The extent of tuberculosis and HIV co-infection rates in South Africa has firmly placed tuberculosis on the agenda of the South African National AIDS Council. This, after studies have shown that in some parts of the country, like in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape for example, about 73% of HIV-infected people also have TB.
A clinical trial aimed at investigating whether an antiretroviral pill a day could prevent women from getting HIV was abandoned yesterday (Mon 18 April).
Despite widely acknowledging that in some parts of the country like Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, about 73% of people with HIV also have Tuberculosis, Health Department programmes have failed to screen HIV-positive people for TB and to protect them from getting the bacterial infection.
Finding ways to effectively diagnose, prevent and treat tuberculosis in children is severely neglected, according to experts.
TB can hold serious physical and psychological consequences for those who are infected, and for children the diagnosis is often even bleaker. Dipuo Sedibe of Health-e News Service spent a day with a group of youngsters and their carers at Brooklyn Chest Hospital in Cape Town.
The 18th Conference on Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was recently held in Boston.
Some 60 000 fewer people died of AIDS last year than in 2005, thanks mainly to the country'€™s antiretroviral treatment campaign.
African countries need to take steps to monitor and prevent the spread of drug-resistant HIV.
This was the warning from researchers at the annual conference on retroviruses in Boston last week.
HIV-positive youth often find it hard to cope with their condition if they have lost close family due to the infection. This is a according to the Wits Institute for Sexual Reproductive Health HIV and Related Diseases. We spoke to one such teenager.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children'€™s Fund (UNICEF) have committed to working together to reduce child stunting in Eastern and Southern Africa in an effort to reach the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi this week announced the outcome of the antiretroviral tender. South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV which means the country has a massive drug bill. Motsoaledi managed massive discounts, halving the ARV bill.
When countries from around the world met at the turn of the century to define goals to lift the world out of poverty, South Africa was a proud participant.
South Africa remains below target on reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) pertaining to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, according to the 2010 South African Health Review.
The media is full of reports of teenagers indiscriminately having sex and even going as far as filming it. This has led to a public outcry. But what makes young people to engage in risky behaviour? Ayanda Yeni of Health-e News Service visited a school in Brits, in the North West province, where teen pregnancy is rife.
Huge strides are being made in HIV prevention, but despite the good news there remains an urgent need for an intervention that addresses the higher infection rates among women and current hopes are pinned on a microbicide.
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