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/ 3 September 2004
A Muslim couple is suing the department of health in the Western Cape for R5-million after their baby daughter became infected with HIV under mysterious circumstances at one of two leading paediatric hospitals. The unprecedented action has major ramifications for hospital health regimes, as well as for other parents in the same predicament.
The South African Communist Party will from next month pressure both the government and commercial agriculture to accelerate land and agrarian reform. The announcement coincides with Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza’s appointment this week of a panel of experts to study the extent and impact of foreign land ownership in the country.
Anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment given to 61 patients, some HIV-positive, at Sterkfontein psychiatric hospital in Johannesburg after an assistant nurse allegedly used the same needle on all of them, is likely to be ineffective, because the treatment was provided too late. The Gauteng department of health then said the assistant nurse had been suspended for administering glucose tests to patients without changing the needle.
The two South Africans detained in Pakistan as suspected al-Qaeda terrorists are now effectively in American hands, according to a range of sources in Lahore and in South Africa. Asif Shahzad, crime reporter for a Pakistani daily, The Dawn, who has followed the arrests closely, said the interrogation of Feroz Ganchi and Zubair Ismail was being driven by the United States, with Pakistani intelligence only assisting.
The Medicines Control Council has pulled the generic anti-retroviral drug Duovir off the shelves because of concerns about the manufacturer’s studies that deal with the drug’s efficacy. The tablet, which combines zidovudine and lamivudine, is widely used by NGOs. This week the Treatment Action Campaign and Medecins Sans Frontières expressed concern about the council’s decision.
The future of the world’s largest fund for the fight against Aids hangs in the balance. The United Nations’s Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria is threatened by underfunding by the United States in favour of its own Aids programme, as well as from G8 countries. And clashes between two of the UN’s Aids leaders also emerged this week.
Three previously disadvantaged tertiary institutions in the Eastern Cape this week amicably signed their ”antenuptial contract”, paving the way for a smooth transition to their merger in January. The contract binds the University of Transkei (Unitra), Border Technikon and Eastern Cape Technikon on key issues such as staffing and salaries.
Growing up in a formerly coloured suburb in Johannesburg, the closest I got to seeing real ”wild” animals were the scrawny, unhappy lions or cheetahs at the zoo. So it was with scepticism that after 27 years of my life I was dragged on holiday to the Kruger National Park to check out the ”Big Five”. First exposure to the rituals of visiting a national park can be bewildering.
The flight of nurses and doctors from South Africa — and other African states — has long been a source of concern for the governments of these countries. And, the advent of Aids has sharpened fears about the effects of this migration. Should donor agencies and NGOs start supplementing the salaries of health workers?
A case against a suspected serial rapist exposes multiple system failures, including alleged police corruption.