Time to take a cold, hard look
By Professor Peter Piot With over 3 000 people dying from HIV infection every single day and 5 500 becoming newly infected, AIDS is not over by any means. [caption…
So many successes, but too many new HIV-infections
Dr Fareed Abdullah & Kanya Ndaki – As the global HIV community returns to South Africa for the International AIDS Conference, there is no better time to take stock of the progress the country has made.
It’s too soon to speak of the end of AIDS
By Professor Chris Beyrer, Professor Linda-Gail Bekker & Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi There has been remarkable progress in the AIDS response. We have come a long way since the 13th International…
Motsoaledi and the devil’s alternative
By Ntsiki Mpulo – Health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi sat down with Spotlight in an exclusive interview. He shares details on how the department plans to target vulnerable groups in efforts to stem the incidence of HIV. He speaks passionately on plans to target adolescents, a little less forceful on decriminalizing sex work and is thin on detail when it comes to men who have sex with men.
How the law helps – or hinders – the fight against the AIDS epidemic
By Justice Edwin Cameron – It has been almost 35 years since AIDS was identified. Thirty-five long years, since the disquieting realisation that young men in North America, in the prime of their lives, were dying from a hitherto unknown virus.
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.
Fighting for the right to care
Community health workers (CHWs), who are predominantly women have struggled to be formally integrated into the health service delivery system, and they are disgruntled.
The barefoot soldiers of a public health care system that doesn’t seem to care
By Nomatter Ndebele – For the past 17 years, 55-year old Doris Ntuli has worked as a community caregiver (CCG) in the community of Sweetwaters, in Pietermaritzburg, Durban. In that time Ntuli has only received a pay increase of R300 (US$20). Her total monthly income is R1500 (US$95).
“Bring your pubic hair” – healers and quacks continue to thrive in KwaZulu-Natal
In KwaZulu-Natal, according to reports from the Human Sciences Research Council, there are 1.8 million people who are HIV positive. Of those, 1.1 million are on the antiretroviral programme. Yet, despite making great strides in the fight against HIV, the streets of KZN are still full of non-medical “healers” who prey on sick, desperate and vulnerable people desperate to be cured of HIV. Nomatter Ndebele visits two “healers” with thriving businesses.
Fewer children are dying of severe malnutrition, but ignorance continues to kill babies
By Bill Corcoran & Nomatter Ndebele – Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) remains stubbornly entrenched in many of KwaZulu-Natal province’s rural and peri-urban communities, on-the-ground evidence gathered by the Spotlight suggests.
Health in the Free state
A province that is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Spotlight keeps the focus on this beleaguered province and the right to health care as provided by the State. Some good news, some bad news and some downright ugly news. The spotlight has to remain on this province.
The long wait
By Ufrieda Ho – Nurses are giving Cecilia Mokole dirty looks. Mokole meets their stares. She doesn’t care anymore what they think, or what they may do to her for speaking out.