pregnant

South Africa has secured a deal with the World Food Programme to buy maize from the country's smallholder farmers as part of a R180-million South African humanitarian donation to Lesotho, which is in the throes of a food crisis.

South Africa, it is said, is one of the most unequal societies in the world. Yet it has a plan to change this, and that's where the National Development Plan comes in.

About 180 000 HIV-positive South Africans will soon start taking fixed-dose combination antiretroviral (ARV) medication, which involves one tablet instead of three to five pills a day, reducing the risk of patients defaulting from treatment.

South African indigenous herbal knowledge and modern technology have come together to create a recipe for success in an insect-repelling candle that is proven to surpass other similar products.
• Homegrown malaria test kit lauded

An audience that included Sir Elton John and US senators, congressmen and congresswomen was captivated by Soweto mother Florence Ngobeni-Allen's story of living with HIV in Washington, DC on Tuesday.

Johannesburg’s inner city suburb of Hillbrow has become home to a new world class maternal and child health facility. The Shandukani Centre, one of the largest non-hospital based clinics in Southern Africa, will provide expert healthcare and treatment to vulnerable women and children, right on their doorstep.
• SA’s second health train rolls out

Find out how South Africa's public health care system works and how it relates to the well-resourced private health care sector. Plans for a National Health Insurance scheme aim to tackle the challenges from poverty, Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

Prevention is at the heart of the government's bold plan to fight the HIV/Aids epidemic, aiming to reduce the rate of new infections by at least 50%. Its holistic approach includes fighting tuberculosis, a massive HIV testing campaign, and extending South Africa's ARV programme, which is already the biggest of its kind in the world.

In a race to meet the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015, African governments are stepping up to the plate to address the problem of maternal deaths across the continent.
• Healthcare in South Africa

South Africa is to give humanitarian assistance, including emergency food aid, to four drought-stricken countries in the Sahel region in North Africa, says International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.