Media Watch
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SA says progress made on UN goals
Social development director-general Vusi Madonsela says South Africa will report a lot of progress on its next Millennium Development Goals submission to the UN.Counsellors’ strike leaves HIV patients in limbo
The Gauteng health department has warned 6000 striking HIV counsellors and home-based caregivers that there will be consequences if they do not return to work—but admits there's no guarantee they'll be paid if they do.
The counsellors and caregivers have gone on strike after not being paid for the past four months.
Abnormal normality
After reading City Press' three-part youth month series—Young, Jobless and Desperate—I was left saddened by the conditions in which South African youth find themselves.
We often fail to note what the statistics don't tell us—the drudgery of every life that an individual has to contend with. These difficulties take different shapes for different individuals.
Row over SA’s 4.5 million HIV testing kits
Probe into R22m tender for kits banned by the WHO.
The Health director-general has launched an investigation into how officials in the Treasury and the Department of Health bought 4.5 million HIV testing kits that were banned by the World Health Organisation.
Health officials allege it was the Treasury that had finalised the decision to spend R22 million on the kits from SD Bioline, despite warnings from both the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and their departments about the WHO caution.
Zuma trims terms of gender officers
President Jacob Zuma has shortened the term of office for the majority of commissioners to serve on the critical Commission on Gender Equality.XDR-TB cure coverage a mixed bag
Last week JournAIDS featured a blog about a City Press article that put a human face on XDR-TB (Extensively Drug Resistant Tuberculosis).
But a subsequent blink-and-you’ll-miss-it report on XDR-TB patient Andaleeb Ringquest-January’s long road to recovery in The New Age (TNA) is decidedly lacklustre in comparison.
What the report manages well is to effectively communicate the family’s struggle to help and support Andaleeb though the trials and tribulations of her illness. But the picture-less piece is relegated to page 8 of a sub-section of the paper; an indication of story’s failure to really grab the reader’s attention.
HIV, AIDS and a new shame
A City Press column sets a good example by distinguishing between HIV and AIDS, through an intelligent and considered questioning of the silence that continues to surround AIDS-related deaths.
In doing this the author correctly distinguishes between HIV and AIDS instead of collapsing them into one–written as HIV/AIDS–as is the all to common practice.
Bongani Kona, the astute author of this column does not confuse HIV and AIDS. He does not refer to AIDS but actually talk about HIV. Kona ‘s column succinctly points out that there is a silence surrounding death from uncontrolled HIV infection that causes, you guessed it—AIDS.
Kona’s piece demonstrates an understanding of the technical details of HIV and AIDS that media coverage is more often than not oblivious to. But Kona’s piece also reveals other insights and raises interesting questions.Facing XDR-TB
City Press restores the humanity of XDR-TB sufferers through an account of the personal experience of Dimakatso Montshiwagae, the first person to be successfully cured of this virulent disease.
XDR-TB (extensively drug resistant TB) has repeatedly whipped South Africa up into frenzied alarm since the shocking and deadly outbreak of XDR-TB in Tugela Ferry in 2006.
IN THE NEWS: KZN child deaths from diarrhoea or HIV-related illness enrage committee
The KwaZulu Natal department of health has been slammed for failing to prevent the deaths of 5595 children in the province last year. The children, all under the age of five, died while being cared for by doctors and nurses in state clinics and hospitals.IN THE NEWS: Infectious TB patients sent home due to shortage of beds
A severe shortage of hospital beds across South Africa means patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are being sent home while they are still highly infectious. Some MDR-TB patients are having to wait as long as four months to get a bed in a state hospital.Page 1 of 3 pages 1 2 3 >
