NHLS crisis draws blood
The 2014 South African HIV Clinicians Society conference was plastered with a guerrilla sticker campaign: ‘Saving the NHLS = saving lives’. The National Health Laboratory Service – a national asset…
NSP 2017-2022: Our Fifth National AIDS plan presents SA’s greatest challenge yet
Former deputy Chairperson of the SA National AIDS Council (SANAC) and long-time AIDS activist Mark Heywood’s plea to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as we craft our next response to the epidemic.
Sexual and reproductive health rights should matter to all
Why have sexual and reproductive rights remained controversial and contested in Africa? Building on a previous SRHR-focussed Spotlight article by Thuthu Mbatha and Mark Heywood, Tendai Mafuma takes on this difficult question.
Opinion: Right of access to affordable meds watered down in Presidential Compact
The root causes of high prices—unchecked patent-granted monopolies—remain in place. Once again, thousands of lives are being lost on the altar of profiteering. Mark Heywood and Zain Rizvi argue why South Africa must urgently adopt a new patent law.
Activism and Civil society: what it is and what it’s not
By Mark Heywood – 2016 is a year of AIDS anniversaries. It is the 20th anniversary of the International AIDS conference in Vancouver where the successful use of combination antiretroviral therapy for the treatment of HIV was first announced. A full version of the special edition of Spotlight will be released during the International AIDS Conference in Durban which starts on 17 July. This is an article which will be published in Spotlight.
Ten years since the TAC case
A judgment that saved a million lives [caption id="attachment_929" align="alignnone" width="567"] Photo by Zackie Achmat, courtesy of Treatment Action Campaign Archive[/caption] “The magnitude of the HIV/AIDS challenge facing the country…
AIDS2018: The future of AIDS activism: If we don’t join the dots we are dead
For over 30 years activism has been the engine that has driven almost every advance in our response to the AIDS epidemic. Mark Heywood assesses the state of activism in…
The next International AIDS Conference needs to be “an earthquake”
By Nomatter Ndebele – Ten years ago, the International AIDS Conference was held in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. Nkosi Johnson, who died a year later at the age of 12 – the longest-surviving HIV-positive born child at the time – addressed the plenary and made a plea to the government to make antiretroviral treatment available to pregnant women with HIV.
Millions of lives depend on it
The outgoing Deputy Chair of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), Mark Heywood, gives a frank assessment of the state of SANAC and what the body will need over…
Not forgotten: The sordid story of how Mosebenzi ‘Gupta’ Zwane’s thugs wreaked havoc in a Free State hospital
An article this week by the Daily Maverick’s Ferial Haffajee The sordid story of Mosebenzi ‘Gupta’ Zwane – South Africa’s most captured Cabinet minister reminds us just what a scumbag this former MEC, Minister and still Member of our Parliament is.
Editorial: Can health be fixed without fixing politics?
Several provincial health departments have stumbled from crisis to crisis over the last decade with no sign of sustained or meaningful improvement. One reason for this, argues Spotlight editor Marcus Low, is political interference and the cadre deployment and cronyism that usually goes with it. If this is correct, is it realistic to think we can address the dysfunction in our health departments without addressing the politics behind it?
State capture threatens the right to health
State capture and corruption casts a long shadow over all spheres of the public service, including healthcare. For our World AIDS Day edition of Spotlight Mark Heywood takes on this difficult topic. We’re publishing this important article online today ahead of its publication in print.