Whether or not someone living with HIV in South Africa gets a one- or three-months’ supply of antiretrovirals at a time depends partly on the clinic where they happen to go for HIV care. Ahead of World AIDS Day 2024, Elri Voigt unpacks the legal and policy issues relating to prescriptions and HIV medicine refills and asks why people living with HIV are treated so differently in different parts of the country.
HIV prevention injections that can provide two, or even six, months of protection per shot have arguably been the biggest HIV story of the year. Ahead of World AIDS Day, Professor Francois Venter assesses the state of play and the critical next steps with these potentially game-changing new tools in the fight against HIV.
There is a history of competition law being used to drive HIV medicine prices lower in South Africa. Now, two cases involving cancer medicines seem set to nail down what qualifies as “excessive pricing” in South African law – a legal development that could have far reaching implications for medicines prices in the country. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the details.
Over the last decade, it has become clear that South Africa’s progress against TB depends on diagnosing more people more quickly. In this Spotlight special briefing, Marcus Low asks how we can best go about it.
Highly effective treatments for HIV have existed since the mid-1990s. But while these treatments keep people healthy, we do not yet have a safe and scalable way to completely rid the body of the virus. In this Spotlight special briefing, Elri Voigt takes stock of where we are in the decades-long search for an HIV cure.
A flexible silicone ring that slowly releases antiretrovirals is one of just two long-acting HIV prevention products registered for use in South Africa. Results from a new study might pave the way for a longer-acting version of the vaginal ring that provides three months of protection at a time, as opposed to one month with the current ring. Elri Voigt reports on these findings and looks at how the one-month ring has influenced HIV prevention choices in South Africa.
HIV activist Solly Nduku was recently elected to the top civil society position at SANAC. Thabo Molelekwa asked Nduku and his newly elected deputies about their plans and priorities for the council.
Hillbrow started out as Johannesburg’s first health hub in the late 1880s. It’s also been a suburb associated with pimps and prostitution, a middle finger to the Nationalist Party, and a key site of the HIV crisis. Today, it’s the forgotten flatlands of inner city decay … but in small pockets it stays true to its heritage of bringing healthcare to the city’s most overlooked.
In June, we heard what could be this year’s biggest HIV breakthrough: a twice-yearly injection can prevent HIV infection. Findings from a second large study of the jab has now confirmed that it works. Elri Voigt goes over the new findings and unpacks the licenses that are expected to facilitate the availability of generic versions of the jab in over a hundred countries, including South Africa.
Stopping antiretroviral treatment when you are living with HIV can result in increased HIV transmission, illness, hospitalisation, and eventually death. To combat such disengagement with HIV treatment, Professor Graeme Meintjes and colleagues argue we need smarter differentiated care and better education of healthcare workers, people living with HIV, and communities.
COVID-19 temporarily reversed South Africa’s hard-won reduction in maternal mortality, but the death rate has now stabilised, and hopes are high that the downward trend will resume. However, if experts are right, we’re missing some crucial interventions that would further prevent what are avoidable deaths. Chris Bateman talks to some of the leading lights in the field.
After a decade at the helm of the country’s primary health research funder, Professor Glenda Gray will focus again on doing the science. She tells Spotlight’s Biénne Huisman about her childhood, her passion for research, administering multi-million dollar grants, and a heated argument in the bathroom with an ANC bigwig.
