SOUTH AFRICA: A day in the life of a community's response
29 May 2008 (PlusNews ), It is 5 a.m., but the winter night sky is yet to lighten over Johannesburg, South Africa; Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the international medical and humanitarian aid organisation, says the persistent drizzle and near freezing temperatures are contributing to respiratory infections and diarrhoea among the thousands displaced by xenophobic violence.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78461
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SOUTH AFRICA: Links between HIV and mental illness overlooked
29 May 2008 (PlusNews ), The links between HIV and mental illness are so multi-layered, and little understood, that doctors often struggle to determine which came first. Mental healthcare professionals in South Africa sometimes battle to understand the causes of a patient's psychosis or dementia, without knowing that the patient has a late-stage HIV infection, while their colleagues in the HIV/AIDS sector have little or no training on how to deal with patients with mental illnesses.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78476
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SOUTH AFRICA: Lucia Ngobeni: "Before, it was difficult for old people to talk about sex"
26 May 2008 (PlusNews ), When loveLife, a non-governmental organisation that targets South Africa's youth with HIV awareness programmes, started assembling a network of grandmothers across the country to help prevent HIV among children, they approached Lucia Ngobeni, 56.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78410
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SOUTH AFRICA: Sex education - the ugly stepchild in teacher training
22 May 2008 (PlusNews ), It's almost noon in Zola, one of the rougher neighbourhoods in Soweto, Johannesburg's biggest township. Kids grow up fast and hard here in the midst of poverty - ambition for some is merely to die with something more than what they were born with. Role models are kwaito stars, performers of a distinctly South African mix of hip-hop and electronic/house music, or criminals and the common denominator between them is a fast car.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78357
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SOUTH AFRICA: You are still my child even if you are a mother
21 May 2008 (PlusNews ), Rachel Dlamini is the chairperson of Kwadedangendlale Secondary School's governing body in Zola, Soweto, just outside Johannesburg. Her daughter, aged 17, has just given birth to her first child, so Dlamini now fetches her assignments from the school and keeps in touch with her teachers. She says the pregnancy has brought them closer together, and she has become a resource to other children at the school who look for guidance on sex.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78332
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SOUTH AFRICA: Saving lives is not always easy
20 May 2008 (PlusNews ), To be a nurse at Sizwe Hospital, a special facility for treating patients infected with drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis (TB), requires a thick skin and a forgiving nature.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78313
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SOUTH AFRICA: Military’s HIV ban unlawful
16 May 2008 (PlusNews ), South Africa's High Court in Pretoria has ruled that the military's exclusion of HIV-positive people from recruitment, promotion and foreign deployment is unconstitutional.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78273
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SOUTH AFRICA: High food prices cripple orphan feeding programmes
15 May 2008 (PlusNews ), Elizabeth Kineelwe, the cook at a drop-in centre that provides meals and support to orphans and impoverished families in Soweto, Johannesburg's largest township, is on the frontlines of a nationwide struggle to cope with rising food prices. Lately, she has been cooking a lot of cabbage soup.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78235
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SOUTH AFRICA: Government urged to raise treatment standards
6 May 2008 (PlusNews ), HIV/AIDS treatment guidelines for South Africa's public health sector are out of sync not only with those of many other countries in the region, but also with the latest research on how to most effectively treat people living with HIV.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78075
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SOUTH AFRICA: Thembi Ngubane: "I said no way, this is not anonymous; this is Thembi and everyone has to hear it."
5 May 2008 (PlusNews ), Thembi Ngubane, from Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town, South Africa, discovered she was HIV positive when she was 16 years old. Six years later, while attending a support group, she was approached by a United States-based radio producer interested in making a documentary about a year in the life of a young, HIV-positive South African. Now, Thembi is doing HIV and AIDS outreach at schools across the country and recently participated in the reality TV series, "Imagine Afrika."
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78052
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SOUTH AFRICA: Chakras and children
18 April 2008 (PlusNews ), Twenty years into the pandemic, people are looking for new ways to live with HIV, and for some alternative medicine has become part of the answer.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77826
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SOUTH AFRICA: Inner city blues - migrants in search of treatment
15 April 2008 (PlusNews ), Johannesburg, South Africa's largest and wealthiest city, has been attracting hopeful new residents since gold was discovered here more than a century ago. People from all over the African continent, many fleeing conflict and poverty, continue to flock to the city in search of a better life.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77765
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SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: No documents? No treatment
28 March 2008 (PlusNews ), Linda* was already sick when she arrived in Johannesburg from Zimbabwe, but she did not know her HIV status. After months of sleeping rough in a park her health deteriorated further and she finally plucked up the courage to go for an HIV test at an inner-city clinic.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77493
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SOUTH AFRICA: Prison-like hospitals for drug-resistant TB patients
25 March 2008 (PlusNews ), Another hospital breakout in South Africa by drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) patients desperate to spend the holidays with their families has some public health experts questioning whether forced isolation is either the most effective or humane way to treat such patients.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77447
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SOUTH AFRICA: HIV major factor in rising child deaths
13 March 2008 (PlusNews ), Mothers and children in South Africa are dying in alarming numbers. Far from being on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing child mortality by two-thirds, the country is among only a dozen worldwide where child deaths are rising.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77274
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SOUTH AFRICA: A day in the life of a condom tester
6 March 2008 (PlusNews ), Before you wrap it up, meet the people who check it out. IRIN/PlusNews went inside the condom testing facilities of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) to see what it takes to ensure condoms really are the frontline of HIV/AIDS prevention.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77158
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SOUTH AFRICA: Question marks over ARV tender
29 February 2008 (PlusNews ), The South African health department has called on drug manufacturers to submit bids to supply the government's antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programme, just days before the current ARV tender is due to expire. AIDS experts and activists said decisions on which drugs to include were made with little consultation.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77052
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GLOBAL: Less silence, more science could make anal sex safer
27 February 2008 (PlusNews ), The silence and taboo surrounding anal sex is putting millions of men and women at risk of HIV, delegates attending the fourth international microbicides conference in New Delhi, India, heard this week.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=77003
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GLOBAL: ARVs in microbicide research - keeping hope alive?
25 February 2008 (PlusNews ), After a string of depressing trial results, the fourth international microbicides conference in New Delhi, India, kicked off this week with a ray of hope that new research could deliver a new generation of HIV prevention approaches for women.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=76940
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GLOBAL: Another setback for microbicide research
18 February 2008 (PlusNews ), The first microbicide candidate to reach the final phase of testing has failed to prevent HIV transmission, researchers announced on Monday.
http://www.plusnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=76811
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