Unified bid to step up AIDS treatment

The government faces its biggest challenge yet as South Africa's powerful lobby of health-care providers joins forces with AIDS activists to thrash out a national HIV/AIDS treatment plan for the country, including a roll-out of anti-retroviral drugs.

People living with HIV light up world

Once a week Gloria Mantsu boards a taxi from Philippi to Observatory in Cape Town with a bag full of hand-decorated light bulbs.

HIV/AIDS survey gets upbeat government response

The principal investigator of the Human Sciences Research Council's report on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa has welcomed the "encouraging" response from the government to the 120-page document released at the weekend.

Youth empowered to prevent HIV/AIDS

With about half of all new adult HIV/AIDS infections taking place among young people, a recently launched UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) project is empowering the youth to become a part of the solution to reverse this trend.

Tough new anti-rape laws on the cards

New laws aimed at "eradicating the pandemic of sexual offences" in South Africa, by broadening the definition of rape, criminalising male and oral rape and giving free medical treatment to victims, will be put before parliament next year.

Traditional healers urged to quash HIV/AIDS myth

Traditional healers in KwaZulu-Natal have been urged to be at the forefront of the war against the scourge of HIV/AIDS and help to quash the perception that raping virgin girls cures HIV/AIDS.

Madiba urges 'love and care' for HIV/AIDS victims

Hundreds of Khayelitsha residents rejoiced and mingled with HIV-positive patients on Thursday at the Nolungile Clinic when Nelson Mandela visited and made an impassioned plea for "care and love" to be given to people living with HIV/AIDS.

International coalition on anti-retrovirals launched

An international coalition to expand access to anti-retroviral drugs in developing countries was launched on Thursday by the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNAIDS and more than 50 other institutions.

Launching the HIV/AIDS Alliance NGO/CBO Support Toolkit

The HIV/AIDS NGO/CBO Support Toolkit is a website and CD-Rom with over 500 downloadable resources and supporting information. To access the website please go to:

Trust Fund aids KZN orphans

Less than a year after it was established, the Orphans of AIDS Trust Fund handed over its first grants to eight worthy organisations at a function held at Independent Newspapers early in December 2002.