News

There was little to celebrate in South Africa and more specifically in the Eastern Cape on World Aids Day.

In Vulindlela, the pleasures an older man with money is able to give to a teenage girl come at a price: six times’ greater risk of HIV.

This has been another confusing year for those trying to make sense of government's AIDS policy, thanks to the Minister of Health and her oddball connections.

Shelley Point, Stompneus Bay, Paternoster, Hopefield…place names that for many conjure up images of lazy holidays filled white beaches, blue sea, whale watching, surfing, crayfish and cold wine.

At Nosihle’s school, Izingolweni Primary School in the south of KwaZulu-Natal, one in ten children have lost one or both parents.

South Africa’s Aids epidemic, one of the largest in the world, shows no sign of relenting, while infection levels continue to drop in Uganda and now also in parts of Kenya and Zimbabwe, according the UNAIDS Aids Epidemic Update.

The Treatment Action Campaign this week released a statement and fact sheet in which it explains why it holds Matthias Rath responsible for several deaths of HIV infected individuals.

The HIV/AIDS programme initiated by Medicins sans Frontieres in Lusikisiki is well on its way to reaching everyone in the sub-district that needs treatment.

The Rath Foundation, which promotes its vitamins as a cure for AIDS and encourages HIV positive people to abandon their antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, has set its sights on the Eastern Cape.

Leading activists and experts on HIV/AIDS from six southern African countries will meet in Pretoria from 25-27 October to discuss stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV.

Two HIV-positive women presented to the media in June by the Dr Rath Health Foundation as examples of how its vitamins can reverse Aids have admitted that they were on antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs all along.

Renewed calls for Government to take action against the controversial Dr Rath Health Foundation have come from a large group of health professionals working in the Western Cape’s internationally acclaimed antiretroviral programme.

Top government health officials seem poised to let the Dr Rath Health Foundation off the hook for conducting illegal clinical trials on people with HIV in Khayelitsha.

The ARV treatment plan is drawing health staff away from other services, while at the same time it desperately needs more staff to expand, according to the SA Health Review.

Two HIV-positive women in Khayelitsha died within weeks of being convinced to discard their medication in favour of vitamins touted as a cure by the Dr Rath Health Foundation, while others say they were told to strip to their underwear, photographed and had blood taken without giving consent. By Anso Thom and Khopotso Bodibe.

Lack of funds is behind the decision, amid claims of "protocal violations" and counter-claims of unilateral decision-making by the funder.

Children tend to do better on antiretroviral treatment than adults, but many treatment sites are nervous to treat them

Only 5% of babies born to HIV positive mothers at a small, dedicated hospital get the virus.

South Africa now has the biggest prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programme in the world. Health-e speaks to the health department’s Dr Nomonde Xundu about its challenges and successes.

Fear of antiretroviral drugs meant that most patients at one of the country’s oldest HIV/AIDS treatment clinics waited until they were desperate before seeking treatment.