Statistics and Research – Media Watch

Fuzzy article says orphan numbers up

Growing concern over the state of South African families is the focus of a rather ‘fuzzy’ article appearing in The Citizen today.

According to the article, South African families are crumbling due to HIV and AIDS, poverty and unemployment, leaving a vast number of orphans and vulnerable children in their wake.

Contradictory messages around need for safe sex

If you are a dedicated reader of The Star and Sunday Times newspapers you might be forgiven for being completely confused as to whether risky sex is still a problem contributing to the spread of HIV among young South Africans.

Judging by the headlines of the two seemingly contradictory articles published by the papers, there seems to be some mixed messages around whether risky sex still influences the nation’s HIV prevalence.

Rethinking Risk

With the commendable strides in biomedical intervention garnering the bulk of our already scant HIV media coverage, the Sunday Times’ focus on young South Africans’ behaviour this week presented a welcome change of pace.

But those looking forward to a meaningful engagement with issues around sexual behaviour would have been somewhat disappointed.

The article recounts the findings of a recent collaborative study by the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of North Carolina, which attempted to gauge the sexual risk-taking behaviours of young adults (18 to 24).

Glow-in-the-dark felines: The ‘cat’s meow’ of HIV research

A glow-in-the-dark cat-slash-monkey hybrid... Sounds like something that a mad creator unleashes, which inevitably ends up terrorizing Tokyo.

You would be incorrect if you thought that this is the plot for the latest sci-fi movie. The glow-in-the-dark moggies are in fact helping scientists understand how to block the HI-virus from establishing itself in the body.

So what do you get when you cross a cat with a monkey and a jellyfish?

SA HIV prevention to get shot in the arm

Hopes of eradicating HIV run high as the latest and greatest HIV vaccine trial heads to SA.

The Star and online news provider health-e report that the RV144 vaccine met with unprecedented success in trials conducted in Thailand.