Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has requested an investigation by the research ethics council following concerns about the health of participants in microbicide clinical trials.

The Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang calls on national Non Governmental Organisations working in the field of HIV, AIDS and TB to urgently apply for funding that has been made available by the Department of Health.

The African Ministers of Health have adopted the African Union Plan of Action for universal access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services in Africa by 2015.

Following rigorous testing of multi-drug resistance tuberculosis patients, the Gauteng department of health has confirmed six cases of extreme drug-resistance tuberculosis (XDR-TB) in Gauteng, the province said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Health ministry has instructed provincial departments not to have any dealings with the United Nations special envoy on Aids in Africa.

Civil society organisations in South Africa are preparing to push government to meet its commitment for setting national targets on HIV/AIDS, made at the recent United Nations General Assembly Special Sessions on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS).

Human rights in health care is not just an apartheid-era issue, but one that still challenges health professionals in South Africa today, the director of the Steve Biko Foundation, Nkosinathi Biko, said on Wednesday.

South Africans, like the citizens of many other African countries, suffer from a number of serious health problems. As a result, average life expectancy at birth has declined from 62 years in 1990 to a mere 43 years in 2006.

Health leaders will meet this week in New York at the UN GA Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) to review the progress that has been made since 2001 and look at ways to turn epidemic around by 2010.

Not personalising HIV and AIDS perpetuates the myth that the disease is not your problem but someone else's problem, says HIV positive AIDS activist Lucky Mazibuko. Our biggest challenge as South Africans is that we have not been able to personalise AIDS and we only get involved when we are affected and infected, said the activist who also runs a column in one of the biggest daily newspapers, Sowetan.