treatment

According to a United Nations report, the global rate of HIV infection and the number of AIDS-related deaths have been dramatically reduced due to expanding access to treatment.

In its annual update on HIV, which it says now infects around 35.3 million people worldwide, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says deaths from AIDS and HIV infection rates are falling, while the number of people getting treatment is going up.

Activists say at least one Gauteng public hospital has denied HIV treatment to some patients following a newly circulated provincial policy, activists say.

Leaked to public interest group, SECTION27, the policy requires public hospital patients to prove they are legally in the country before receiving care.

According to SECTION27 attorney, Sa- Health-e News Service, those who cannot provide proof must pay the estimated cost of their healthcare upfront with the expectation that any difference between the estimated and real cost of care would be paid back.

A new initiative to find an HIV vaccine, Uhambo, has been announced at the South African AIDS Conference in Durban.

This 10-year initiative builds on unexpected results from a study in Thailand which found some immune responses from the body to suppress the HI virus.

University of the Witwatersrand AIDS researcher, Dr Glenda Gray, says the first step will be to see if South African volunteers show the same response as those in Thailand.

Thousands of Aids-infected babies in Eastern Cape face a high risk of death because a vital antiretroviral drug is out of stock, according to a report by Rural Health Advocacy Project, Doctors Without Borders, the Treatment Action Campaign and SECTION27.

The report notes that the Mthatha depot does not have any supplies of Lopinavir-Ritonavir, a drug taken orally, which is an essential part of first-line antiretroviral therapy for infants.

The AIDS Foundation of South Africa says HIV/AIDS in the country has become a manageable chronic condition.

The organisation’s chief executive officer, Debbie Matthew, says this can be attributed to the positive leadership from the government, the ground-breaking work by scientists and pressure from advocacy groups.

Matthew explains: "What treatment does, it reduces the viral load in that patient to almost undetectable levels which means they are less likely to transmit HIV to other people that they will come into contact with sexually…”