News

CAPE TOWN - The cost of a state supported anti-retroviral programme in its most expensive year could be below R10-billion and still be highly effective, according to calculations by Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and researchers at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

A palliative care centre has opened at St Mary’s Hospital in Mariannhill, KwaZulu-Natal to offer those at the end of their lives a place to die in relative peace, in clean sheets with access to pain relief, oxygen and sympathetic care-givers.

CAPE TOWN - KwaZulu-Natal should receive the much disputed U$11,4-million (R92,5-m) from the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria by April and this time around the province will have the full support of the national health department, according to Health minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

Drug companies are continuing to sell anti-retrovirals at hugely inflated prices in South Africa with some branded drugs selling for up to eight times more than generic versions available worldwide but that are not yet manufactured locally.

The sharp increase in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in South Africa can be attributed to the loss of Directly Observed Treatment Short-course Strategy (DOTS) workers to the more lucrative field of caring for people living with HIV/AIDS, health department officials admitted this week. Anso Thom reports.

PR blunders and secrecy mar government efforts to address HIV/AIDS, and fail to keep hope alive. Kerry Cullinan reports.

Government is under increasing pressure to provide anti-retroviral drugs to people with HIV. In developed countries, the drugs have resulted in babies born with HIV now reaching university. But what about South African children with HIV?

While the Treasury and Department of Health(DoH)number-crunch to determine whether government can afford anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment in public health, a number of small ARV programmes are already up and running.

AIDS activists have launched a contempt of court application against Mpumalanga Health MEC Sibongile Manana for failing to implement the Constitutional Court’s order on preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV.

Anti-retroviral drugs are becoming more accessible to people living with HIV through workplace programmes and research projects being set up countrywide. The drugs can't cure HIV but they can stop the virus from growing in your body, thus giving your body's immune system a chance to recover.

After months of speculation, the first independent and nationally representative study of HIV/AIDS in South Africa released in Johannesburg today (Thursday) revealed several shock findings.

The world’s most powerful weapon against HIV/AIDS -- anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs – dominated public debate about the disease in South Africa this year. By Kerry Cullinan.

The Minister of Social Development Dr. Zola Skweyiya and the Minister of Land and Agriculture, Ms. Thoko Didiza will on Friday visit the most poverty stricken areas of the country in Ntabankulu, OR Tambo District, Eastern Cape where they will make major announcements regarding R400-million allocated for poverty relief for the most vulnerable families and communities.

It’s not the most expansive programme in the country, but if a pilot in Guguletu, Cape Town’s second oldest township, proves successful excuses for not treating people living with AIDS in the public sector could be wearing thin.

One lingering look and Bongi and Elliot knew they wanted to be together. But later, their love disintegrated as lies, infidelity and a retrovirus played on their frailties and fears.

Busi has been too weak to get out of bed for the past two months. Her tiny eight-month-old baby, Nomsa, hangs limply in her listless arms. Even crying takes too much effort. Her home-based carer changes the sheets, which are streaked yellow with diarrhoea. She asks Busi’s mother how she is coping, but the mother shrugs and turns away so that we cannot see her tears. Five small children turn their worried faces towards us.

Positive. That’s the only way to describe the attitude of Dr Liz Floyd, Gauteng’s head of HIV/AIDS, to the province’s campaign against the disease over the past year.

Nkosi Johnson has become the most recognisable international face of AIDS. A year after his death Anso Thom of Health-e News, pays tribute to a little boy who not only enriched her life, but the lives of many others.

West Africa, the poorest region in the world, is preparing to treat 400 000 HIV positive people with anti-retrovirals within the next three years. This translates into anti-retroviral access for at least one-third of the people in the region in need of treatment. Currently, some 10 000 people in West Africa have access to anti-retroviral treatment.

Groaning under the weight of HIV/AIDS, KwaZulu-Natal's hospitals provide other provinces with a preview of what they can expect as their epidemics mature. Kerry Cullinan reports.