
Breast really is best
JOHANNESBURG: (PlusNews) - The debate about the safest and healthiest infant feeding choice for HIV-positive mothers in the developing world should be over, according to one of South Africa's leading HIV/AIDS researchers.

JOHANNESBURG: (PlusNews) - The debate about the safest and healthiest infant feeding choice for HIV-positive mothers in the developing world should be over, according to one of South Africa's leading HIV/AIDS researchers.

NAIROBI: (PlusNews) - People living with HIV in Kenya do not have adequate access to family planning services, even though most HIV-infected women do not want children in the immediate future.

Drug stock-outs are continuing in the Free State with many HIV patients continuing to die while waiting to access anti-retrovirals while scores of patients who are already on treatment are defaulting as health facilities run out of drugs.

Too often, South African men are painted as violent, abusive and dangerous. Brothers for Life is out to promote the silent good guys.
In a massive breakthrough for poor countries struggling to meet the demand for antiretrovirals, the Clinton Foundation has signed an agreement with two key US drug companies to make HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB) treatment more affordable for developing countries.

MAPUTO: (PlusNews) - Thousands of people took to the streets of Maputo, capital of Mozambique, and the country's second city, Beira this week, to protest the government's closure of day care hospitals for HIV-positive patients.

MAPUTO: (PlusNews) - Less than 7 percent of HIV-positive children in Mozambique are receiving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, according to a new study.

KAMPALA: (PlusNews) - The government is investigating whether a nationwide shortage of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs led to the reported deaths of HIV-positive people in northern Uganda this month.

JOHANNESBURG: (PlusNews) - Nowhere is the goal of universal access to prevention, treatment and care more daunting than in South Africa, where an estimated 5.5 million people are living with HIV - the largest burden in the world.

JOHANNESBURG: (PlusNews) - While a number of countries in southern Africa have made great strides in improving access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV-infected adults, progress in rolling out treatment for HIV-positive infants and children has lagged behind. Namibia is a notable exception.

JOHANNESBURG: (PlusNews) - A Johannesburg high school recently did something that for years has only been whispered behind closed doors in education circles ' voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) for HIV was offered to students.

JOHANNESBURG: (PlusNews) - More South Africans could access HIV treatment earlier if government approves recommendations by the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), a move that could finally align national policy with international best practice.

Sicelo Shiceka this week stuck to his controversial statements that 'herbs' have an important role to play in 'bringing down the viral load in HIV/AIDS'.

EDITORIAL: Finally there is a small light flickering at the end of the dark tunnel. The political will and urgency, so severely lacking for nine long years while Thabo Mbeki and his health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang were in charge, is on the face of it slowly starting to emerge.
The world's largest open scientific conference on HIV/AIDS ended in Cape Town this week with a sense of optimism over future possibilities to stem the epidemic, outrage over funding cutbacks and revelations over failure to steadfastly implement tried and tested HIV prevention interventions and speed up universal access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment.