Dutch soccer fans gearing up for some hot off-the-field action during the 2010 World Cup are being urged to bring their own condoms to South Africa by the Dutch government. The Netherlands was the first country to qualify for the World Cup and thousands of Orange Army fans determined to have a good time are expected in
A damning documentary about former president Thabo Mbeki s policies on HIV/Aids will be screened on eTV tonight. The documentary, entitled Price of Denial, investigates the price South Africa is paying for Mbeki s policy of denial about HIV/Aids. It shows how thousands of babies were unnecessarily infected with the vir
Malema was responding to the call made two weeks ago by Young Communist League leader Buti Manamela for Mbeki to be prosecuted for his government s failure to provide thousands of South African Aids sufferers with life-saving anti-retroviral drugs. Addressing the Pan African Youth Union in Kempton Park last night, Male
Top international designer Vivienne Westwood was so moved by a KwaZulu-Natal women s upliftment project that she has put her name behind it. She even threw in a few gowns, shoes and bags for the women. The Tapestry of Dreams non-profit project is run by Heather Costaras and Roz Thomas. It has assisted 10 women from Khe
South African sports heroes braved the blistering heat as they embarked on a 17-day-long walk from Johannesburg to Limpopo in an effort to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and eradicate the stigma associated with the disease. The Sport Heroes Walk Against HIV and AIDS saw 12 of the country s sportsmen and women joined by hundr
-- Former president Thabo Mbeki came under fierce attack once again as Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi released shocking statistics on the devastation HIV/Aids has inflicted on the country s population. Motsoaledi said South Africans now had an average life expectancy as low as that of the people of a country at war.
-- Former president Thabo Mbeki, together with his controversial health minister, Manto Tshabalala- Msimang, must be charged with genocide, says the SA Communist Party youth league. Young Communists League leader Buti Manamela said Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang denied hundreds of HIV-positive people access to antiretrov
The modest success of the first HIV vaccine trial has given Aids researchers new impetus, African scientists said. The full results of the controversial RV144 trial in Thailand were released at the Aids Vaccine 2009 conference in Paris this week, which was attended by about 1100 scientists. Professor Malegapuru Mak
-- Another View: We are facing the potential human, social, and economic devastation of Africa s future generations, says Graca Machel All children are vulnerable, no matter the continent or country or community into which they are born. But African children face an additional and terrible challenge that most children
Blocking infection should remain the main goal in the search for an HIV vaccine, said Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US government s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at yesterday s closing of the Aidsvac conference in Paris. The renewed emphasis on finding a preventative vaccine after 26 years
South African HIV-vaccine researchers are keen to conduct a large-scale clinical trial here similar to that in Thailand of a vaccine shown to be the first to succeed in preventing infection by the deadly virus. One of the scientists who collaborated in the Thai trials, Col Nelson Michael, director of the US military s
Excitement at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference about recent encouraging vaccine trial results and new scientific developments is tempered by the awareness that funding is dropping. Global AIDS leaders at the opening session of the conference in Paris tonight called urgently for a renewed commitment to fund basic scienc
The milky brown drink is being tested by scientists at South Africa s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research following a small initial trial in Zambia where HIV-positive patients who had taken the potential remedy recorded a drop in viral loads. The director of the Southern African Network for Biosciences, Prof
Many South African youngsters don t believe they are at risk of HIV, a survey has found. MXit, the mobile social networking system popular among 16-to 29-year-olds, asked members about HIV, marriage, contraception and the government s role in sexual health. About 20000 South African users answered the question do you
-- Disagreement over whether prizes should be offered to those who want to learn whether they re negative or positive The Right to Know HIV testing competition has finally come to an end - and during the year-long drive about 50000 people have learned their status, including 23 pensioners in their 80s, but mainly South
Nine groups of South African AIDS researchers will benefit from the Department of Science and Technology s new research platform launched today. South African HIV/AIDS Research and Innovation Platform (SHARP) will provide financial support to South African researchers as they explore every possible avenue to beat the v
People with HIV need to start antiretroviral treatment sooner, according to South African and international specialists gathered for a major Aids conference in Cape Town this week. Dr Pedro Cahn, a past president of the International Aids Society, which is meeting in Cape Town, said: Everyone agrees that a CD4 of 350 s
-- SA scientists helping research towards Aids vaccine HIV scientists in KwaZulu-Natal are helping to crack the puzzle of why some HIV-positive people live for 30 years without drugs and others die within six months if not treated. The research is being done in conjunction with international partners, including the Har
Only about a third of the 9 million people who need treatment receive the life-saving drugs at present. Paediatric specialist Dr Louise Kuhn said that antiretrovirals worked well to prevent infection among infants and she hoped that antiretrovirals to prevent sexual infection among adults would be as effective . Ven
-- Antiretrovirals mooted to prevent HIV transmission A BOLD new HIV-Aids prevention model advocates antiretroviral drugs to prevent the spread of the virus. Until now antiretrovirals have been used to treat people who already have HIV, but a new World Health Organisation model shows that the life-extending drugs could
A Durban reiki practitioner is using the alternative healing method to benefit people living with HIV/Aids. Social worker Vijay Sewduth recently launched her book The Reiki Experience - People Living with HIV/Aids after completing six months of research into how the method affects the lives of such patients. Reiki is a
The son of renowned HIV/Aids expert Professor Jerry Coovadia will this week launch a medical thriller that draws on some of his father s experiences. High Low In-Between took Cape Town author Imraan Coovadia, 39, five years to write. The Durban launch of the book will take place at Adams, Musgrave Centre, on Wednesday.
I believe he let his pride get the better of him, when there is medication out there to help the immune system fight the disease, writes Nomfundo Xulu When I gave my father a call for Father s Day last year, we had a long chat about life, work, my relationship and all kinds of interesting issues. I did not expect that
New HIV infections in South Africa could finally be decreasing - and markedly so among teenagers. This is according to Dr Francois Venter, president of the HIV Clinicians Society of Southern Africa, who based his comments on the third national HIV survey released this week. The survey found that 5.2 million South Afr
With a million people on ARVs, we could be helping each other, writes Pholokgolo Ramothwala It is the voice of a man I met recently. He and his wife are HIV-positive. He is not taking HIV infection very well. During our one-hour conversation, he never laughed or smiled at my jokes. For him, our meeting was a serious ma
FIVE days after the government promised that baby -milk formula would be available at state-run clinics, desperate mothers are having to risk their tiny infants health by feeding them maize meal. After being contacted by The Times late yesterday, Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane added the formula crisis to the agenda
-- South Africa is central to the global search An HIV toolkit would include a new vaccine -- SA scientists at the vanguard of the quest to find an Aids vaccine, writes Claire Keeton SCIENTISTS now know they need to be smarter than nature to discover an Aids vaccine and recent setbacks have spurred a renaissance in thi
When the starting gun goes off next Sunday, 58-year-old granny Thandi (not her real name) will hit the road for her 11th Comrades marathon. Ten years after she discovered she had HIV, Thandi is remarkably fit and looks about half her age. This is her 10th year on antiretroviral treatment and she is still taking the ver
Sexually explicit photographs of gay men, corpses and painted scrolls depicting an Indian Aids tale are on display at an exhibition in the Durban Art Gallery. Not Alone - An International Project of Make Art/Stop Aids features work from artists in Brazil , the US, South Africa and India. Sout
Claims paramedics infected her at site of fatal road accident. She used to be a happy, healthy and sporty mum from the suburbs. Now her once-athletic body is infected with HIV, her marriage is in tatters and she fears her three children will face the future alone. She traces her misfortune to an accident scene in KwaZu
She gave me the news in a very matter-of-fact way In my search for answers, my ignorance - and that of friends whose relatives have died of the disease - was exposed Until HIV/Aids knocks on your front door, it remains that faraway problem relegated to some remote place for those directly involved with this devastating
Activists glad there s no more Dr Beetroot WHEN Health Minister Barbara Hogan closed the 4th SA Aids conference in Durban on Friday she delivered a powerful, sober speech but she did not grab headlines like her predecessor, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Dr Beetroot made headlines for all the wrong reasons at four previous
Claire Keeton, Dominic Mahlangu and Nkululeko Ncana
Aids - We were wrong THE ANC is planning a post-election apology to the nation for former president Thabo Mbeki s disastrous HIV-Aids policy, which has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of infected people. We owe it to the nation. We, as MPs, were there and we failed to rise up, said an ANC MP. The Times has esta
-- ARV moratorium killed 30 people a day, writes Dr Francois Venter When the new minister of health, Barbara Hogan, came into office late last year, there was a collective sigh of relief, especially when she pledged to focus her energy on fixing our dire public health system. But has she been dealt an impossible hand?
DR Molefi Sefularo, the deputy minister of health, promised this week to keep South Africa s Aids treatment programme afloat. Sefularo was speaking at a round-table discussion on HIV/Aids for six political party leaders - COPE failed to pitch up - and an expert panel in Johannesburg this week. Sefularo was responding t
Parents struggle to disclose to children but there are compelling reasons to do it, writes Claire Keeton For 11 years Jo kept a secret from the person she loved most. She was scared of hurting her son and their relationship. When he was eight months old, she had discovered he had HIV, like her. Her ex-husband, who she
Phumela Xanywa went for an HIV test on her birthday - and ended up getting a R100000 present. The 23-year-old banking credit analyst of Cape Town is the eighth winner in the Discovery Health Sunday Times HIV-testing competition, launched in July last year. Xanywa had an HIV test in September last year and was urged by
Mpumalanga Aids clinics show how healthcare can be taken to the people who need it most. In rural Mpumalanga and Limpopo - notorious for their failed health services - are two dazzling examples of how to get it right. An HIV/Aids clinic and a state-of-the-art research laboratory have such high standards that they not o
A desire to be part of something good prompted a young Chatsworth woman to take part in a clinical trial of a product aimed at stemming the transmission of HIV/Aids. Desiree Asoker, 27, an HIV-negative mother from Westcliff, volunteered two years ago to be part of the study, which tested the efficacy of vaginal gels in
A MICROBICIDE gel that reduces the risk of HIV transmission has been heralded as a glimmer of hope in the fight against the Aids virus. But clinical trials of the Pro 2000 microbicidal gel showed only 30 percent efficacy in preventing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. Though 33 percent efficacy is need
Carol Hlongwane won enough money to continue her university education this week. And it s all thanks to her grandfather. It was his warning that those who had sex without knowing their HIV status were no better than killers that encouraged the 21-year-old to take an HIV test last year. And his advice paid off in more w
SOUTH Africa continues to advance towards a cohesive society which is underpinned by values of respect for human dignity, the achievement of equality, advancement of human rights and freedoms and the recognition of the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law. However, there have been robust engagements on a c
Promiscuous sexual behaviour is making middle-aged married men in Chatsworth vulnerable to HIV/Aids. This is according to Dr Krishna Nair, medical director of the Chatsworth Regional Hospice, a centre dedicated to helping cancer and HIV/Aids patients. Nair s revelation comes in the wake of shocking statistics released
-- COPE: High moral standards; improved transparency in awarding of government tenders -- UDM: Return of the Scorpions; independent judicial commission of inquiry into the arms deal -- IFP: Declare HIV/Aids a national emergency and escalate roll-out of antiretroviral drugs -- ANC: More police; publicly funded national
Johannes Lekgoro has worked on the mines for 30 years. This week he struck gold when he won R100000 after taking an HIV test for the Right to Know competition. Lekgoro, 49, was the fifth monthly winner in the Discovery Health Sunday Times competition, launched in August last year to encourage people to find out their H
Turned down three times, Edwin Cameron has finally been appointed to the country s highest court, writes Chris Barron Judge Edwin Cameron tried for the Constitutional Court so many times, it became a standing joke among his friends. When another vacancy arose last year, the man acknowledged by peers as one of the best
This information is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.