In South Africa, one of the key needs in dealing with the HIV and Aids pandemic remains access to quali-ty information about the diagnosis, counselling and treatment of HIV patients. It is believed that millions of people may suffer from HIV, and still not know it. HIV voluntary counselling and testing can form part of both prevention and care. It can encourage behaviour changes, and is an important entry point for care and support.

South Africa was the host country for the prestigious three day Pharmintercom Meeting during August 2005. The venue was the Commodore Hotel at the Victoria & Albert Waterfront in Cape Town. Social functions were arranged at the Cape Medical Museum, Two Oceans Aquarium, Spier and the Castle of Good Hope to give participants a taste of South Africa and especially the Cape.

Eye pain, like headache, is a highly subjective complaint, and one which does not always match the physical findings. In a preverbal child, eye rubbing, light sensitivity, excessive blinking and irritability with a red eye may all be viewed by the parents as being associated with pain. The older child may complain of eye pain when the underlying cause is anything from a foreign body to an attention-getting device.

In this article we examine the different forces at work within organisations and the effect they have on organisations. An afro-centric model is used to identify these corporate spirits. Readers are invited to apply this model to themselves and their own organisations. An opinion is offered about the extent to which these spirits influence the future of the pharmacy profession.

HIV/AIDS is a major cause of infant and childhood mortality and morbidity in Africa. UNAIDS estimated that in 2003 there were 630 000 new paediatric infections, about 90% of which were in sub-Saharan Africa (Handbook of Paediatric AIDS in Africa, 2005). It is further estimated that 70 000 – 80 000 HIV-infected infants are born annually in South Africa (Levin, 2000).

It really feels as though we’re busier this year than ever. There hasn’t been a slowing down as the end of the year approaches. On the contrary, there has been a flurry of activity that has kept us all occupied.

The 26th Annual conference of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences was hosted by the Department of Pharmacy at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth from 29 September – 2 October 2005.The conference started on Thursday (29/9/05) with registration, poster presentation set-up, the Academy AGM and the “Welcome Cocktail Party”. The conference was officially opened by the VC of the NMMU, Dr Rolf Stumph.

Pain is an integral part of the human condition. It is a phenomenon that occupies the attention of a wide range of domains, including philosophy and religion, the arts and medical sciences. From the latter perspective pain forms an ill-defined perplexing terrain: it has been described as a silent epidemic,1 afflicting approximately 90% of the general population for more than 2 weeks at some point of their lives.

When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St Stefan’s Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms

In most cases of ankle ligament sprain, the patient progresses satisfactorily through the rehabilitation process with a reduction in pain and swelling and improvement in function. However, there is a significant group of patients who do not progress well and complain of persistent pain, swelling and impaired function without any indication of improvement three to six weeks after their injury. In these cases, it is important to consider the presence of a more serious complication.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances , to choose one’s own way.” Viktor Frank^l

Pharmacy Week 2005 was a resounding success. Pharmacists around the country, whether working in the public or the private sector, went out of their way to make sure that the public knew that their pharmacist was a source of information as well as medicines.

There are many medicines that may interact with the medicines that are used during surgical procedures or that may cause complications post-operatively. Whether or not these medicines should be avoided before or after surgery depends on the medicine. The concerns regarding the use of medicines in the peri-operative period are not limited to a patient’s chronic medicine but also apply to those medicines (including herbal and over-the-counter) that patients take on an “as needed” basis.

Infants are born with a natural immune system acquired from their mothers. The effectiveness of this natural immune system drops significantly over the first two months. After 8 weeks infants begin to build up their own immune resistance to pathogenic diseases¹. During this time, however, their immune resistance is very weak compared with that of an adult.