As I prepared to write this final column for 2001, I searched my memory for the one single incident that seemed to embody this crazy, topsy-turvy year. I didn t want to use the events of September 11. They are unquestionably the defining image of the global year, but they belong to the larger world. I was looking for s
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 30 December 2001
The first 12 months of the 21st century has left South Africa and the world reeling. andrew donaldson reviews the past year The horrific events of a single day divide the year, if not our very existence, into distinct parts: before and after September 11. The destruction of New York s World Trade Center, the symbol of
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 16 December 2001
Gillian Anstey
Judge orders antiretroviral drugs to be made available to all who give birth in public hospitals. THE Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and her provincial deputies will meet this week to plan the government s response to the landmark nevirapine judgment. Pretoria High Court Judge Chris Botha on Frida
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 16 December 2001
Jessica Bezuidenhout
SOUTH African scientists struck a secret deal with the makers of the banned Aids cure Virodene to use an unregistered herbal tablet on HIV-positive patients in 12 African countries. This revelation comes only three months after Virodene researchers were kicked out of Tanzania for illegally importing and testing their
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 02 December 2001
Edwin Lombard
NELSON Mandela has urged heads of government to lead the fight against Aids and to follow the example of the presidents of Uganda , Senegal and Botswana . Speaking at an Aids Day function in Crossroads, Cape Town, yesterday, he said: One of the most important things .
Actor and satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys has called on members of the community to go out into the world and do the work that Princess Diana used to do - hug and kiss victims of Aids including HIV-positive babies because (President Thabo) Mbeki is not going to do it . At a function in Cape Town at which prominent businesspeo
The government s policy on the distribution of Nevirapine to reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission was described in the Pretoria High Court as not only a manifestation of irrationality, but nothing short of insanity . The government has maintained that the drug is toxic and that outside of pilot projects testing the
THOUSANDS of Aids activists are to demonstrate this week in support of a court action by the Treatment Action Campaign which is demanding government implementation of a national programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. TAC says the national health minister and eight MECs (excluding the Western Cape hea
CAPE Town is all set for a huge non-competitive cycle ride aimed at promoting Aids awareness. Organiser Andrew Wheeldon said he was expecting more than 500 people to participate in the fun ride, which will be held on National Aids Day on December 1. High-profile politicians, including Transport Minister Dullah Omar and
GAIL Johnson, foster mother to child Aids activist Nkosi Johnson, has been named the best mom in the world. The Women of Stature in Sasolburg awarded Johnson the title in appreciation for what she did for Nkosi, who died in June aged 12, and other people who are infected with HIV/Aids. Johnson received a certificate, a
More than 10 000 people are expected to attend the country s biggest World Aids Day ceremony in Durban next Saturday. The unicity council has budgeted R150 000 and hundreds of schoolchildren and hostel dwellers will be bussed into the city centre. Our focus is on the abuse of children and women who are killed by their
We have been messing around too long. Everyone who needs antiretroviral treatment should get it . . . because it can break the backbone of the epidemic In December 1982 I took one of my sons to the US because he developed a sort of haemorrhagic disease. I took him to the National Institutes of Health and the Centres f
Corine McClintock says God won t leave her alone. The 63-year-old former nurse, who was jolted awake several years ago by a prophetic dream about saving Aids orphans, was so inundated by amazing coincidences that she decided to found South Africa s first Aids village. She says the unusual 6ha development at the centre
Two decades after the discovery of Aids, Laurice Taitz explores the path of the disease in SA, now believed to have infected five million people The first news of a sudden rise of infections among young gay men appeared in the New York Times in June 1981. It stemmed from reports by the US Centers for Disease Control.
Pregs Govender spells out the steps the government, and ordinary South Africans, must take The government s 2000 plan on HIV/Aids and sexually transmitted diseases notes: In South Africa, despite our best efforts, the HIV infection rate has increased significantly over the past five years. This increase calls for a ren
It s World Aids Day on Saturday. Kerry Cullinan spoke to two men who have been living with HIV/Aids My life has no hope. Why doesn t the Lord just take me? I will feel better if I am dead. Vusi Ngema speaks these words quietly. Then he bends over, clasps his head in his hands and stares for long minutes at the floor of
One in four children in the KwaZulu-Natal capital of Pietermaritzburg has been orphaned by Aids, and the number is set to rocket in the next 10 years. A study by Dr Neil McKerrow, chief paediatrician at Pietermaritzburg s Metropolitan Hospitals Complex, shows that 50 000 Aids orphans live in the city. The number rises
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 11 November 2001
Botswana s Festus Mogae heads one of Africa s most successful countries. He spoke to Sechaba ka Nkosi about the deadly threat facing the region Botawana s President Festus Mogae does not consider himself a politician. Instead, he regards himself a developmental activist - a Motswana trying to use his knowledge of econo
The prevalence of HIV/Aids should not be a deterrent to young loving. Instead,with informed choices and positive sexuality, we can all keep our lovin days for longer. World Aids day on December 1 will be highlighting this as well as breaking down numerous stigmas associated with the epidemic. S camtoPRINT takes an in-d
Teachers deaths due to HIV/Aids have rocketed by more than 40% in the past year, according to statistics compiled by the largest teacher trade union in South Africa and accepted by an aide to Education Minister Kader Asmal. The figures are based on claims submitted to the SA Democratic Teachers Union s funeral scheme b
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday October 21, 2001
Bobby Jordan
Six-month-old Tinashe will probably not live long enough to learn how to read this article. But before the HIV-positive baby dies, she will have become the champion of thousands of other children who have contracted HIV/Aids from their mothers. This week young Tinashe and her teenage mother Sibongile stepped into the f
Sunday Times (Johannesberg) - Sunday October 14, 2001
Edwin Lombard
A 34-YEAR-OLD nurse is living in fear that she is infected with HIV after a patient bit off part of her finger during a violent struggle in a hospital ward. The distraught nurse, Theresa Weber, has since been put on a course of the anti-HIV medication AZT , and is being counselled by psychologists as she sits out the
The greatest threat to Thailand and Southeast Asia is the two-headed Hydra of drugs and Aids. Drug abuse and the killer syndrome are directly linked. As one increases, so does the other. Risky abuse of drugs, particularly the use of shared needles, directly spreads Aids. Drug abusers are far less likely to worry about
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 07 October 2001
Loyal party members steam ahead with a range of plans to change policy and battle the disease. CAROL PATON THE ANC is facing a rearguard action from within over its contentious stance on Aids. A growing number of prominent ANC politicians and government officials are pushing for faster, more effective programmes and a
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday, 16 September 2001
Laurice Taitz
Aids is now the single biggest killer of South Africans and will have taken the lives of about six million people by 2010. A groundbreaking SA Medical Research Council report estimates that the deaths of 40% of all South Africans aged 15 to 49 last year were because of Aids. The July report, titled The Impact of HIV/Ai
Mary Crewe: Director: Centre for the Study of AIDS, University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Few institutions can know the effects of HIV/AIDS on individual, families and communities better than the Catholic Church and the priests and nuns who work in it. As the epidemic has taken its grip in southern Africa it is to the church that people turn for support - spiritual, financial - and for care. Orphans and chi
A number of Catholic nuns, priests and brothers have challenged the recent pronouncement by South Africa s bishops which effectively restates the traditional ban on condoms. This week a group of nuns calling themselves Sisters for Justice in Johannesburg , said they supported the approach of Bishop Kevin Dowling who ha
A response to two recent statements - that of Bishop Kevin Dowling after the UN Aids conference (9 July 2001) and the SA Catholic Bishops Conference Message of Hope (30 July 2001) - on the ethics of using condoms to prevent the spread of Aids We, the Sisters for Justice of Johannesburg, wish to comment on the recent st
For Phindi Mqwambi, a staunch Catholic, it s a hard thing to say, but she believes that if her beloved older sister Noma had consistently used condoms she would be alive today. Instead, Noma died last October, leaving her five-year-old daughter, Nwabisa, to become another Aids orphan. Mqwambi, 26, who has taken in her
Catholic bishops, about to debate whether to soften the church s traditional ban on condoms, should ensure they obtain the latest scientific evidence before making any decision, a top HIV/Aids expert has urged. Professor James McIntyre, director of the perinatal HIV unit at Wits University, says that the bishops need t
A high Court judge has ordered a man to pay his wife nearly R1-million in damages for infecting her with HIV. This is the first time in South Africa that a married woman has claimed damages after her husband wilfully infected her with the disease. Last week, Johannesburg High Court Acting-Judge Naren Pandya awarded the
A CATHOLIC bishop wants his church to allow the use of condoms in a desperate bid to halt Aids deaths. The proposal is likely to cause an uproar in the Catholic Church, which has been implacably opposed to the use of condoms, believing that they interfere with the creation of life. But Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenbur
A woman is suing the manufacturer and supplier of the anti-HIV/Aids drug, AZT , for nearly R1,5-million. She claims her husband died from taking it, that AZT is highly poisonous and that its risks far outweigh its benefits. Annet Hayman, 41, a schoolteacher from Ladysmith, KwaZulu Natal, has launched legal action again
Human trials of a unique South African vaccine that could make Aids as preventable as measles, polio or hepatitis B are likely to be approved within months. Professor Tim Tucker, head of the R15-million-a-year SA Aids Vaccine Initiative, said it was hoped that South Africa s new candidate vaccine would work against all
Sister Immaculate s first reaction when she was handed a wooden penis at an Aids training workshop was: My God, what should I do with this? She was being trained to pull a condom over it but could hardly bring herself to look at it. That was two years ago. Now, by her own admission, the 37-year-old woman is a Catholic
Big business is to supply cheap anti-Aids drugs which the state has refused to allow into the public health system. This week the Sunday Times established that: The South African Chamber of Business has plans for a scheme involving major corporations that would make HIV-Aids treatments widely, and cheaply, available;
Latest figures suggest 4.7-million South Africans have HIV. A new agreement may ease their suffering Arguably the best news ever heard for AIDS sufferers was last week s settlement between pharmaceutical manufacturers and the government which will allow cheaper drugs to be imported and made available in the public sect
Last year, President Thabo Mbeki stood before an audience of thousands at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban and announced that the distinguished panel of international scientists he had called together would provide pertinent answers to a disease killing South Africans. Now, months later, the panel - com
SOUTH Africa s HIV tests are 99,9% accurate, according to an investigation carried out on behalf of Thabo Mbeki s AIDS advisory panel. The result - the first to emerge from the three-phase investigation into HIV testing - represents a victory for the orthodox scientific view that HIV causes AIDS, AIDS activists claimed
On Wednesday the government finally released and responded to the report of the AIDS panel convened by President Thabo Mbeki last year. The report contains few surprises and has dual (and dichotomous) sets of recommendations, depending on acceptance of the premise that HIV causes AIDS. The panellists met in May and aga
The South African government has turned down an offer of one million free HIV testing kits, worth over R50-million, despite doctors complaints of a dire shortage of testing equipment. Government officials this week confirmed they had declined the offer from a stunned US drug company, Guardian Scientific Africa Incorpor
BRITISH health authorities have come under fire for allowing 10 HIV-positive African nurses to work in the country. Health chiefs apparently detected the nurses HIV status through checks carried out on their arrival in Britain from subSaharan Africa to take up places at the Wolverhampton School of Nursing and Midwifery
AIDS sufferer Nkosi Johnson, the brave 11-year-old who is lying critically ill at home, has sparked an outpouring of sympathy from well-wishers around the world praying for his recovery. Nkosi shot to fame during two recent international AIDS conferences in South Africa and the US, where he spoke openly about his disea
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