Current Articles
Political will can solve malnutrition in Africa
“Children don’t vote,” said Dr Robert Mwadime, of Uganda Action for Nutrition, at a session on the subject before the three-day African Union (AU) meeting opened in Kampala, Uganda. This means that political leaders in Africa often pay scant attention to the millions of children who die every year of malnutrition-related causes. Most of the audience nodded in agreement; many clapped.
The theme of the AU meeting was “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa”, so it was an apt opportunity to wave the flag. “Nutrition is practically an orphan,” Mkandawire commented. About 40 percent of children younger than five in Africa are chronically malnourished.
Activist argues against South Africa’s mass HIV testing campaign
South Africa’s campaign to test 15 million people for HIV in one year risks being implemented in a way that undermines people’s human rights, the activist Mark Heywood told the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference in Vienna. Incidents of coercive testing have been recorded but the lack of effective monitoring procedures means that it’s impossible to know whether those incidents are widespread or not.
South Africa ‘failing in child health’
South Africa is one of 12 countries that has failed to reduce child mortality since 1990, according to the 2009/10 SA Child Gauge released on Tuesday.
Children were paying the price for the country’s failure to progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aimed to reduce poverty, hunger and disease by 2015 and to ensure children’s rights to survival, health and development, it said.
More Gauteng clinics set to provide ARVs
The number of clinics in Gauteng providing Anti-Retroviral Treatment to HIV positive patients is set to increase by 61 by the end of the month.
Health and Social Development MEC Qedani Mahlangu has ordered that all clinics should provide the treatment by September, in line with the new treatment guidelines that came into effect in April. ARV treatment was previously available in hospitals and community health centres.
Finding the missing link in HIV battle
South Africa is moving fast to consolidate the scientific breakthrough announced last week by local HIV and Aids experts, who showed that a vaginal gel containing the antiretroviral tenofovir could prevent HIV in 40 percent of women.
South Africa is bad on the environment
South Africa scores relatively poorly on environmental conditions, the Organisation for Co-Operation and Development (OECD) said on Monday as it released its first economic survey of the country.
This was due to its industrial structure and its heavy reliance on coal for electricity generation.
Favourable energy prices for some large industrial users, electricity prices that did not cover capital costs for the development of new capacity, and low coal purchase prices for the dominant electricity generator had all tended to hinder economic efficiency and aggravate carbon emissions.
The OECD is an international organisation which says it helps governments tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a global economy.
Read more at TimesLive.
Microbicide gel found to reduce AIDS risk in women
News sources world-wide are buzzing this morning with the results of a South African study which suggests that a woman’s risk of infection with HIV can be significantly cut by the use of a vaginal gel containing the antiretroviral drug tenofovir.
The research, which will be presented today at the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, was leaked out a day early, sending a wave of optimism through the AIDS research community.
US study says poverty, more than race, tied to HIV
Poverty is perhaps the most important factor in whether inner-city heterosexuals are infected with the AIDS virus, according to the first US government study of its kind.
The study, released Monday, suggests that HIV is epidemic in certain poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods. And, more significantly, poor heterosexuals in those neighborhoods were twice as likely to be infected as heterosexuals who lived in the same community but had more money.
Anglo American and De Beers assist in preserving National Heritage Archives at the University of Fort Hare
The Anglo American Chairman’s Fund and the De Beers Fund have provided the Alice Campus of the University of Fort Hare with two R3.9 million grants (R7.8 million in total). These grants were used for the upgrading of the National Archive Heritage and Cultural Studies (NAHECS) Building, which has now been completed and was officially reopened today. With these grants, the NAHECS will continue to contribute to the upliftment of education in the country and the study of national heritage.
Young lead safe sex revolution against AIDS
Young people in Africa are leading a “revolution” in HIV prevention and driving down rates of the disease by having safer sex and fewer sexual partners, the United Nations AIDS programme says.
The prevalence of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS is falling among young people in 16 of the 25 countries most affected by the disease, a study by UNAIDS found, with many of them on track to hit a 25% reduction target in HIV/AIDS rates in 15- to 24-year-olds by the end of the year.
In a study published ahead a global AIDS conference due to be held in Vienna next week, UNAIDS found that in 16 of the 25 worst affected countries, rates of HIV had been falling among young people, with some of the most dramatic declines seen in Kenya, where there was a 60% change between 2000 and 2005.
Botswana, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe have all achieved a goal set agreed in 2001 to reduce HIV prevalence in 15 to 24-year-olds by 25% by 2010, it said. Burundi, Lesotho, Rwanda, Swaziland, the Bahamas and Haiti were all “likely to achieve” it.
Condom use was also on the increase, the study found, with 10 countries reporting more use of condoms among women and 13 reporting increased condom use among men. Cameroon, Tanzania and Uganda reported increases in condom use by both sexes.
Read more at TimesLive.
