KwaZulu-Natal

The Health Systems Trust (HST) released its latest edition of the District Health Barometer on the 6th of July at the HISA conference, Emperors Palace, Gauteng. The publication illustrates important aspects of the health system at district level through the analysis of a selected range of health indicators from which comparisons among districts and provinces can be made. Data feeding into the report are drawn from a range of sources including the national Department of Health, Statistics SA, the TB register and the national Treasury. It is the only publication of its kind in South Africa that makes available comparative data for the purpose of measuring and tracking progress in primary health care at the district level.

The Each One Reach Five campaign lies at the heart of a national HIV-testing drive running over two months at 13 higher education institutions. The drive has been initiated by the Higher Education HIV/AIDS programme, a joint undertaking of the Department of Education and Higher Education South Africa. It is funded by the European Union.

Twice as many children were abandoned in the past year compared to the year before, the Johannesburg Child Welfare centre said. Thousands of children a year are being abandoned, with the number reaching at least 1 200 in three provinces alone, the Sowetan newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Senior representatives of the Tunisian Agency for Technical Cooperation are in South Africa this week to inspect public health facilities with the aim of assisting in recruiting Tunisian doctors to work in the underserved areas of South Africa.

More than 50 percent of all sexual offences committed in the country and reported to Childline are committed by children under 18, with the youngest abuser being just seven years old.

South Africa's Medicines Control Council got a major slapdown in the Pretoria High Court when a judge ordered that a nevirapine trial it was stalling be allowed to go ahead immediately.

South Africa is struggling to contain an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is sending a permanent staff member to help, reported the Lancet.

Patient safety through effective infection control
The National Department of Health invites you, to attend the Hospital Infection Prevention Symposium at the Durban International Convention Centre.