MEDIA RELEASE: The Lancet, the world's leading independent family of general medical and specialty journals, today announces the forthcoming launch of a new title, The Lancet Global Health.
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The 2011 National Antenatal HIV & Syphilis Prevalence Survey has been released. Read the report here.
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A unique partnership launched this week between the private health sector and the national Health Department will result in more student doctors being trained, the strengthening of health management education and training and the funding of local research in TB and HIV and AIDS.
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Results from a pivotal, large-scale Phase III trial, published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that the RTS,S malaria vaccine candidate can help protect African infants against malaria. Read the rest of the press release.
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About 35% or 500 out of 100 000 strokes that occur in South Africa every year can now be prevented. This is thanks to a new drug registered for use in the country this week for the prevention and management of strokes in people with a heart condition known as Atrial Fibrillation.
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Government’s HIV/AIDS programme is bearing fruit, with fewer deaths now than in 2006. And older people are now dying, not young people in the prime of their lives, according to the Census released yesterday.
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Home-based HIV testing offers families the opportunity to understand and face the virus together. This is a new phenomenon in South Africa, having first been introduced in certain districts of the Mpumalanga and Free State provinces.
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Home-based HIV testing, which enables you and your family to have an HIV test in the privacy of your own home without having to go to a health facility, is one of the newest efforts to be introduced to get people to know their HIV status.
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Information and communication technologies, especially mobile phones, could be an effective way of encouraging millions of people worldwide to become more physically active.
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No single infection has probably inspired as many conspiracy theories as AIDS has over the last 30 years. The science of AIDS has endured tremendous attacks from as early as when the virus first appeared. A book entitled “The AIDS Conspiracy – Science Fights Back”, looks at how science has triumphed and sought to bring sense to a condition that has attracted a flurry of mad conspiracy theories.
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Recent research among South Africans living with HIV shows that they often experience varying degrees of pain, yet many patients do not report it. The study also shows that health care workers are ill-equipped to treat pain in HIV-positive people.
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About 211 field workers will be visiting a total of 15 000 households across the country over the next six months. This is part of the 4th South African National HIV, Behaviour and Health Survey that is led by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC).
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An AIDS patient previously on antiretroviral treatment appears to now be free of infection after a stem cell transplant where he received blood cells of a person with genes that are able to resist HIV infection. This so-called “Berlin patient” has raised the possibility that AIDS can be cured.
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PITTSBURGH, September 28, 2011 – VOICE, an HIV prevention trial evaluating two antiretroviral (ARV)-based approaches for preventing the sexual transmission of HIV in women – daily use of one of two different ARV tablets or of a vaginal gel – will be dropping one of the oral tablets from the study. Read statement here.
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Pneumonia remains the leading cause of death among children under five years of age, with HIV contributing a large share to the burden of disease. But since the 1980s, there has been no updated knowledge of what causes child-hood pneumonia. A new international study involving about 12 000 children is investigating the causes of this disease.
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Medical male circumcision has helped reduce HIV acquisition among men in the Orange Farm area, south of Johannesburg, by about 76% since the rollout of the intervention three years ago.
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On the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS, the SA health department is ready to give antiretroviral medication to all those with CD4 counts of 350 and below.
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A multi-national study shows that if an HIV-positive person starts taking antiretroviral therapy early on, that is, when their CD 4 count is still high, their chances of infecting their HIV-negative partner can decrease by as much as 96%.
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In the last 20 years there has been a steady increase of pneumonia cases in adults, mostly in people living with HIV. A significant proportion of those infected die.
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The University of Limpopo Medunsa campus this week launched a clinical scientific trial to test a vaccine developed in Italy to investigate whether it can slow HIV progression in people already living with the HI-virus.
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Tuberculosis is the leading cause of natural death in South Africa and over 10% of all new TB cases are drug resistant. One of the most important measures for controlling the spread of the bacteria is quick diagnosis and treatment. Revolutionary new testing technology may make this possible.
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A University of Stellenbosch computer scientist has been honoured for his contribution to better understanding HIV.
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The Health Department’s drive to circumcise as many men as possible to reduce their risk of contracting HIV has ignited fierce debate among young men.
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CAPE TOWN - South Africa’s world-class government policies are failing to reach poor children on the margins, according to child experts.
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Children and pregnant women should avoid using cell phones, cordless phones and other wireless devices.
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