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The article explores the relationship between social support and health behaviour of rural and urban women who are living with HIV in South Africa. Our study was a descriptive survey of a group of pregnant and non-pregnant women living with HIV. The sample size was 262 women, 165 from urban area and 97 from rural area. Data were collected using 3 instruments, namely a demographic questionnaire, the health behaviour schedule and the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) Social Support Survey. Significant findings indicate that in the urban area 71% of women had disclosed their HIV status to someone, while in the rural area 49% had done so. A total of 77% of the women indicated that they were sexually active--21% had 2 partners and 20% indicated that they had at least one episode of a sexually transmitted disease since finding out their HIV status. A total of 16% said that they currently received counselling, which was significantly more frequent in the rural sample (27%) than the urban (11%). The membership of support groups is at 12% among the participating women, and social support as well as membership of a support group was higher in the rural group than the urban group. Good social support showed an association with condom use, support group attendance and taking vitamins. However, receiving counselling as well as membership of a support group showed stronger association with positive health behaviour than social support on its own. The higher social support was not associated with increased disclosure.

Immunization of mice with 10(6) irradiated LSTRA murine leukemia cells (LX) induced weak immunity to subsequent tumor-cell challenge. Admixture of low doses (1.4-14 micrograms of C. parvum with the LX usually augmented the immunity. Higher doses (1,400-7,000 micrograms) of admixed C. parvum not only failed to augment immunity, but prevented immunization by the contained LX. We investigated the mechanism by which 1,400 micrograms of C. parvum mixed with 10(6) LX prevents immunization by the LX. The inhibitory effect was a function of the ratio of C. parvum to tumor cells. Injection of 1,400 micrograms C. parvum, alone or mixed with the LX, did not prevent immunization by LX given simultaneously at a separate site. Injection of C. parvum, alone or mixed with the LX, did not prevent immunization by LX injected simultaneously at a separate site sharing a common lymph-node drainage area. The high dose of C. parvum prolonged retention of radiolabelled LX at the injection site and decreased the rate of distribution of the LX to other organs, particularly the spleen. These results indicate that a high dose of C. parvum prevented immunization through a localized process at the injection site.

Three experiments were conducted in which an illness-inducing immunosuppressant, cyclophosphamide (an unconditioned stimulus, US) was associated with a previously presented saccharin solution conditioned stimulus (CS). In each experiment, reexposure to the CS produced a conditioned suppression of the plaque-forming-cell response in the experimental groups. Experiment I demonstrated this result with Fisher 344 rats. Experiment II replicated the effect with Balb/c mice. In Experiment III conditioned immunosuppression was demonstrated when mice received CS-US delays as long as 6 hours. No evidence of a delay gradient was present in either the behavioral or the immunologic data. These parallel findings offer no support for the idea of a dissociation between the taste aversion and conditioned immunosuppression processes.