hivlatest news & developments
One in every five girls across sub-Saharan Africa has experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18 . Photo: File

Supporting adolescent girls advances us all this International Women’s Day

One in every five girls across sub-Saharan Africa has experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18

  • Eyaaz
5 min read
Superbugs are a big public health issue. So is climate change. Put the two together and the problem becomes even bigger. (Dylan Bush)
Video

Superbugs plus climate change equals double trouble. Here’s why

As the Earth becomes hotter, we’re seeing more floods and droughts. Flooding can make superbugs spread faster and further. And heat helps germs adapt faster

  • Eyaaz
11 min read
UNAids executive director Winnie Byanyima. Image: UNAids on X

Decriminalization – a prerequisite to ending Aids and TB

The same structural failures that sustain the HIV epidemic also sustain tuberculosis

  • Alankar Malviya
7 min read
After being diagnosed with HIV at 33, retired Constitutional Court justice Edwin Cameron never thought he’d make it to 40. He’s now 73 and part of a generation that is growing older thanks to antiretrovirals and, he says, the activism that made sure it was available in South Africa. Photo: Stefan Els
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HIV made him expect to die at 40. At 73, Edwin Cameron asks: Who’s planning for our ageing survivors?

At 33, the retired Constitutional Court justice thought he had, maybe, seven years left. His story traces the arc from certain death because of Aids to a chronic, manageable condition at 73. He asks what happens when the generation who fought for life finally get to grow old

  • Eyaaz
14 min read
Eight years of violence and displacement but the lives of the people here do not make headlines

Cabo Delgado: The Mozambican people forgotten by time

Eight years of violence and displacement but the lives of the people here do not make headlines

  • Eyaaz
5 min read
To end Aids by 2043, the South African government says it could get a group of local pharmaceutical companies to make generic shots of lenacapavir from 2027 onwards. There is, however, a hitch. None of the companies that will be involved have a licence to make the jab. (Julia Koblitz/ Unsplash)

SA wants to make its own six-monthly HIV prevention jabs by 2027. But there’s a hitch

None of the companies that will be involved have a licence from the inventor of Lenacapavir, Gilead Sciences, to make the jab

  • Eyaaz
9 min read
Four toilets, built in 2013 by the organisation Candice Andisiwe Sehoma founded, are still flushing, although floods of raw sewage flow daily through the streets of Alexandra. (Sean Christie)

Building toilets, fighting TB: Candice Andisiwe Sehoma’s life of activism

From discontinued insulin pens to overpriced TB drugs, meet the young South African holding drug makers to account on behalf of patients

  • Eyaaz
10 min read
One in 10 clinics in South Africa will start to hand out a twice-a-year anti-HIV jab as early as February. The country’s medicines regulator, Sahpra, says it’s on track to announce its registration decision within the next few days, by the end of October. So who should get LEN first? (Anna-Maria van Niekerk)

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab could be in 360 clinics by February. Who should get the first doses?

The country’s medicines regulator Sahpra says it’s on track to announce its registration decision by the end of October

  • Eyaaz
10 min read
According to a survey, 85% of managers reported that their clinics faced staffing shortages, though only one in five blamed these on the US President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief cuts

Clinics short-staffed after Pepfar funding cuts

According to a survey, 85% of managers reported that their clinics faced staffing shortages, though only one in five blamed these on the US President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief cuts

  • Eyaaz
2 min read
Long shot?: In April next year, South Africa plans to start rolling out an anti-HIV jab, taken only twice a year, that could end Aids in the country within 14 to 18 years. But is our public health system equipped to keep track of millions, who are on the shot? (Unsplash)

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab is coming. But can SA keep track of millions of users?

The shot, called Lenacapavir, has a 100% success rate in preventing young women from getting HIV through sex

  • Eyaaz
10 min read
There will be no HIV cure without Africa’s involvement. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy

Africa, the cradle of the HIV pandemic, must be the cradle of the cure

The continent has been the testing ground for drugs, devices and diagnostics, many of which never returned in the form of benefit

4 min read

Dangerous fantasy: US ambassador Dybul said SA was ready to transition off Pepfar. It wasn’t

Weeks later, thousands of health workers are unemployed, HIV services are collapsing and the government hasn’t filled the gap. This isn’t transition, it’s unraveling in real time

4 min read
Foreign aid has been the backbone of Africa’s HIV/Aids response but now the continent must take control of its health future.

A letter to the African Union and the continent’s governments

Aid dependency in the fight against HIV/Aids is not sustainable; Africa must own its health future. With political will, nothing is impossible

4 min read
HIV treatment has, for the first time, been made in Africa.

The Global Fund has just made history – now it must start a revolution

Africa’s first locally made HIV treatment is more than a milestone, it’s a political, economic and moral turning point in the fight for health sovereignty

6 min read
African health systems have long been undermined by debt and political neglect.

The cost of neglect: Debt’s toll on African health systems

The US withdrawal will reveal the underlying truth: African health systems have long been undermined by debt and political neglect.

6 min read
Funding cuts will reverse the progress made and weaken health systems.

Africa wins when women’s health is a priority. Here’s why

It is women and girls who will suffer the most from the funding crisis caused by cuts to development aid.

4 min read
US President Donald Trump’s suspension of foreign funding will adversely affect LGBTIQ+ people in Africa.

In wake of US cuts, SA must step up to protect LGBTIQ+ rights in Africa

The suspension and withdrawal of US support for people’s rights in Africa is a setback

6 min read
Of the 30 countries the World Health Organisation has identified as having a high burden of TB and HIV co-infections, 22 are in sub-Saharan Africa. Photo: MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Solutions to TB and HIV benefit all of us, North and South

Diseases don’t respect national borders … governments all over the world need to work together to rein them in

5 min read
The US freeze in life-saving HIV and Aids programmes has detrimental effects on affected key populations. Reuters

Trump’s cuts show the need to democratise reproductive health funding

Sources that are unrestricted, aligned with South African law and human rights, and without political interference, must be found as an alternative to the US

7 min read
A volunteer demonstrates an HIV screening test. (File photo)

Trump’s funding cuts hit HIV, GBV services hard

The US president’s cutting of financial support has cut life-saving treatment for many in SA

  • Umamah Bakharia
7 min read