International Girl-Child Day Data is the first step to solving a problem. It sets the scene, uncovers the discrepancies, and reveals clear gaps for focus. Conversely, when something is not counted it is easily ignored. The UN proposes that this is an underlying issue facing the 1.1 billion girls living today: they are not being…
Obituary – Steve Lawn It is with great sadness that we share the news with you that our friend and colleague, Professor Stephen Lawn, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the University of Cape Town, has died at age 50. Steve Lawn was very well known in South Africa and internationally…
Cape Town alone has more TB each year than the US, Canada, UK and Germany put together. Professor Robin Wood, a leading University of Cape Town scientist, is in search of the clues as to why this is so, writes Business Day. As a schoolboy in Birmingham, Wood once had the task of opening and…
If you could shuffle all of the homes in the world like a deck of cards so that people in wealthy countries lived side by side with people from poor countries, it would transform the world’s fight against poverty, hunger, and disease. It would be impossible for people to look away, impossible for them not…
As the 21st International AIDS Conference wraps up in Durban, South Africa, Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, incoming International AIDS Society President, talks to The Conversation Africa health and medicine editor Candice Bailey about what was achieved and what still needs to be done. What are the three interventions or innovations that stand out at the conference…
Ntando Yola, Education and Community Engagement Manager at the Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) has been elected to serve as the new co-chair for the HIV Prevention Trials Network. (HPTN). The HPTN is a worldwide collaborative clinical trials network that develops and tests the safety and efficacy of interventions designed to prevent the transmission of HIV. …
Starting antiretroviral treatment early has substantial health benefits for those living with HIV. The Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation (DTHF) Clinical Trials Unit has been a major participant in an important international clinical trial. The results were released on 27th May and will have a considerable impact on the management of HIV treatment in the future.…
Tom Lindsay, President of Alere Africa, has signed an agreement to sponsor the Tutu Teen Truck mobile unit (formerly the Tutu Treater). He is seen here with DTHF Youth Centre interns, Ntokoza Stofile, Phutuma Thole and Keziah Quimpe, with Professor Linda-Gail Bekker. Currently Cape Town is experiencing not only an HIV but also a STI…
Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, has been featured in the May 2015 issue of VAX, the Bulletin on AIDS Vaccine Research, as one of five prominent women scientists from across the world, who are making a difference in the fight against AIDS. Prof Bekker is the President-Elect of the International AIDS Society, and is the first woman…
The DTHF Family Planning Integration into HIV Care and Treatment Services Project (FPI Project) has launched the Contraceptive Choices Flipchart. This innovative tool was developed by the FPI Project team and is an outcome of the FP Refresher workshops that the team has been engaged in in partnership with the Western Cape Province Department of…