A wild plant that produces beans and potato-like roots, for decades harvested by the San people in Nambia, is showing huge potential towards solving many malnutrition and hunger problems in Africa, but specifically southern Africa. The marama bean is proving to be a very versatile legume, say researchers at the University of Cape Town.
A resourceful attitude and creative approach to the humble plastic soft drink bottle have produced a new device to help children with asthma inhale their medication. Researchers at the University of Cape Town and the Red Cross Children's hospital have designed a local version of the inhaler-spacer which costs just R1 to make and is just as effective as commercial spacers which cost about R160. The plastic bottle spacers will soon be distributed free of charge to primary health care facilities throughout the Western Cape. The device is good news given that between 10 and 15% of children in South Africa suffer from asthma.
Giving some patients priority over over may be tough, but it is necessary if the TB epidemic is to be beaten with limited resources. This is the logic of international experts who are urging South Africa to pour resources into curing new cases of ordinary TB rather than spending any more money trying to treat multiple drug-resistant TB. "Pay attention to the new cases and fix them the first time around or they become retreatment and multiple drug-resistant cases. First we need to shut the tap," says Professor Don Enarson from the World Health Organisation TB review team.
It should be a time of joy, peace and goodwill ' yet all too often Christmas can be a time of loneliness, strained family relations and financial hardship. Psychologists warn that society has imposed all kinds of expectations around this time of year ' some of which are unrealistic and most of which are guaranteed to heighten stress levels. However, there are ways of coping.
Sex workers are leading the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS on the mines around Carltonville. The challenge is daunting -- a recent survey shows 47 percent of women and 40 percent of men from both the township and the shacks are HIV positive, while 28 percent of mineworkers are infected. However, since the Carltonville AIDS project, Mothusimpilo ("working together for health"), started almost two years ago, it has trained 90 sex workers as peer educators. The results have been phenomenal. In a recent survey, eight out of 10 sex workers reported using a condom every time they had sex. Last year, only two out of 10 of the women were using condoms.
The biggest killer in history has not been TB or warfare, and projections suggest that not even AIDS will kill as many people as a parasite injected into the bloodstream by a female Anopheles mosquito: malaria. South Africa is not immune. With more than 43 000 cases and 310 deaths reported since September last year, experts are warning that the worst is yet to come, particularly as there has been heavy rainfall over the past few weeks in KwaZulu/Natal, the Northern Province and Mpumalanga the country's malaria hotspots.
Almost half the maternal deaths in South Africa during 1998 were preventable. This is according to the Health Department's Confidential Enquiry into maternal deaths in South Africa. The report identifies numerous shortcomings in the health care system, many of which concern failures in the referral and transport systems between health institutions. The Department of Health has accepted the recommendations of the report and will start implementing them.
The question is simple, the answer is not. How do you explain the fact that South Africa has one of the best AIDS plans in the world, but also the fastest growing epidemic?
"We are burying about three truck drivers a day because of AIDS, and at this rate we will have no drivers left by 2003," says Paul Matthew, acting chief executive office of the Road Freight Association's training board. But even though forecasts for the trucking industry are dire, Matthew says it's a "slow process" getting employers to put money into fighting the epidemic.
When she realised she was HIV positive, Faghmeda Miller's first thoughts were: "I have shamed my family, they are going to shun me". But the church needs to be able to offer hope and acceptance to people living with AIDS.
There has been an alarming increase in the proportion of adolescent patients at drug treatment centres countrywide, according to Charles Parry of the Medical Research Council. In Cape Town, for example, the proportion of patients under 20 drug treatment centres in Cape Town has more than doubled since 1996 from 6% to 15% in 1999.
For the first time the Medical Research Council honoured two black researchers for their contributions to medical research. The role of the MRC in the coming years is to do research to provide the most up-to-date scientific evidence to allow the public and policymakers to make informed choices.
Driving to the Sipetu and Mary Theresa hospitals in the Eastern Cape is not for the fainthearted, but every month hundreds of people brave the potholes, mud (when it's raining) and distances in excess of 50km to bring their severely malnourished children for treatment. More than a year ago most of the mothers would have probably returned home alone, but a simple, cost-effective intervention has seen a huge decrease in the death rates of malnourished children. The developing world is now looking towards the Mt Frere and Sipetu communities, one of the most under-resourced regions in South Africa, for answers on how to treat severely malnourished children.
When Sipetu Hospital's matron, Eugenia Ngewu, stood up to pray asking for an end to malnutrition in their community, she had little Thulani (5) in mind. He arrived at Sipetu and was immediately diagnosed with Kwashiorkor, a form of severe malnutrition.
Pharmacists will be doing a year's community service by 2001, and the health department may also draft physiotherapists, occupational and speech therapists and psychologists into service.
