Trending To Day

Alice Sagwidza-Tembe, CNS Correspondent, Swaziland Leafing through my birthday good wishes from friends, family and foes, on my Facebook, WhatsApp, Tweet, Instagram, Skype and other social media accounts, I realised hundreds of postings were well designed cards, songs, articles about the World AIDS Day commemoration. Companies, churches, schools, governments, non-state actors, groups, individual of every creed, race and religion were gathering and posting pictures and speeches remembering their loved ones lost to HIV/AIDS, those living with HIV and those caring for the sick. It reminded me that some couple of decades ago the 1st of December would have been a very different day for me, characterised by a birthday cake, friends and family gathered, lots of fried chicken, non-stop telephone calls with well wishes. Well there was no Facebook then. But today my birthday wishes are juxtaposed with grim reminders of the devastation caused by the deadly HIV. According to the WHO, in 2015 th...

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service - CNS Community focus was the overriding theme at the Annual TB Alliance Stakeholders Association Meeting held in Liverpool, just ahead of the 47th Union World Conference on Lung Health . Community representatives, Maurine Murenga and Sarah Mulera , shared their experiences from the ground, regarding the powerful, yet under utilised, role which affected and key populations can play to turn the tide against TB. Maurine , who is living with HIV, lost her father to TB in 1999 due to drug stock outs, resulting in treatment interruption. She called stigma the mother of TB and human rights violations the grandmother of TB. She cited the general mistrust that exists between the community and researchers. Traditionally the community is not involved actively in the designing of research studies. And when sometimes these studies run into problems—they might take a long time to complete or cost too much money—the community participants are suddenly left in th...