New research provides direct evidence that anti-retroviral drugs can prevent HIV infection after sexual intercourse. This research comes amid a series of controversial decisions regarding the provision of AZT to rape victims in South Africa. The new national guidelines for HIV care launched on Tuesday (24th October) deny the use of anti-retroviral drugs to rape survivors but the Western Cape will provide AZT to rape survivors nonetheless. Jo Stein reports.

It is now thought that the South African population will in all likelihood stop growing as a result of HIV/AIDS. High numbers of AIDS deaths will play a role, but so will the impact of HIV/AIDS on fertility. These are some of the population research findings reported at The Joint Population Conference held in Port Elizabeth recently. Jo Stein reports.

The Birth to Ten study in Johannesburg is one of the biggest and longest running studies of child health and development world-wide. The study suggests that while poverty in itself does not make for maladapted children, violence has extremely damaging psychological effects. Jo Stein reports

According to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the recent announcement by Western Cape Minister of Health Nick Koornhof that the mother-to-child prevention of HIV/AIDS programme would be rolled out to five new areas next year may be little more than an election ploy.

The Treatment Action Campaign held a picket in Cape Town recently, protesting the Western Cape's government selective implementation of its mother-to-child HIV/AIDS prevention programme. Jo Stein reports.

Developing countries like Cambodia are following the Thai example and implementing successful 100% condom use programmes for commercial sex workers. But some argue that the approach discriminates against commercial sex workers. Jo Stein reports

In South Africa, there is no co-ordinated national policy specifically targeting the sex industry to prevent the spread of HIV infection. But such a policy may be less appropriate for South Africa than for other developing countries. By Jo Stein.

Regular virginity testing is seen as a solution to HIV/AIDS. But for the majority of virginity testers, assessing virginity has nothing to do with whether a girl's hymen is intact. Many testers also not see virginity as an absolute state. There may be "grades" of relative virginity. One virginity tester from Zululand reported recently on his technique for testing boys.

There is little doubt of the urgent need to involve citizens in community development. But current labour legislation discourages, rather than encourages, volunteering in South Africa. Non-governmental organisations operating on shoestring budgets cannot afford to employ additional staff and need all the voluntary help they can get.

There is little doubt of the urgent need to involve citizens in community development. But current labour legislation discourages, rather than encourages, volunteering in South Africa. Non-governmental organisations operating on shoestring budgets cannot afford to employ additional staff and need all the voluntary help they can get.

With their panties scrunched up in their hands, the girls laying in a row on the ground of a township football stadium range from five to 22 years old. The virginity tester, whose job it is to determine whether the girls are still virgins, uses the same pair of gloves for all 85 girls. Certificates are exchanged, at a cost of R5 each, for all but the three of the girls who "failed" the test. This is a scene described by University of Natal anthropologist, Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala who points out that regular virginity testing is gaining growing public support as an AIDS prevention strategy in South Africa, especially in KwaZulu'€“Natal.