Nandipha Madolo, from Khayelitsha’s Litha Park, has experienced much in her life, with HIV playing a major part. She watched her brother die from meningitis due to HIV. Her HIV-positive husband abused her. Her youngest daughter contracted HIV, and Madolo found out that she too was HIV-positive. But today Madolo has a healthy daughter, a steady job, and she is a public speaker.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 29 January 2014
South Africa’s anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment programme is often hailed as one of the most important public health successes. It is the world’s largest ARV programme, with over two million patients initiated on treatment. But it has serious problems: many patients often go without medicines because of stockouts.
Koketso Moeti
News | 28 November 2013
Lindiwe Kameni was ill in 2004. “I was in Jo’burg when I fell sick, and I tested HIV-positive”, she says. She told her husband her HIV status and things started to change.
Odwa Funeka
News | 28 October 2013
While antiretroviral drugs against HIV are getting more effective and allow HIV-positive people to live longer, the ultimate prize is to find a way to cure people of the virus, the best hope being a vaccine.
Kerry Gordon
News | 9 October 2013
In April 2012, the Eastern Cape Department of Health (ECDoH) put in place a moratorium on the appointment of healthcare workers to vacant posts at facilities throughout the province. This moratorium was instituted in an attempt to control the chronic overspending that was pushing the department deeper into financial crisis each year.
Daygan Eagar
Opinion | 11 September 2013
The failing healthcare system in the Eastern Cape affects everyone: urban communities, migrants from Gauteng and Cape Town too sick to work anymore or returning home to retire, and healthcare workers who don’t have the medicines, equipment and a functioning referral system, to offer the care their patients need.
Marije Versteeg
Opinion | 11 September 2013
A South African study demonstrates for the "first time the effectiveness of male circumcision, in real-life conditions in curbing the spread of HIV", says its lead researcher, Bertran Auvert.
Michael Rautenbach
Brief | 5 September 2013
Vuyiseka Dubula’s opinion piece published in GroundUp raises some important issues concerning the promotion of breastfeeding in South Africa. Vuyiseka is correct: breastfeeding is much safer than formula feeding.
David Sanders, Tanya Doherty, Debra Jackson, Ameena Goga
Opinion | 12 August 2013
The government is discontinuing the provision of free formula milk at public health facilities. This policy is intended to promote exclusive breastfeeding for all mothers, including those living with HIV.
Vuyiseka Dubula
Opinion | 30 July 2013
This is an edited transcript of a speech by Judge Edwin Cameron on 28 June at the UNAIDS/LANCET Commissioners Dinner in Malawi. Cameron criticised stigmatising laws that hamper the response to HIV.
Edwin Cameron
Opinion | 2 July 2013
Patients with HIV in South African public clinics have to take at least three separate pills once and maybe twice daily. But in the private sector, as well as in the United States and Europe patients have for years been able to take their HIV treatment as one pill once a day.
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 10 April 2013
New season, new presenter, same time, same channel. Education and health television programme Siyayinqoba Beat-It! will air its first episode of season 8 next week Thursday on SABC 1 at 1:30pm.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 27 March 2013
South Africa's social grant system is sometimes criticised as financially unsustainable and fueling dependency, but people such as Maureen Philander from Delft provide an example of how social assistance can transform lives. She shares her story with us.
Maureen Philander
Opinion | 6 March 2013
Leading Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) activist Mike Matyeni collapsed during his cousin's funeral in Cathcart on Saturday 13 October 2012. He was declared dead the following morning.
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 24 October 2012
Some spaza shop owners in Khayelitsha are selling Department of Health (DoH) formula milk that is marked "Not for resale". This milk is supposed to be given free to HIV-positive mothers to give to their babies instead of breast milk.
Mary-Jane Matsolo
News | 12 September 2012
Dalli Weyers looks at the design problems with the Tara KLamp circumcision device.
Dalli Weyers
Opinion | 5 September 2012