Free State making little progress
Less than 600 patients have started antiretroviral treatment since the Free State province lifted the moratorium on treatment and the waiting list of 15 000 grows daily.
Health Systems
Read More » Free State making little progress
Free State AIDS patients in the dark about services Living with AIDS Programme 382
While the Free State Health Department maintains that last November'€™s moratorium preventing about 15 000 new patients from getting antiretroviral treatment has been lifted, patients and civil society organisations paint a different picture.
More people report sexual violence in SA ‘€“ MSF
The humanitarian medical aid agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), has reported an increase in rape cases reported to its various clinics in South Africa and worldwide. MSF recently released a report detailing the nature of cases patients present their aid workers with.
FS health workers abandon patients to do ANC electioneering
Despite a health crisis in the Free State caused by a funding shortage, the provincial health department has granted 160 health workers who are members of the ANC-aligned National Education Health and Allied Workers'€™ Union (NEHAWU) paid leave for six months to do election campaigning for the ANC.
Govt acts against Rath at last
The National Health Department has for the first time taken firm steps against vitamin seller Matthias Rath by confiscating consignments of his flagship multi-vitamin VitaCell in Durban and Cape Town and opening criminal cases for his alleged contravention of the Medicines Act.
OPINION: Crisis as Free State ARV programme collapses
The AIDS epidemic in our country, over more than 10 years, has had sadly many more downs than ups.
More chaos for Zimbabweans as home affairs displaces Musina refugees
Thousands of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa have been displaced after an order by the Department of Home of Affairs for them to vacate a field in Musina where they have been living for several months.
Hundreds of thousands left without medical care as MSF Holland is expelled from Darfur
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) issued an urgent press release this week stating that the Dutch section of the organisation has been expelled from Darfur.
Sex workers want inclusion in HIV/AIDS programmes
At the first ever African Sex Workers'€™ Conference held in Johannesburg recently, sex workers called on governments to recognise their needs in their plans to respond to the AIDS epidemic.
Survival in the time of cholera
Pia Engebrigtsen worked for 2 months as a nurse in Zimbabwe's Masvingo province during the country's cholera outbreak, in which MSF has so far treated more than 45,000 people. Here she shares her story of death, heartbreak, survival and saving lives against all odds.
Zimbabwe’s worsening crisis
Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis continues to rapidly deteriorate, causing appalling suffering, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warn in a report released this week. The organisation'€™s medical teams have now treated almost 45,000 people, an estimated 75% of the total number of cases in the current cholera outbreak - and the crisis is far from over.
Zim health ‘€“ a ticking time bomb Living with AIDS # 379
A threat of more infectious diseases, a drug-resistant AIDS epidemic and malnutrition could add to Zimbabwe'€™s current cholera woes, says humanitarian medical aid agency, Doctors Without Borders.
Drugs trickle into the Free State
Most hospital and clinics in the Free State have still not started treating the more than 15 000 people waiting for their anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, however the national health department has given the assurance that drugs will now start arriving at all 28 sites.
Hidden Suffering on Private Land
It's been almost 15 years since we voted for all South Africans to have equal access to government services...to have dignity and a better life. To have treatment for life-threatening illnesses. But every now and then, as journalists, we step into corners of the country where apartheid and its indignities remains alive and well. Where the services that government has designed to improve our lives just CAN'T reach.
One Doctor’€™s Discoveries about Infection Control
Would you believe that world-wide, 2 in 5 people don't have access to safe sanitation!? Today in our series on EVERYDAY HEROES '€“ people who make a difference in their part of the world '€“ we visit a doctor and a nursery school principal who are playing their part to promote good hygiene.