AIDS

Voluntary HIV testing and counselling is essential for HIV prevention but as yet few health facilities in South Africa provide the service. The national health department’s Directorate for HIV/AIDS and STDs does not have accurate recent figures regarding available voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) services but the bottom-line, says MsThembela Masuku, Deputy-Director of Counselling Programmes, is that it is still limited.

Government's long-awaited code of practice on HIV/AIDS in the workplace has virtually outlawed testing and will compel employers to adopt concrete anti-discrimination policies. Published in the Government Gazette on Friday, the new code allows companies to ask the Labour Court to authorise tests only when the employee has given his or her consent.

In terms of the code, agreed to by parties to the National Economic, Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), employers and trade unionists will now be expected to develop integrated strategies to eradicate HIV/AIDS discrimination in their workplaces and support those already living with the disease. The code applies to all employer-employee relationships, including those in the informal sector. 

According to a study conducted by the SA Institute of Race Relations, 25% of SA's workforce will be HIV-positive by 2005 and some 10-million people will have died of the disease by 2015. Another survey, conducted by ING Barings, predicts that SA's GDP will decline by an annual 0.4% between 2006 and 2010 as a direct result of HIV/AIDS.

By formulating a code of practice on HIV/AIDS and work, government and its social partners are trying to minimise the impact of the disease while protecting those already living with it from discrimination.

Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the health minister painfully admitted on Friday that members of her own family are HIV-positive. Addressing a media briefing during World AIDS Day, she said: I also have friends, and relatives, who are infected with the virus - so for me it is also a very special day. Tshabalala-Msimang is one of several high-profile South Africans to reveal that they have been affected by the epidemic, which has hit one in every five adult South Africans aged between 15 and 49.

Around Gauteng, people gathered to be reminded of what is the biggest health threat to South Africa. Some heard that while condoms are handed out for free in urban areas, rural folk don't have access to them. Others were told that people with HIV would have to wait several months until they have access to free life-saving drugs.

The United Nations and World Health Organisation this week reported that sub-Saharan Africa saw 3,8 million new HIV infections this year, bringing the total number of people with HIV in the region, the hardest hit in the world, to 25,3 million.

Western Cape health MEC Nick Koornhof reported some new information about HIV/AIDS in South Africa at the opening of a new clinic in Kleinmond. Koornhof said these findings emerged from research commissioned by the health authorities and distributed to all provincial health MECs.

Pfizer is expected to announce on December 1, World AIDS Day, that it will donate $50 million worth of its antifungal drug Diflucan, which is used by many AIDS patients, to South Africa over two years.

Today marks the 13th annual World AIDS Day, with this year's theme being Men Make a Difference. According to UNAIDS, this year's campaign aims to involve men more fully in the effort against AIDS and to bring about a much-needed focus on men in national responses to the epidemic.

A new report from UNAIDS indicates that the number of people who contracted HIV in sub-Saharan Africa declined this year for the first time.

The HIV epidemic might be stabilising in sub-Saharan Africa, but in South Africa it is still growing

More than 80 000 registered voters have died of AIDS since the election in June last year, which AIDS experts said indicates the increasing toll the disease is exacting.

Courts may now require proof that HIV causes AIDS - opening a loophole that could cost insurers billions. The prestigious South African legal journal, De Rebus, warns in its current issue that the loophole has been opened by the controversy over whether HIV causes AIDS.