Dr Hermann Reuter did pioneering work treating HIV in the early 2000s in Cape Town and in the rural Eastern Cape. Today, his focus is substance abuse, which he believes is the country’s biggest health issue after HIV. Sue Segar spent time with him to learn about his work in the Garden Route city of George.
South Africa has an ageing population of people living with HIV. For the first time a set of clinical guidelines maps out a framework to help keep this group of people healthier for longer, reports Elna Schütz.
If an HIV prevention pill that provides a month of protection at a time performs well in two ongoing clinical trials, it could become the next big thing in HIV prevention after the lenacapavir injection. A new licensing agreement is paving the way for South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare to produce the pill should the study findings be positive and the drug be registered.
A new antiretroviral combination pill that is taken only once a week appears to work as well as daily pills at treating HIV. This is according to interim study findings to be presented next week at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
An NGO offers safe, private HIV services to Men who Have Sex with Men and transgender people in George. Sue Segar met with some of the people using these services, and found the NGO, TB HIV Care are already providing relief from the hostile reactions trans people sometimes experience in government clinics.
Eight months after the Supreme Court of Appeal gave the green light for specially trained pharmacists to dispense antiretrovirals without a script from a doctor, the programme remains stuck in the starting blocks. With enabling permits now seemingly on the horizon, Angela Tembo and Dr Deanne Johnston ask if there has been sufficient planning to make the initiative a success.
As South Africa marks 50 years since the June 1976 youth uprising for a dream of freedom, a new generation of young people dreaming of an HIV-free future gave their time, trust, and participation to help deliver a breakthrough new HIV prevention product that was launched this June, writes Ntando Yola.
With a new six-monthly injection, South Africa last week launched the most promising new HIV prevention tool in years, but much of the infrastructure that made HIV prevention services accessible to high-risk groups has been dismantled over the last year. Amy Green asks whether we can successfully deliver this breakthrough technology without the trusted pathways that were decimated by cuts to aid from the United States.
On June 5 2026, an HIV prevention injection will for the first time become available at some of South Africa’s public sector clinics. In this Spotlight special briefing, Marcus Low and Elri Voigt pull together all you need to know about this “breakthrough” jab.
A Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in October 2025 cleared the way for specially trained and permitted pharmacists to dispense antiretroviral medicines without a doctor’s script. Seven months later, no pharmacists are yet providing these services. Catherine Tomlinson explores the reasons for the delay.
By March 2027, the health department aims to have 1.5 million people living with HIV on a new programme where they can get a six-month supply of antiretroviral medicines at a time. Early indications suggest that implementation of the programme is slow and uneven, reports Christina Pitt.
The number of people in South Africa on antiretroviral treatment remained roughly unchanged from 2024 to 2025, according to just-published estimates from the leading mathematical model of HIV in the country. This suggests that the disruption of US aid for HIV services has slowed the growth of our HIV treatment programme, but the impact so far is not as severe as some researchers feared it might be. Marcus Low reports.
