African Online Services (afrol.com), November 26, 2001
Introduced by the absolute Swazi King Mswati III as a measure against the spread of HIV, the five-year's sex ban for young Swazi women provokes unwanted side effects. Prostitution is expected to rise, marriages are down, infanticide and abortions are on the rise and gender equality has suffered a serious blow.
African teenage girls are infected at a rate of five to six times greater than their male counterparts. The UN Commission on the Status of Women expresses "profound concern" over the impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls and urges governments to take measures to empower them, including economically, to better protect themselves.
A new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, (FAO) projects that deaths caused by HIV/AIDS in the ten most affected African countries will reduce the labour force by as much as 26 percent by 2020, which will have a devastating effect on rural production and food security.
African Online Services (afrol.com), April 24, 2001
The number of cases of tuberculosis (TB) in Africa, already in the millions, will double over the next decade as HIV continues to spread across the continent, the United Nations warned today, calling for a concurrent effort to fight both infectious diseases.
African Online Services (afrol.com), March 31, 2001
As the HIV/AIDS scourge continues to cause havoc within southern Africa, voices are growing for serious consideration of a cultural approach to the prevention and awareness of the infection.
African Online Services (afrol.com), March 12, 2001
South Africa's leading trade union, COSATU, today called on President Thabo Mbeki to declare HIV/AIDS a national disaster and declare a state of emergency. With over 20% of the country's population infected, there certainly is a crisis. A state of emergency should give South Africa the right to import cheaper, generic AIDS drugs.
African Online Services (afrol.com), March 11, 2001
Minister of Commerce and Industry, Ms. Tebelelo Seretse, made strong statements on the tough action needed on rape in Botswana at a conference held in Gaborone last week. She especially addressed the police to take stronger action to protect women and rape vicitims.
African Online Services (afrol.com), March 7, 2001
As southern Africa reels under the endless, and often meaningless, statistics about disease, and especially HIV/AIDS, investigators and the courts are beginning to untangle a story about how the world's four largest pharmaceutical companies act in a cartel with the active support of the World Trade Organization and the U.S. government to deny cheap generic drugs to the poor countries of the world.
African Online Services (afrol.com), March 6, 2001
The Pretoria court case against the South African government, initiated by 41 drug companies to halt a law opening for the import of cheap copies of brand name medicine, has been adjourned until 18 April. This will allow an unexpected testimony by country's leading AIDS pressure group, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
African Online Services (afrol.com), March 5, 2001
The African National Congress Women's League has called upon all women of South Africa to come out in support of the South African Department of Health as it came under legal attack from 41 multinational drug manufacturing companies in the Pretoria High Court on Monday (5 March).
African Online Services (afrol.com), January 30, 2001
An estimated 5000 babies are born HIV positive a month in South Africa because their mothers pass the virus on to them at birth. Therefore, the South African government now has promised to provide free the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine to all HIV-positive mothers in 18 public-sector hospitals.
African Online Services (afrol.com), January 12, 2001
While the country most affected by AIDS in the world was in denial, some brave persons have managed to give the disease a face. Most importantly 12-year-old Nkosi Johnson - whom the entire country now is watching dying slowly from AIDS. "We are normal human beings. We can walk. We can talk," the heartbreaker told South Africans only half a year ago. And they understood.
