Thousands of desperate HIV positive patients in the Free State have been thrown a lifeline with news that millions has been secured to procure anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs needed to keep them alive.

Hundreds of patients are being denied antiretroviral treatment in the Free State. During a visit to Welkom'€™s Bongani Hospital last week Anso Thom and Lungi Langa spoke to three young men who are staring death in the face.

The young woman slowly slides the neatly folded papers from the envelope and gingerly places the three documents on the rickety table.

Nontskolo Tantiso had been feeling unwell for several months, but attempts to establish whether she may need antiretroviral treatment have seen her being sent from pillar to post.

In its current TV series, '€œOne Love'€, the non-profit health communication project, Soul City, is promoting the value of men and women being faithful to their partners and dedicating themselves to building one committed relationship.

The antiretroviral shortages in the Free State which reached crisis proportions last year when the province ran out of the critical medication are continuing, according to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).

KENYA:(PlusNews) - Jane Nyasuguta*, 40, a former teacher living in Nyanza Province, western Kenya, thought she and her husband had a good marriage until she discovered he had a mistress in a neighbouring town. She told IRIN/PlusNews that after his death from an AIDS-related illness, and her discovery that she too was HIV-positive, she was filled with resentment.

More people need health services because of HIV/AIDS yet there are fewer and fewer health workers to help them. The impact is particularly bad at primary healthcare facilities, the first stop for sick people without medical aid.

'€œShow me your number,'€ a new campaign using football players to boost awareness around HIV and AIDS on and off the soccer pitch was launched recently.

Two families are broken after losing their loved ones who were on Rath'€™s medication. Health-e visits them three years later.

Dr Matthias Rath is probably in contempt of court by continuing to sell his vitamins, including VitaCell as a medicine, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has said in a letter to Health Minister Barbara Hogan.

The former minister of health in Cameroon claims he has developed an AIDS '€œvaccine'€ that has '€œcured'€ 23 people of the disease, but when asked to produce those he had cured he could not.

Ceragem is a Korean massage bed registered by the American Food and Drug Administration in the US for the treatment of minor aches and pains in arthritis '€“ but in South Africa it is being touted as an AIDS cure.

'€œBring me people sick with AIDS who can'€™t walk'€, urges the poster stuck onto Durban bus shelters, with a cellphone number attached. The number leads to a man who called himself '€œDr Mama Grace'€ who operates from a small building on Grey Street in downtown Durban.

A Cape Town fertility clinic has opened one of the only dedicated laboratories for HIV positive patients in the world where couples can safely conceive and give birth to an HIV-negative baby.