Media Watch
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IN THE NEWS: KZN child deaths from diarrhoea or HIV-related illness enrage committee
The KwaZulu Natal department of health has been slammed for failing to prevent the deaths of 5595 children in the province last year. The children, all under the age of five, died while being cared for by doctors and nurses in state clinics and hospitals.IN THE NEWS: Infectious TB patients sent home due to shortage of beds
A severe shortage of hospital beds across South Africa means patients with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis are being sent home while they are still highly infectious. Some MDR-TB patients are having to wait as long as four months to get a bed in a state hospital.IN THE NEWS: 1519 negligent maternal deaths in 3 years
A critical shortage of doctors and nurses trained to deal with childbirth emergencies,, and others who ignore standard treatment protocols, meant that 1519 women died needlessly.ANALYSIS: Dailies should offer valuable HIV-coverage
At the end of last week the ANC announced its intentions to make HIV a notifiable disease. The divergent approaches taken by two news outlets covering the issue suggests that a major disparity exists in the quality of journalism between weekly and daily papers.ANALYSIS: Not dead sure about mortality stats
City Press this week looks in to causes of death, offering its readers much-needed insight on how the nation keeps track of its mortalities.
As if to underscore the opening line: “Death certificates may state what we die of, but it’s not as simple as one may think…”, the massive graphic that accompanies the article attempts to display the myriad categories within which death certificates for 2009 were cataloged.
IN THE NEWS: Shuga’s sweet success
No city reveals its charm in the trip from the airport, but the driving is usually a sign of its character. Approaching a traffic circle, the drivers of Niarobi lean over their steering wheels with great alertness and move slowly into the first gap.A harmful cocktail: Alcohol and HIV
Over the past few weeks, media coverage has gravitated towards the potential follies of youth. This is unsurprising given that a new year means new beginnings for many young people still struggling to negotiate the dawn of adult independence.
However not all of this coverage has engaged with HIV where it could have.
The New Age and the Daily Sun highlighted HIV as it related to the Kwa-Zulu Natal Health MEC’s efforts at establishing a campaign to educate young women on the dangers of cross-generational sex or ‘sugar daddies’.
But Sunday’s (22 January) City Press featured a full page dedicated to the health risks of alcohol abuse among youngsters which was devoid of any mention of HIV.
City Press article could ‘ring’ true
On Sunday (22 January) City Press newspaper featured an informative good news HIV-story, which revealed that yet another promising female-initiated method of HIV-prevention is being tested.
However the article in the City Press does not consider this new development in light of the recent cancellation of the MTN VOICE microbicide trial or the wider controversy sometimes generated by the media in relation to clinical trials.
A few months ago The Times sported a rather depressing headline which seemed to sound the death knell for once promising HIV-preventative microbicide gels, when in fact the inefficacy of the VOICE trial represented one setback rather than the complete demise of vaginal microbicides on the whole as a viable way of preventing HIV.
Mbalula and the condom caper
“South Africans worry more about corruption than burst condoms, ” wrote a journalist of Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s sex scandal in today’s edition of The Times. In terms of political concerns it might be true that ‘burst condoms’ and the sex scandals they ‘represent’ rank rather low on the “why should I care?” scale, sliding in somewhere in the region of a “so-what?”
But the crux of the matter is that the message Mbalula is putting out about the efficacy of condoms could deliver a blow to the already much maligned and under-used (see SA’s shocking pregnancy stats) method of prevention.
