As of 15 March 2010, 21 human laboratory confirmed cases of River Valley Fever (RVF) have been reported in the Free State with two deaths. This brings a total to 22 human cases of RVF in South Africa, with one in the Northern Cape.
HIV stakeholders are calling on the Medicines Control Council (MCC) to speed up the registration of critical anti-HIV medication or face legal action. The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society has sent an appeal to the health minister to intervene and address the MCC registration process which they describe as the single biggest obstacle to getting affordable access to medicines.
OPINION: : Even if Zuma's World AIDS Day speech is matched with sufficient budget allocation, innovative models of providing HIV and TB care will be needed to achieve the targets of the National Strategic Plan. Lesley Odendal reflects on the lessons learnt in Khayelitsha's HIV and TB project as a window into the future.
The Budget and Expenditure Monitoring Forum recently held its second meeting and focused on the upcoming antiretroviral tender and the need to ensure that it is structured and run in a manner that enables the state to procure an adequate supply of appropriate medicines at the lowest possible prices.
The Treatment Action Campaign explains why it is important for Zuma to show leadership and take responsibility for himself, for those around him and for South Africa when it comes to preventing HIV.
KIGALI: (PlusNews) - Doreen Uwimana, in her early 20s, carries condoms in her bag even when she goes to classes at a college in an upmarket suburb of the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
The health department is redesigning the new ARV tender in the hope of procuring cheaper antiretroviral medicine amid claims that South Africa is paying around 30% more than the global rate for the drugs.
The national health department has signed off new HIV treatment guidelines, bringing South Africa in line with international best practice and removing a drug responsible for a wide range of side effects.
Treating herpes does not reduce the risk of transmitting HIV, a New England Journal of Medicine study has found. The anti-herpes medication is dispensed from all South African Primary Healthcare clinics in the public sector and has been added to the sexually transmitted infection treatment guidelines.
HIV prevention is based on getting people to change their sexual habits ' but this is a very difficult process as President Zuma has shown.
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See you in 2010!
President Jacob Zuma's announcement last week that he will take a public HIV test will go a long way in boosting a massive HIV testing campaign that will start early next year. This will encourage all South Africans to know their status.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) can be delivered safely in the first year without routine laboratory monitoring for toxic effects, according to an article in The Lancet.
KwaZulu-Natal has managed to slash HIV transmission from mothers to their newborn babies by almost two thirds -- to seven percent ' since it introduced 'dual therapy'.
This is according to research being released today (Tues 8th) following a huge, year-long study that involved interviewing 38 000 mothers at 347 clinics in six districts in the province.
Simple in its design and methodology, yet massive in its impact - the mothers2mothers (m2m) programme is emerging as one of the Aids epidemic's success stories.
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