Blog

Botswana – made possible by National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative and distributed by Great Plains Conservation

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It is always humbling and very exciting to embark on a new adventure with my book. Botswana has been on my radar for sometime; the one country in Africa with a population of 1.85 million and an infection rate of 2 out of every 5 people. In fact, Botswana had the highest infection rate in sub-saharan Africa until quite recently. Swaziland has just overtaken it. (Remember that South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV – around 5 million.) Botswana has been a leader in successfully providing ARV’s to its nationals for the past decade. President Lt. Gen. Ian Khama was also one of the first heads of state that endorsed and implemented circumcision of young and old men alike. This is quite revolutionary and forward thinking considering that in Botswana very few men were previously circumcised. The government has also successfully managed to prevent mother-to-child transmission keeping in line with America and Western Europe.

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The Importance of Delayed Sexual Debut in Lowering the Risk of HIV/AIDS Infection

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In a 2004 study amongst women in Zimbabwe, the average age of sexual debut was 18 years with 11.8% of women reporting sexual debut at 15 or earlier and women with earlier sexual debut having increased HIV risk due to having more sexual partners (Pettifor, van der Straten, Dunbar, Shiboski & Padian, 2004). Of the woman who had had sex at 15 years or younger, 54.6% were infected with HIV compared to 38.2% who had sex when older. In some countries, delay in sexual debut is being advocated as a means to reduce HIV infection in young woman. (Laga, Schwartlander, Pisani, Sow, 2001 in Pettifor et al, 2004.) However delaying sexual debut is often a decision that young woman have very little control over due to gender power imbalances and coercive first sexual experiences (Pettifor et al., 2004)

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Sexting – we need to change our thinking in schools

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This piece was written by Joan Dommisse, a journalist at the Mail & Guardian, and an English teacher and Head of Department at a number of secondary schools over the past 26 years. Since her retirement in 2000, Joan has been working in township and other schools on HIV programmes. Six of her HIV/AIDS workshops at different schools appeared on SABC TV. She also organises an annual all-day HIV/Aids awareness programme that has been running since 2002 and is sponsored by Monash SA University.

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Getting bigger by going smaller – and this is not about condom size!

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December 2010 saw a fantastic development in Marina’s book HIV & AIDS spearheaded by Xstrata. Xstrata ordered 12 000 copies of the book for World AIDS Day in a personalised branded edition. What was exciting for us was that they ordered the book in an A5 format i.e. smaller than the current A4 size that most of you have seen and are familiar with. The feedback that we have received regarding the smaller size of the book has been so positive and we have decided to re-launch the book in this new A5 size. The content and quality of the book will remain the same. The great news is that the book will be available at between R10 and R20 a copy depending on numbers ordered. We will still be able to brand the book should that be required. In addition, we are selling our current stock of the A4 book at R20 per copy regardless of numbers ordered.

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On World AIDS Day

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This piece was written by a friend of ours, Alexis Kriel. Her brother died of AIDS 16 years ago. She is an amazing woman – she writes, she runs cooking classes and she takes trips to India. Read it. Share it. (Connect with Alexis on Facebook)

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YOU2 have a voice

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I was at the U2 concert Sunday night at Soccer City. What a vibe and what a concert! It was extraordinary. Not only were there over a 100 000 people at the concert, but the history and energy of Bono and U2 got us talking in the car on the way back. How does a band of 50-something year olds manage to fill a stadium of this size and how do they keep world messages alive? Bono is renowned for his work in the fight against poverty, hunger and HIV especially in Africa. As he said in an interview in 2007, “I’m a spoiled-rotten rock star, I know that, but I have a loudhailer and I’m going to use it.”

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WHOONGA

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With South Africa finally making progress and rolling out free anti-retrovirals (ARVs), the use of Efavirenz (a common ARV) in a drug joint smoked called WHOONGA (what kind of name is that?) is a terrible blow to us all.

 

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