Learners of Hhashi High School in the remote Umlalazi Municipality under Uthungulu Districtict in KwaZulu-Natal stand in line to receive HIV Counselling and Testing at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Mobile 1-Stop Shop.
Feature story |

Bending the Curves: HIV in South Africa

Photograph by Greg Lomas
Learners of Hhashi High School in the remote Umlalazi Municipality under Uthungulu Districtict in KwaZulu-Natal stand in line to receive HIV Counselling and Testing at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Mobile 1-Stop Shop. Photograph by Greg Lomas

These five videos highlight MSF's activities in KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa, where we have been working with the local health authorities and community to pilot community-driven models of care to ‘bend the curves’ and reduce the rate of HIV infections and TB disease.

Outreach testing

This video shows what’s required to take HIV counselling and testing to people most at risk.

 

Community health agents

Babongile Luhlongwane, one of over 80 Community Health Agents in the Entumeni and Mbongolwane districts near Eshowe, delivers HIV Counselling and Testing to people who seldom make it to distant public health facilities for medical checkups.
 


Antiretroviral treatment clubs

Stable HIV+ patients in Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal, explain how MSF’s Adherence Club model is helping them to stay on treatment and MSF counsellors explain the conditions of membership to this innovative community-based model of care.
 


Lay counsellors

Counsellors are the ‘glue’ that holds the HIV response together. MSF Eshowe Project staff explain the critical nature of the work that counsellors do, and HIV+ patients declare that if it wasn’t for this specialized group of healthcare workers, they would probably not be alive today.
 


Community antiretroviral treatment groups

Thousands of people living with HIV in South Africa are stable on anti-retroviral treatment. Many of them have joined community ART groups to support each other to collect their medication.