Health

Authorities and health experts say South Africans living with AIDS are being robbed of their lifesaving drugs so that they can be mixed with marijuana and smoked.

The concoction is called ‘whoonga’ -- less a word than an exclamation -- and it adds a bizarre twist to the war on HIV/AIDS in the world's worst-affected country just as it embarks on a massive distribution of antiretrovirals.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), warning of a health emergency in Swaziland, says the twin epidemics of AIDS and tuberculosis are ravaging that country, helping to halve life expectancy to 31 years.

The Geneva-headquartered medical charity points out that, "The co-epidemic has contributed substantially to a halving of life expectancy within two decades - from 60 years in the 1990s to 31 in 2007."

Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says it has been forced to suspend work in a volatile part of South Sudan because of attacks against their staff, as violence between rival tribes surges in the area.

The organisation says that armed men stole medical equipment from one of its health clinics twice this month in Jonglei state, adding that staff members have also been attacked while delivering aid.

In a statement on its website, the organisation is calling on armed groups to respect its neutrality so it can resume providing aid.

Scientists have proclaimed a breakthrough in research into the use of an antiretroviral microbicide which they say could prevent more than 500 000 new HIV infections in South Africa alone over the next decade.

The scientists say that an experiment with a trial group of South African women shows that those who used a vaginal gel containing tenofovir, an antiretroviral drug, were 39 percent less likely to become infected with HIV during sex than those who did not use it.