Massive gains have been made in reducing new HIV infections and deaths in children. Yet, many of the statistics for children still look worse than those for adults. Elri Voigt asked experts why this is the case and what factors prevent children living with HIV from starting and staying on the treatment that can keep them healthy.
It is widely acknowledged among health and demographic experts that relying solely on what is written on death certificates does not paint an accurate picture of what people in South Africa are actually dying of. Now, an SAMRC study has provided evidence that the undercounting of deaths due to HIV might be even greater than previously thought. Chris Bateman reports.
The number of people living with HIV in South Africa has for the first time reached the eight million mark. Of these, around 6.2 million are on treatment, according to new estimates. Marcus Low reports.
Amid major disruptions caused by aid cuts from the United States government, the health department aims to enrol a record number – an additional 1.1 million – of people living with HIV on life-saving antiretroviral medicine this year. Experts tell Spotlight it can’t be business as usual if this ambitious programme is to have a chance of succeeding. Ufrieda Ho reports.
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.
2023 was a busy year for healthcare in South Africa. We saw several promising policy developments, landmark court cases, important pieces of legislation, and some changes in leadership. Yet, take a step back and at facility level little seems to have changed. Shortages of healthcare workers persist, corruption is still rife, budgets tight, and our health governance crisis remains as acute as ever. Marcus Low looks back at the year in health in fewer than 1 000 words.
An estimated 54 000 people died of tuberculosis in South Africa in 2022 and around 280 000 fell ill with the disease, according to just-released figures from the World Health Organization. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the figures and what they mean for the country’s TB response.
Last year Spotlight reported that pilot projects testing out a new HIV prevention injection and a vaginal ring in South Africa would start early in 2023. Yet, as delegates gathered for the SA AIDS Conference in Durban last week, those pilots hadn’t yet started. Alicestine October and Elri Voigt have the latest on the state of play with these critical projects.
According to recently published estimates from Thembisa, the leading mathematical model of HIV in South Africa, around 7.8 million people, or 13.2% of the population, were living with HIV in South Africa in 2022. Marcus Low looked at the numbers and what they tell us about the state of HIV in South Africa.
In Spotlight’s analysis of South Africa’s HIV response in recent years, two issues have stood out consistently – still too many people living with HIV are not taking antiretroviral therapy and the rate of new HIV infections in South Africa is not coming down fast enough. Accordingly, argues Spotlight editor Marcus Low, we must accelerate the shift toward an HIV response where we make testing for HIV and taking antiretroviral treatment as convenient as possible.
Telling a child that he or she is living with HIV is not easy. Biénne Huisman spoke to a father and some doctors on how one approaches the issue.
In 2021, HIV was successfully suppressed in the bodies of around 63% of the close to eight million people living with HIV in South Africa. This is according to recent outputs from Thembisa, the leading mathematical model of HIV in South Africa. With the help of some graphs, Spotlight editor Marcus Low unpacks this and other key model outputs.
