Lack of affordable and accessible transport is emerging as a major hindrance towards poorer South Africans accessing state health care, especially for those living in rural areas.

Almost two out of every 10 people on antiretrovirals (ARVs) worldwide are being treated in South Africa, but this progress is still well below the estimated need, a United Nations report has revealed.

Dr Elly Katabira, president of the International AIDS Society has released a letter on the eve of a critical meeting to replenish the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He explains why it is critical to replenish the fund if we want to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Recent preliminary results of the microbicide gel, Tenofovir, which showed that it can protect women from HIV infection by about 39%, have sparked concern that people might be less cautious about the use of condoms. Communities say condoms are already being used sparingly.

Twenty two eminent HIV/AIDS doctors and activists have condemned a recent clinical trial for delaying the antiretroviral treatment of people with CD4 counts below 200 until they had finished their TB treatment, saying that it compromised their care.

Analysis of five years of antiretroviral treatment in the state sector has found that the number of South African patients who were lost to follow-up or could not be traced has rapidly increased from 1% in 2002 to 24% in 2007.

A South African study has found that antiretroviral therapy which includes a cheaper nevirapine-based regimen was as beneficial to the long-term health outcomes of HIV-positive infants'€™ as the more expensive Protease Inhibitor (PI)-based regimens currently prescribed.

Almost a million South Africans are already on lifelong antiretroviral treatment and this number is supposed to triple in the next decade if government keeps to its implementation plan.

In his column published in the Sowetan on 27 July 2010 ('€œResearch on HIV prevention gel put black lives at risk'€), Andile Mngxitama viciously attacks South African researchers who recently announced a huge breakthrough in the development of a microbicide, a gel that they hope women will be able to use to reduce their risk of being infected with HIV from sex.

In Vulindlela, the winter grass is yellow and an icy wind blows off the white-coated Drakensberg. But in the small collection of park homes that make up the local clinic and research site, there is warmth in people'€™s faces and voices.

In one of the biggest advances in HIV prevention in decades, a vaginal gel containing an antiretroviral drug has been proven to protect almost four out of 10 women from HIV.