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The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the Pretoria High Court judgement ordering the government to make Nevirapine available to HIV-positive pregnant women in state hospitals and clinics which have the capacity to administer its provision, pending the government’s appeal against the court’s ruling of December 2001.

A study by leading South African NGO, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) has investigated the link between HIV/AIDS and violence against women in the country. "There is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence we found in the media about women who experienced a range of abuses after disclosing their positive status," CSVR researcher Kailash Bhana, told PlusNews.

The Kenya Family Planning Association operates 14 health clinics in Kenya, giving low-income women family planning options as well as breast cancer screening and annual pap smears. For many, the clinics are the only means through which they can afford reproductive healthcare, but now, many of the clinics are in danger of closing. Last year, President Bush reinstated the global gag rule, a U.S. policy that prevents clinics receiving U.S. funds from providing, counseling, or promoting abortion even if these activities are funded with separate monies.

A rebellion against government policy on the treatment of HIV/AIDS is taking place in South Africa, with four provincial governments openly defying national policy and announcing the provision of nevirapine to all pregnant women in the public sector.

Course designed to develop practical skills in resolving specific problems and issues that policy makers and managers confront when they reach the implementation phase of health reforms. The two week AAHPTI ESA regional course builds basic competencies in reform implementation, and focuses on specific issues facing countries throughout the ESA region.

"It is not easy for an African parent to sit down and talk to their children about sex. The topic has been taboo for as far back as African tradition goes. But our teenagers today are going around getting wrong information from their peers and from magazines, and they end up infected with HIV/AIDS... I am an African man, but when it comes to my children's health, I put my traditional beliefs aside. I talk to my children about sex... A lot of teenagers fear talking to their parents about sex because they think that their parents will accuse them of sleeping around. Instead, they go to their friends... Teens make their own decisions, but parents can have a lot of influence. Parents have to do away with traditions and start to talk openly to their children about sex."

The mass media—especially television and radio—reach large numbers of young people around the world and have enormous influence. In a 23-country study among 12-year-old school children whose homes had electricity, over 90% watched an average of three hours of television per day (365). In virtually all developing countries most women ages 15 to 19 have regular access to television and radio (45). While young people obtain a great deal of information about reproductive health from entertainment programs in the mass media, many of these programs have the effect of promoting unsafe attitudes and behavior and portraying sex in ways that encourage risk-taking.

Many adolescents are at risk because no one—including parents, educators, counselors, health care workers, or the media—has taught them about HIV/AIDS or about how to protect themselves and others. Despite over 15 years of international recognition of the need for education and communication to prevent HIV/AIDS, young people today still have only limited opportunities to learn about the virus and the disease.

William Gates, the father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, announced a $2-million grant for HIV prevention in Kenya from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This transpired in his visit to Kenya, together with former President of US Jimmy Carter.

The National Association of People Living With HIV/AIDS will be unfolding a series of picketing and demonstrations targeting the major insurance companies for their policy on HIV positive people. The pickets will be on the 13, 14 and 15th of March 2002 at Old Mutual, Sanlam and Metropolitan.

Governments around the world are being urged by international organizations to take swift action to prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of women every year due to a lack of medical support during pregnancy or child-birth.

Thabo Mbeki is feuding with allies, fighting his cabinet and losing international friends. How his dissent on AIDS is unraveling his presidency.

Insecurity over the past year continues to keep some 85,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in protected camps in Katakwi District, eastern Uganda, where aid agencies report widespread but not life-threatening food problems, according to the lastest Uganda report from the Famine Early Warning System Network.

Armed with fresh evidence, South African AIDS activists go to court Friday for the latest round in a long-standing battle to get the government of President Thabo Mbeki to provide all HIV positive pregnant women with a drug that significantly reduces the risk of transmitting the virus to new-born babies.

Uganda is unlikely to realise millennium development targets in the health sector agreed upon the United Nations - sponsored millennium summit two years ago, a paper produced by a World Bank-funded Think Tank has revealed.

Nigerian health officials have admitted that at the end of December they "quiet[ly]" began dispersing generic AIDS drugs on a limited basis at 25 centers throughout the country, Reuters reports.

An independent evaluation of the South African government's test project to reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission through the use of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine, endorses nationwide expansion of the project but acknowledges that the government has "valid concerns" about how the drug is administered, the Associated Press reports.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela on Sunday said that AIDS drugs should be made available to all South Africans who desire them, but stressed that his position was not in conflict with the government's policy on the drugs, the Associated Press reports.