HIV-positive people living in Graaff-Reinet and surrounds are dying as they wait for the long-promised arrival of antiretrovirals, leaving hospice workers in the Eastern Cape town to care for the dying patients and the children they leave behind.
With the introduction of antiretroviral medicine, many of hospice's patients now have cancer not AIDS.
'Miracles' have been taking place at Mofolo Hospice with the arrival of anti-retrovirals as patients admitted on the brink of death leave the in-patient unit on their own two feet.
The next round in the battle against bed cuts at Western Cape hospitals will take place at the provincial parliament on Wednesday when health workers hold a protest meeting outside the legislature to voice their opposition to multi-million rand budget cuts announced in March.
Brooklyn Chest Clinic is unable to cope with the increase in patients with multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extreme drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis, and Western Cape health workers are calling for patients to be treated in the community.
A publication looking at health and human rights would be incomplete without a focus on HIV/AIDS. The recently-published Health & Democracy is one such book.
Rape survivors are not getting the healthcare they need.
The World Health Organisation has called on governments to include a childhood vaccine, known as Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine, which acts against pneumonia and meningitis in their national immunisation programmes. Pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children globally, and more so, in countries with a high burden of HIV.
The detention of patients with extremely drug resistant (XDR) TB should only be considered as a last resort when all other voluntary measures have failed, according to the South African health department. By Chris Makhaye & Kerry Cullinan.
Refugees, asylum seekers, economic and undocumented or illegal migrants all flock to South Africa for particular reasons. Often, locals believe that these are to steal away what belongs to South Africans, such as health care. Two refugees who benefit from the South African health care system explain that when they fled their countries of origin, it wasn't to seek antiretroviral therapy.
As with every citizen, refugees have rights, including the right to health care. In line with that the Southern African HIV Clinicians' Society and the United Nations' High Commission for Refugees recently launched a policy to guide health workers in the region on providing antiretrovirals to refugees.
Organizations representing Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa are calling upon the government to intervene in challenges they face in accessing health care in the country.
From April 1st, insurance companies belonging to the Life Offices' Association, will no longer deny policy holders life, disability or funeral cover benefits should they become infected with HIV.
A new publication, 'Off the Map', shows how the exclusion of sexual minorities in national HIV/AIDS programmes in Africa could jeopardise the continent's efforts to rid itself of the epidemic.
In what is termed a 'historic' meeting, government, civil society and business leaders are today coming together for the last of a two-day summit in Johannesburg to finalise the country's AIDS plan for the next five years.
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