Blog

“You have brought the sickness:” HIV and a woman’s plight

By Lungi Langa

I was recently paging through a back-copy of the Big Issue magazine when an article titled Teen love gets more complicated, caught my attention. It told the story of a teenager who was born HIV positive. She found out about her status when she was thirteen years old.

Because she had been a sickly child, her mother knew every witch doctor around and took her to all of them.

Her father was also sick, convincing her mother that they were both bewitched, probably by one person. After her father died, the girl’s health continued to deteriorate until she was referred to a health facility where both she and her mother were tested and diagnosed with HIV.

Death and a Funeral

By Melissa Meyer

The newly appointed Minister of Home Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s public grieving over the suicide of a young man who took his own life after the Department of Home Affairs refused to issue him with an ID, has made for truly moving copy this week.

But there is something disconcerting about this ministerial display of empathy. If only Dlamini-Zuma had been this moved by the deaths of the some 180 000 South Africans who perished from AIDS-related illnesses during her tenure as Health Minister, the South African epidemic may have taken a much less dramatic toll.

Manto backtracks on beetroot while Zuma preaches morals

It seems Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is not as impervious to public ridicule and pressure as she would have us believe. It appears she has denounced her famous diet alternative to anti-retroviral treatment. On 26 September, Sapa reported her as telling reporters at a media briefing:

Manto madness must not sidetrack media

With qualifications to her name such as a BA from Fort Hare University, a diploma in Obstetrics, a Master's Degree in Public Health from a Belgian university and a Health Care Systems Planning certificate from the United Kingdom, Mantombazana Edmie Tshabalala-Msimang is a reasonably qualified health minister. But test public support for this particular politician, and you're bound to get an earful.

Mice or humans?

German vitamin conman Dr Matthias Rath has set up two clinics in the Western Cape which lure people living with HIV/AIDS with food parcels and then trick them into being human guinea pigs, according to a Sunday Times article that appeared on September 4 2005.