Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 47 002 057 at 3.45pm on Thursday May 30
Patent busting: Zimbabwe has declared a six-month national emergency and suspended import restrictions on drugs to treat HIV/Aids. The move, published on Monday by the Ministry of Justice, will allow cheaper generic drugs to be imported without being submitted to the normal testing and registration regime. It is estimated that a quarter of Zimbabwean adults are infected and that 7 000 new infections occur every day. Life expectancy has fallen to 40 from 60 over the past decade.
Tested: Minister of Transport Dullah Omar revealed that he is HIV-negative after publicly taking an HIV test at Cape Town railway station. Omar said he would have revealed the result even if it had been positive. His wife, Farieda, said the couple had been having wonderful sex for 40 years and called for people to be monogamous.
African vaccine: A meeting next week will plan how to raise $233-million for the African Aids Vaccine Programme. The programme would concentrate on strains of the virus found in Africa, some of which are not common in other parts of the world.
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 46 898 694 at 12.05pm on Thursday May 23.
Good offer: By the South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union to provide nevirapine to pregnant members in provinces where the government does not have a programme in place. The union will provide a basic pack of multi-vitamins and cotrimoxazole prophylaxis, while the provincial governments will have to provide the infrastructure and formula feed.
Launched: An Aids orphan programme by Old Mutual. The objective is to fund selected NGOs, each with a different model of dealing with children infected with the virus. The effectiveness of each model will be evaluated at the end of the year to determine which model was best.
Honorarily conferred: A master’s degree in social science to HIV/Aids activist, Zackie Achmat, chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign, by the University of Cape Town on June 21.
Infected with HIV: About 6 000 of the 10 000 prisoners released from South African jails. The Department of Correctional Services has already started to provide anti-Aids cocktails of drugs for infected prisoners.
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 46 798 949 at 2.02pm on Thursday May 16
Death count: Statistics South Africa is conducting a mortality study into ‘secondary’ causes of death in an attempt to assess the true impact of HIV/Aids. The agency said preliminary indications were that there had been a marked rise in the number of people between 20 and 40 dying of natural causes – which includes disease. The new research will provide a minimum and maximum estimate of the number of HIV-related deaths.
Aids business: The South African Business Coalition on HIV/Aids released a report looking at private-sector responses to the disease. The report, funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, found a wide spectrum of responses, with smaller companies generally being less apprehensive about the impact of HIV/Aids on their business, and also doing less to combat it. The report concluded that South African companies do not know the existing or potential impact of HIV and are basing their strategies on assumptions rather than hard data.
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 46 697 638 at 12.58pm on Thursday May 9
Lost teachers: More than 40 000 of 350 000 South African teachers are living with HIV/Aids, says a World Bank report. It warned that in countries such as South Africa, where 12% of teachers are HIV-positive, this may reverse development gains. The report says in 2000 4% of South African children under 15 had been classified as Aids orphans and this figure will rise to 17% by 2010.
A breath of hope: A Soweto-researched version of pneumonia vaccine raises a ray of hope for children living with HIV. The vaccine reduces the incidence of pneumonia by more than 20% and could halve the number of pneumonia-related infections in HIV-positive children. Scientists from Wits University and Emory University in the United States were involved in the research, and say the vaccine could save 500 000 lives in the Third World each year.
Flip-flops: The Constitutional Court spent three days listening to the government appeal against a high court judgement that the state must provide nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant women, subject to certain conditions. The hearing was the government’s last chance for victory over the Treatment Action Campaign. It is uncertain when the judgement will be given.
Estimated worldwide HIV infections: 46 597 175 at 12:30pm on Thursday, May 2
Rollout will continue: The government said it would continue with its roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs in state hospitals regardless of the outcome of the Constitutional Court. The minister of health’s representative, Sibani Mngadi, said the government was not challenging the roll-out of nevirapine, but “the powers of a judge to decide on how government policies should be implemented”.
Awarded: Cape Town-born writer and entertainer Pieter-Dirk Uys, aka Evita Bezuidenhout, was awarded the Reconciliation Award 2001 by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation for his contribution towards reconciliation and, more importantly, to the fight against HIV/Aids.
R1,8-billion grant for HIV/Aids: The international Global Fund granted South Africa R1,8-billion “to strengthen national capacity for treatment, care and support related to HIV and TB, building on successful behaviour change”. The grant is the biggest the fund has donated to any country. About R792-million will go to a joint KwaZulu-Natal government and University of Natal project that was described by the fund as “possibly the most unique and exciting proposal we received from around the world”.
Aids helpline number: 0800 012 322