South African government

The Future of the U.S.–South Africa HIV/AIDS Partnership

Published by: 
Center For Strategic and International Studies(CSIS)

South Africa has the highest burden of HIV/AIDS in the world, with 5.6 million people living with the virus and over 400,000 newly infected annually. Since 2004, the U.S. government has committed more than $4 billion to combating HIV/AIDS in South Africa—the largest U.S. investment in HIV/AIDS worldwide. Continued progress in controlling HIV/AIDS in South Africa, the epicenter of the pandemic, is pivotal to sustained progress against the disease worldwide.

Getting to Success: Improving HIV Prevention Efforts in South Africa

Published by: 
South African National AIDS Council (SANAC)

The purpose of this work is to assist South Africa in improving its HIV prevention response. In 2011, the South African government has the challenging task to draw up a new 5-year strategy: the National HIV Strategic Plan 2012 to 2016. This plan is to provide strategic direction on how to respond to HIV and AIDS in South Africa in the next five years. With the annual rate of new HIV infections down to the level of the early 1990s, a slower spread of HIV infection in teenagers, ARV provision at high levels, and promising new HIV prevention tools becoming available, these five years represent a window of opportunity to radically turn around the epidemic by significantly putting the brakes on new infections in the country.

Interim Findings of the National PMTCT Pilot Sites: Summary of Lessons and Recommendations

Published by: 
Health Systems Trust

HIV/AIDS is affecting everyone in South Africa. There are many organisations and individuals working hard to fight the spread of the virus. In 2000 the South African government introduced a programme offering prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services at 18 pilot sites.

The programme is an important part of the country s response to the epidemic. This booklet provides some basic facts about the effects of the medicine, Nevirapine, and formula feeding in a PMTCT programme. It then goes on to summarise the interim findings of an evaluation of the pilot sites.

Essential Drugs List Programme

Series Name: 
HST Update
Published by: 
Health Systems Trust
The rapid escalation of drug costs is a world wide problem. But by all accounts, drug prices in South Africa's private sector are among the highest in the world. The South African government has responded to this problem by way of developing a national drug policy . An important element of this is an essential drugs programme which has, in the first instance, been developed for the public sector primary health care facilities.

Women in Health

Series Name: 
HST Update
Published by: 
Health Systems Trust
Women are numerically dominant in virtually all health care disciplines except the medical profession. This anomaly is rooted in developments in Western medicine during the 16th and 17th centuries when knowledge of anatomy, physiology and the causes of diseases regained a scientific and theoretical base after the hiatus of the medieval period. Medical training was then established in the universities and the role of wise women and female healers was increasingly discredited and relegated to the treatment of women and those who could not afford the care of learned male physicians.

Breaking the silence: A profile of domestic violence in women attending a community health centre

Published by: 
Health Systems Trust
Violence against women is the world s most pervasive form of human rights violation. Gender based violence represents a substantial health burden for women in terms of morbidity and mortality rates and makes a significant negative impact on their physical and mental health (WHO 1997).