Choosing the best medical scheme plan is a life-and-death choice if you are HIV-positive and face long-term anti-retroviral treatment and extensive hospital bills.

The Mpumalanga Department of Health announced last week that it has begun a programme to prevent mother-to-child-transmission of HIV, days after the Mail & Guardian exposed provincial inaction in complying with a court order to provide anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant women.

Aids activists and health care workers slammed the South African National Aids Council for excluding them from a restructuring workshop. Deputy President Jacob Zuma is Sanac’s chairperson, but his office could not confirm that the work-shop is taking place.

Nontsikelelo Zwedala, an HIV-positive squatter from Philippi in the Western Cape, has joined the Treatment Action Campaign and the Congress of South African Trade Unions in a move to force two pharmaceutical giants to cut the cost of their Aids drugs.

The Treatment Action Campaign this week expressed deep concern about the inaction by provinces in implementing programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/Aids. In July the TAC won a Constitutional Court case that ordered the state to make nevirapine available.

The arrest of a vet who assisted a snared lion last month highlights poaching problems plaguing the Manyeleti Game Reserve near Hoedspruit. The SanWild Trust, formed to rehabilitate wild animals, slammed the conservation authorities for their behaviour towards their vet.

Transnet is no longer turning a blind eye to the effect HIV/Aids is having on its workforce after being faced with the rising costs of employees getting sick and dying. Transnet launched an HIV/Aids lifestyle management programme, including an anti-retroviral component.

High-speed Aids test: Chinese scientists claim to have developed an Aids test that gives results in just three hours, a Hong Kong news report said on Thursday. The test allows doctors to scan for the virus as soon as it enters the body, compared with the four to eight weeks for other tests. It also clearly determines the severity of the infection.

The court of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern African States (Comesa) has changed its rules to bar the lead counsel for the Comesa bank from appearing in the court.

HIV/Aids activist Zackie Achmat is no stranger to struggle — but he has come face to face with one of his biggest challenges: to take the drugs that can keep him healthy, or to put his life at risk because of his moral convictions.