Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - June 8, 2001
Laid to rest: The funeral of Nkosi Johnson, the child Aids activist who died last Friday, starts at 10am on Saturday at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg. Two memorial services were held this week for South Africa's longest surviving person with Aids. Nkosi first imbedded himself in the hearts of South Africans at the 13th International Aids Conference -- held in Durban last year -- when he asked that anti-retroviral drugs be given to pregnant HIV-positive women.
Unchanged: The Ministry of Health's position on the use of anti-retrovirals to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission. Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told Parliament that the department remained concerned about the toxicity of the drugs and that it has no plans to introduce the wholesale administration of these drugs into the public sector. "They are not a cure for Aids," she said.
Early stages: The HIV/Aids pandemic, reported by the United Nations expert on the 20th anniversary of the first official Aids Report. Dr Peter Piot warned that if the world does not act now the pandemic could spread globally to countries that have so far managed to avoid the worst of the disease. Nearly 60-million people globally have been infected with 22-million of them have died.
Sources: Sapa and www.redribbon.co.za
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