A LARGE number of pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics in Gauteng are refusing to take HIV-Aids tests, according to figures from four centres running intervention programmes on mother-to-child transmission.
Equity in Health
SA: Trials Show Antiretroviral Therapy Can Benefit the Poor
According to a 'Sunday Independent' report, clinical trials conducted in Johannesburg and Cape Town have shown that despite poverty and scarce clinical resources, antiretrovirals can be used successfully by poor people. These findings come after the government's repeated refusal to offer antiretroviral therapy to all saying the majority of South Africans were poor and would misuse the drugs.
South African Bishops Consider Condom Use
With millions of Africans dying from AIDS and millions more infected every year, a group of Roman Catholic clergy in southern Africa is debating whether the church should relax its ban on condom use.
South African Court Orders Man to Pay Wife Damages for Infecting Her With HIV
South African High Court acting Judge Naren Pandya last week ordered a man to pay his wife $116,400 (one million rand) in damages for infecting her with HIV, marking the first time in South Africa a woman has "claimed damages" for being "wilfully" infected with HIV by her husband.
UN Examines Conditions Related To Falling Birth Rates
Fertility rates in most high-fertility countries are declining, a UN workshop concluded last week, though some participants questioned whether this trend would continue, saying the decline was driven by crisis-- either by economic conditions or civil strife -- rather than by developments in social and economic conditions.
World Health Experts Fly in With TB Lifeline
World Health Organisation representatives will visit South Africa next month to assess whether the country qualifies for drugs being made available at hugely discounted prices which are effective against drug-resistant tuberculosis.
World Disasters Report 2001: Focuses on recovery
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Disasters disrupt life, livelihoods, economies, political systems, belief systems - in short, everything that makes society work. The 2001
edition of the World Disasters Report looks at how humanitarian agencies and governments can best help disaster-affected communities to recover, to become stronger and more disaster resilient. How can the gaps between short-term relief and longer-term recovery be bridged?Published annually since 1993, the World Disasters Report brings together the latest trends, facts and analysis of the world's ever-growing humanitarian crises.
'HIV Statistics Are Starting to Improve'
Latest statistics on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zambia indicate that slowly things are starting to move in the right direction, out-going first development secretary at the Norwegian Embassy in Lusaka Kikkan Haugen has said. Speaking at his farewell party organised by the Family Health Trust yesterday, Haugen said prevalence rates among young girls were down and overall levels of the pandemic were also levelling off.
African Groups Disappointed by UN AIDS Declaration
African civil society groups packed their bags to return home distressed that commitments made at the recent UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV- AIDS would amount to mere rhetoric.
Asbestos workers buried in mass graves
HUNDREDS of former Cape Plc workers who died from asbestos related diseases before 1968 were buried in unmarked mass graves in the Northern Cape and the Northern Province, it was reported on Sunday. According to the television report about 15 000 people, including children as young as seven, were employed by the company between 1893 and 1979. SABC said documents in its possession indicated that the company colluded with the apartheid government to continue its mining operations in SA from 1968.