The AIDS conference in Toronto has ended but the fight between HIV/AIDS activist-NGO Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the minister of health is still raging on. South Africa’s media, from TV to print, has lapped up the fray with enthusiasm. Some political parties have also entered the fracas, […]

Thousands of delegates and journalists from across the globe converged in Toronto for the 16th International AIDS Conference this week to once again thrash out solutions to the AIDS pandemic that has the world firmly in its grip.

The news from the conference is exciting in its variety and, as always, […]

A large media fuss was made over the South African government’s initial refusal to accredit the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Aids Law Project ahead of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS), and then the subsequent grudging invitation to the TAC and the TAC’s refusal of […]

With HIV/AIDS infection rates ever increasing, awareness campaigns with alternative means of reaching people need to be developed.
South Africa has been the location for two mass media campaigns employing billboards as their communication tool: the “Break the Silence” art-based campaign and the loveLife advertising campaign.

A loveLife billboard situated flighted at the Montclair train station […]

This week, I sat in a workshop on reporting the science of HIV/AIDS, hosted by the Media, AIDS and Governance Project at IDASA and the Treatment Action Campaign. Clearly it’s a complex subject and the workshop raised myriad challenges that need to be addressed.

Aside from having to understand the science themselves (which is no […]

The Global Fund’s recent decision to pull the plug on a $56-million grant to the loveLife campaign has renewed questions over the effect the campaign is having on South Africa’s youth.

“The issue was the programme’s ability to reduce HIV infection among young people,” Global Fund spokesperson Jon Liden told Business Day.

The Global Fund had given […]

They operate behind closed doors yet at times are the pillars of many African communities across South Africa. Even though traditional healers have had to bear the stereotypical and often comical “bone throwing” image portrayed by the media, they have long formed an integral part of many an African home.

Our very own Leon Schuster […]

This week, Journ-AIDS publishes “Reporting on children in the context of HIV/AIDS”, a new resource designed to help journalists report accurately and sensitively on children affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

The resource is free and is available in electronic (pdf), web-based and printed format. It was compiled by four premier South African research agencies in this […]

According to a report on allAfrica.com by Health-e reporter Anso Thom, UNAIDS notes that sub-Saharan Africa is the region hardest hit in the world by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and that infections are growing at an alarming rate. (See also Journ-AIDS Statistics Factsheet which has been updated this week to include the report.)

The allAfrica.com article, […]

The recent controversy over the activities of the Dr. Rath Foundation admittedly makes for great news. But it has also provided an opportunity for some remarkable advocacy on the issue by the media.

In our blog last week, Lunga Madlala asked:

…why [is] the media is not powerful enough to discredit Rath? Why is it that […]