some children struggle simply because they have not been exposed to books and pencils.
The growing problem of drug dependency and alcoholism among youth worldwide is well documented. At the 10th World Congress of the International Commission for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug Dependency held recently in Cape Town, several presentations focused on how to protect teenagers from dangerous choices. A crucial element it seems, is in meaningful relationships between adults and children.
The need for cheap alternatives to hospitalisation for patients with AIDS-related diseases has led to increasing government support for home-based care. However, a study released by the Centre for Health Policy at the University of the Witwatersrand warns that home-based care is not always a cheaper solution. The study shows that home-based care also needs resources, even if the programme relies mainly on volunteers.
Flu experts hold different views as to which strain of influenza is going to hit South Africans hardest this winter, but they all agree on one thing: a flu jab is a must. An anti-flu vaccine administered in March will help boost your ability to resist the virus or to recover quicker from the flu should it strike.
A wild plant that produces beans and potato-like roots, for decades harvested by the San people in Nambia, is showing huge potential towards solving many malnutrition and hunger problems in Africa, but specifically southern Africa. The marama bean is proving to be a very versatile legume, say researchers at the University of Cape Town.
A resourceful attitude and creative approach to the humble plastic soft drink bottle have produced a new device to help children with asthma inhale their medication. Researchers at the University of Cape Town and the Red Cross Children'€™s hospital have designed a local version of the inhaler-spacer which costs just R1 to make and is just as effective as commercial spacers which cost about R160. The plastic bottle spacers will soon be distributed free of charge to primary health care facilities throughout the Western Cape. The device is good news given that between 10 and 15% of children in South Africa suffer from asthma.
The biggest killer in history has not been TB or warfare, and  projections suggest that not even AIDS will  kill as many people as a parasite injected into the bloodstream by a female Anopheles mosquito: malaria. South Africa is not immune. With more than 43 000 cases and 310 deaths reported since September last year, experts are warning that the worst is yet to come, particularly as there has been heavy rainfall over the past few weeks in KwaZulu/Natal, the Northern Province and Mpumalanga the country's malaria hotspots.
Giving some patients priority over over may be tough, but it is necessary if the TB epidemic is to be beaten with limited resources. This is the logic of international experts who are urging South Africa to pour resources into curing new cases of ordinary TB rather than spending any more money trying to treat multiple drug-resistant TB. Â "Pay attention to the new cases and fix them the first time around or they become retreatment and multiple drug-resistant cases. First we need to shut the tap," says Professor Don Enarson from the World Health Organisation TB review team.
Sex workers are leading the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS on the mines around Carltonville. The challenge is daunting -- a recent survey shows 47 percent of women and 40 percent of men from both the township and the shacks are HIV positive, while 28 percent of mineworkers are infected. However, since the Carltonville AIDS project, Mothusimpilo ("working together for health"), started almost two years ago, it has trained 90 sex workers as peer educators. The results have been phenomenal. In a recent survey, eight out of 10 sex workers reported using a condom every time they had sex. Last year, only two out of 10 of the women were using condoms.
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