Politics

While much progress has been made in transforming the health sector since 1994, we begin this first calendar year of the second decade of our freedom with the momentous task of sustaining efforts to improve access to affordable quality medicine. The transformation of the pharmaceutical industry, both in terms of ensuring the quality of medicine and reducing prices of drugs at manufacturing, distribution and retail industry levels has been the most challenging part of the transformation process in the health sector so far.

Many people with HIV/AIDS cannot afford treatment at hospitals

New research by the Centre for International Health & Development at Boston University shows that only 4% of employees in SA's biggest companies are on HIV/Aids disease management programmes and just 0,6% receive antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, despite an HIV prevalence at these companies of 14,3%.

Uncertainty surrounds exactly which medicine-pricing regulations are currently in force, with the Department of Health and pharmacists each insisting that a different law is in place.

More than 1 200 KwaZulu-Natal medical doctors have joined hands for an ambitious programme aiming to control the escalating cost of healthcare delivery.

A full bench of the Supreme Court of Appeal this morning ruled in favour of the PSSA and its partners. They unanimously agreed that the pricing regulations should be set aside, and that the Department of Health should pay all legal costs.

WASHINGTON -- The government's research on using an AIDS drug to protect African babies was so flawed that health officials had to use blood tests after the fact to confirm patients got the medicine. Ultimately, they had to acknowledge the study broke federal patient protection rules.

Malaria kills millions around the globe and until recently was believed to be a disease of rural areas, since the Anopheles mosquito - which transmits the deadly parasite between people - breeds in stagnant waters. But now, scientists at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) in the UK are issuing a global alert that urban malaria is a new, emerging tropical disease.

According to the citizens of Africa, Latin America and West Asia, HIV/Aids is the most important disease in these regions but it is seen as the second most important disease overall by citizens of the world. This was the most important finding in a survey released worldwide today by Gallup International, and their South African associate, Markinor.