HIV causes Aids, but creating an epidemic on the scale of SA’s needed fuel in the form of poverty, gender inequality and ignorance. Stopping the epidemic means not only stopping infection but also improving the wellbeing and environment of those most affected and at risk.

South Africa’s future is being eroded by the suffering of its children as the Aids epidemic takes away their hope along with their parents. Children are traumatised by losing those who should be nurturing them, first to illness and then to death.

Cleaning diarrhoea repeatedly off a bedridden relative without access to running water; pretending to cook the evening meal for so long that the hungry children fall asleep from exhaustion; selling a child’s school shoes because you can no longer afford to send him to school …

South Africa’s financial institutions may be sitting on an Aids-related time bomb, with billions of rands of loans, debts and bonds at risk of being defaulted on or just not being taken out because of the HIV epidemic.

It may not be able to provide the answer to life, the universe and everything else, but the new million-dollar supercomputer about to arrive at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (Sanbi) may help find why some Africans are immune to HIV.

White starts first in chess, but in South Africa black is king. The highest-ranked chess player in the country is Watu Kobese. He is also the only chess professional in the country, eschewing a more secure career for battle on the chequered board.

Small business is underestimating the impact of HIV/Aids on the workforce. The private sector is living in a state of bliss, with almost universal ignorance of the real impact of HIV/Aids on their workforce and bottom line

Households headed by children whose parents have died from HIV/Aids are an increasing problem for banks, which already face high levels of home loans defaults. The traditional route of eviction becomes unpalatable when the family consists of children

THE head of family medicine at Medunsa is sceptical about the existence of HIV and appears to believe that the use of the ”notoriously toxic” anti-retroviral drug nevirapine is part of a campaign to maximise corporate profits