HEALTH-SWAZILAND: 'Role Models in the Community'

She is popularly known as sitjifiri (beautiful and well-kempt woman in SiSwati). Sylvia Khuzwayo travels across the Shiselweni region in the southern part of the Kingdom of Swaziland, giving testimonials to communities on her experience of living with HIV.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Returning Sick – HIV, Illness, Death and Migration

It's a Wednesday afternoon at the Joe Gqabi bus terminus in Philippi, Cape Town, and ticket touts scramble to recruit passengers wanting to travel to the rural Eastern Cape, a 1,000 kilometre, 16-hour haul away.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Bringing HIV Testing Where It's Needed

In the ten months since the Tutu Tester's mobile clinic began touring Cape Town neighbourhoods offering quick, confidential tests for a number of chronic diseases including HIV/AIDS, more than 7,000 people have climbed into its colourful camper-van for testing and counselling.

UGANDA: Village Health Teams – First Draft of a Solution

Primary health care in Uganda is hampered by a shortage of doctors and nurses, but trained volunteers from the community are stepping into the breach.

HEALTH-ZIMBABWE: Government Promises to Rebuild Health System

The resuscitation of Zimbabwe’s health care system has been identified as one of the major challenges facing the country by the country’s new unity government.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: 'Our Lives Are Most Important'

The Fourth South African AIDS conference ended in Durban Friday with optimism over progress in research and policy on AIDS prevention but serious concerns over finding the resources to effectively implement the country's national strategic plan of action.

SOUTH AFRICA: Nurses Should Be Backbone of ARV Treatment

Effectively scaling up South Africans’ access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment will require decentralisation of health services from hospitals to clinics and allowing nurses to manage and eventually to initiate ARV treatment and care.

HEALTH: Using ARVs to Prevent as well as to Treat HIV

Researchers are now investigating if antiretroviral (ARV) drugs can play a role in not just treating HIV, but in preventing infection. Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC), called it "a pivotal moment in HIV/AIDS research".

SOUTH AFRICA: Implementation, Not Money the Obstacle to Scaling Up HIV Treatment

The money to scale up HIV treatment is there, but implementation of programmes to curb the pandemic is a problem, health experts said at the opening of the Fourth South African AIDS Conference in Durban.

HEALTH-LESOTHO: Migration Calls for Cross-Border Health Policies

The mountain kingdom of Lesotho faces a number of unique hurdles with regard to HIV and AIDS.

SOUTH AFRICA: Activists Lament Lack of HIV/TB Co-Treatment

Despite repeated calls for integrated HIV and tuberculosis (TB) health services from medical experts and AIDS activists, most of South Africa’s public health facilities continue to treat the diseases independently. Co-infection presents a major risk to the lives of people living with HIV.

ZIMBABWE: Researchers Developing New Ways to Purify Water

Scientists at Bulawayo's National University of Science and Technology (NUST) have embarked on research to develop simple and affordable water purification methods, as more than a billion people live without safe drinking water in developing countries.

MALAWI: Bringing TB Testing and Treatment To Those Who Need It

Malawi does not have accurate statistics that define the extent of tuberculosis (TB) cases within its borders, and there are fears that only half of those infected with the disease are able to access testing and treatment.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Politicians Fail to Address HIV

Parliamentarians across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have failed to put HIV on the political agenda.

WATER-UGANDA: Creating a ‘Safe Water Chain’

Uganda spends close to $10 million each year treating waterborne diseases; the productive time lost to illness and caring for the sick has an even greater financial impact. But residents of Katosi village on the shores of Lake Victoria aren't waiting for the government to find a solution.

AGRICULTURE-MALAWI: Water Makes the Difference

Water has become the very essence of economic development for a rural community of Ngolowindo, in Malawi’s lake district of Salima, where households are reducing poverty thanks to irrigation.

HEALTH-ZIMBABWE: Doctors Fear High Risk of Drug-Resistant TB

Zimbabwe’s crumbling health system makes it almost impossible to detect and treat tuberculosis (TB), doctors say. As a result, they suspect the country has large numbers of unidentified cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) as well as extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB.

HEALTH-NIGERIA: Polio – Making Up For Lost Time

Six years ago, authorities in the northern Nigerian state of Kano suspended polio vaccination campaigns for thirteen months. It was a major setback for eradication of the disease, which has since regained a foothold in Africa's most populous nation and re-infected several other countries that were considered polio-free.

Q&A: Zimbabwe – Fighting Cholera on a Shoestring

Nearly 50,000 cases of cholera have been reported in Zimbabwe by the World Health Organisation; the death toll stood at 2,755 on Jan. 21.

HEALTH-MALAWI: Rains Expose Poor Sanitation

Zimbabwe - where cholera has claimed more than 2,700 lives so far according to the Red Cross - is not the only southern African country facing increased disease as rains set in across the region. Malawi is also battling a cholera outbreak which has killed 19 people since the onset of the rainy season, an unusually high death toll.

SWAZILAND: Patients Fail to Adhere to TB Treatment

Every five minutes she gives a hacking cough. Ndlaleni Ndzinisa (70) says she has continuously suffered from tuberculosis for the past five years. Because she cannot afford to pay for transport to the nearest hospital, she has repeatedly failed to adhere to her tuberculosis (TB) treatment.