Medical Director

No blood transfusions have been linked to HIV infections since more sophisticated testing started more than two years ago, says the South African National Blood Service.

Two-thirds of the 240 beds at the Dream Centre, a step-down-care facility in KwaZulu-Natal province , are standing empty - despite the fact that the institution is located in the province with the highest HIV prevalence rate in South Africa.

The Medicines Control Council (MCC) has declared a generic version of antiretroviral (ARV) Duovir undesirable and ordered a recall, the manufacturer confirmed on Thursday.

Companies in South Africa could lose about 15% of annual profits to HIV/AIDS by 2008, the most recent impact study shows. Boston University researchers point out that South Africa is already losing 5% of its labour force each year due to disease - enough to raise concerns among foreign buyers of local products. The findings, presented recently by the American Chamber of Commerce, found the total cost to the SA economy could soon be an annual reduction in the growth rate of between 0.3% and 0.4% - at a cost of R167-billion. The study says comprehensive treatment could significantly reduce this figure. At the current treatment cost of around R860 a month per person (down from about R4 860 four years ago), it would make sense for employers to pay for treatment to extend employee productivity. They should also set up prevention programmes. Researchers advise companies to increase their spend on medical expenses, which currently amounts to on average 13% of labour costs. The figures are based on estimated workforce HIV infection prevalence of between 10% and 30%. The direct costs of AIDS include absenteeism, lost productivity, hospitalisation and replacing workers. HIV infections may cost companies between 2% and 6% of salaries a year. Companies were also considering relocating within South Africa to areas with lower HIV prevalence rates. A recent study of workplace Aids and employee benefits by the Wits University Centre for Health Policy warned that businesses needed to counter the notion that the HIV/AIDS threat was mitigated by the ease of substitution of unskilled or semi-skilled workers. Figures showed that by 2010 about 15% of highly skilled workers would have contracted HIV. (Source: Business Times, 12 May 2002)

The African continent will take a step in the right direction when celebrating Africa Malaria Day on Thursday. A South African-based doctor will present research conducted in Mozambique to the Royal College of Physicians in Britain on the most effective malaria treatment developed to date. Dr Stephen Toovey, medical director of Netcare Travel Clinics in South Africa, will brief the British medical community on Thursday, April 25 - Africa Malaria Day. Toovey and a colleague, Dr Andrew Jamieson, published the results of their study in the British Medical Journal earlier this month. They tested the new medicine, called co-artemether, which is a combination of two Chinese drugs (artemether-lumefantrine), on 75 malaria patients in Mozambique and achieved a 100 percent success rate. Toovey stressed that co-artemether was not a preventative drug, but a treatment for when malaria had been contracted. A full treatment for one patient will cost about R180. Toovey said clinical trials of an advanced vaccine for prevention, focusing on children under the age of five, were also underway in Mozambique. The research was being conducted by a United States-based non-profit organisation and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (GSK Biologicals). Toovey cautioned that the development of co-artemether should not steer people away from using preventative medicine when travelling to high-risk areas. He said it was a myth that one should refrain from taking malaria tablets as they masked the symptoms. He said those who stayed in malaria areas were not fully immune to the illness either. Malaria kills more than one million people each year (about 3 000 per day) and at least 300-million suffer from acute malaria annually, according to the Africa Malaria Day website. Most of the victims are children and nine out of 10 cases occur in Africa south of the Sahara. Pregnant women are also more likely to contract malaria, and a pregnant woman suffering from malaria is more prone to develop anaemia that increases the risk of death. A global partnership, aimed at halving the world's malaria burden by 2010, Roll Back Malaria, was created at the first malaria summit in Abuja, Nigeria on April 25, 2000. (Source: SAPA, 23 April 2002)

Residents of greater Johannesburg, who are injured or ill but cannot afford to pay for private medical help, will have to find their own way to hospital or wait for long periods for emergency services.