The Medicines Control Council (MCC) played with semantics at the South African Aids conference on Wednesday when it said it would not ban nevirapine — except, perhaps, for use in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
South Africa, with the highest rate of Aids infected babies in the world, is the only country — of 72 using nevirapine — to consider delisting the drug which is used to prevent HIV in infants.
People being infected with more than one strain of HIV is becoming increasingly common, the South African Aids conference in Durban heard on Tuesday.
If South Africa does not implement a large scale Aids treatment plan soon, five million South Africans will die from Aids in the next eight to 10 years.
Child-headed households find it impossible to access help from community members or government, the South African Aids Conference in Durban heard on Tuesday.
A professor of microbiology at George Washington University in the US capital said on Monday he lost ”priceless” work on an Aids vaccine when he was mugged at knife-point while attending an Aids conference in South Africa.
In some parts of South Africa half of all pregnant women are infected with HIV, the first South African Aids conference heard in Durban on Monday.
HIV is overwhelmingly a disease of young people — those under the age of 24 — and women, South Africa’s national Aids conference heard on Monday.
HIV-positive judge Edwin Cameron is to lead a delegation of people living with HIV on Monday when they protest their exclusion from key events at the South African Aids Conference in Durban.
Outrage at new block on Aids drug
A US congressional staff delegation, led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, would visit South Africa in the next month to focus on HIV/Aids, US ambassador to South Africa Cameron R Hume said in Durban on Tuesday.
The Scorpions have served a new summons on embattled Durban businessman Schabir Shaik to answer questions relating to their investigation of his relationship with former transport minister Mac Maharaj.
It’s back to the drawingboard for paper giant Mondi after a Durban judge ruled on Wednesday it could not build an incinerator to burn waste and generate steam at its south Durban plant.
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Sunday handed out certificates to party members in KwaZulu-Natal who remained loyal to him during the floor-crossing window earlier this year.
Two small KwaZulu-Natal communities, including South Africa’s smallest minority group, received the title deeds to their properties, worth about R13,5-million.
African political and business leaders took a small step this week to move the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) off the drawing board, agreeing a shared responsibility to put its bold policies into action.
The Executive Director of the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) has called on African leaders to adopt child-centered standards as the primary measure for gauging progress under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel was upbeat on Thursday on the progress achieved in making Nepad a reality, saying its fledgling peer review was a world first.
Zimbabwe’s government and opposition should sit down and solve their differences, taking a lesson from the way South Africa eased its way out of the apartheid era, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe’s ‘self defeating repression’
Political leaders attending the World Economic Forum’s Africa summit on Wednesday warned that global powers, such as the United States, would ignore Africa to their own detriment.
South Africa was ranked fourth out of 21 countries in a new survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) rating African countries for good governance. Botswana was ranked first.
A study is being conducted to determine the prevalence of HIV/Aids among teachers, Education Minister Kader Asmal said on Monday. He said he was not convinced by some of the ”alarmist” reports being produced by research agencies on the prevalence of HIV/Aids among teachers.
President Thabo Mbeki drew on Mahatma Gandhi for inspiration on Friday night in a new call for an end to corruption and dishonesty, which he said prejudiced the poor.
Three of the four men accused of murdering a son of the KwaZulu-Natal social services and development MEC earlier this year, appeared briefly in the Mtubatuba Circuit Court on Monday, police reported.
Many African ports can anticipate the kind of pressure on their infrastructure South Africa is currently experiencing, as trade booms and economies grow through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said on Monday.
United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa has dramatically raised the stakes in the competition for South Africa’s burgeoning ”smart-card” industry by directing a raft of allegations against one of the key local players, businessman Robert Gumede.
South Africa’s differences with the United States over the war in Iraq will not affect ”the many sided relations” South Africa had with the US, says Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
Embattled KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali has refused to cave in to demands by the African National Congress (ANC) to incorporate three of its members into his provincial cabinet after the power balance in the provincial legislature shifted in its favour.
The African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu-Natal has given premier Lionel Mtshali until Wednesday to reinstate three ANC MECs he fired from the province’s coalition government or face unspecified action.
British defence giant BAE Systems is backing human trials in South Africa of a Russian-designed radiation machine touted as a radical new treatment for HIV/Aids.
South Africa must protect the advantage it has over many other emerging market economies, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday.