South Africa: Proposed Health Professions Act Amendment a Double-Edged Sword

The Democratic Alliance intends to propose legislation that would allow healthcare professionals to do community service and internships in private hospitals. Such a legislative… Read more »

South Africa: Pretoria Company Aims to Lead SA in Making Key TB Drug Ingredients

Though several South African companies are producing HIV and TB medicines, the active ingredients that go into these medicines are usually imported from India or China. Now, a… Read more »

South Africa: Critics Raise Alarm Over Leadership Issues At Gauteng Health Department

Several opposition politicians and commentators have flagged what appears to be chronic leadership problems at the Gauteng Department of Health. Read more »

South Africa: South Africa's Aids Response - Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities

Ahead of World AIDS Day 2024, Professor Salim Abdool Karim and Dr Nikita Devnarain argue that South Africa needs a concerted effort to reduce new HIV infections in young women and… Read more »

South Africa: Where in SA Someone Lives Determines How Many ARVs They Get At a Time

Whether or not someone living with HIV in South Africa gets a one- or three-months' supply of antiretrovirals at a time depends partly on the clinic where they happen to go for HIV… Read more »

South Africa: Why the Fuss About Long-Acting Antiretrovirals for HIV?

HIV prevention injections that can provide two, or even six, months of protection per shot have arguably been the biggest HIV story of the year. Ahead of World AIDS Day, Professor… Read more »

South Africa: The High Cost of Having Too Few Pharmacists in SA

It's acknowledged in key policy documents, well known at the coalface and much ventilated in the media: South Africa's public healthcare system has too few healthcare workers,… Read more »

South Africa: Why the Competition Commission's Decision On Two Cancer Medicine Cases Could Have Much Wider Implications

There is a history of competition law being used to drive HIV medicine prices lower in South Africa. Now, two cases involving cancer medicines seem set to nail down what qualifies… Read more »

South Africa: #InTheSpotlight | SA Has Started a TB Revolution - Can We See It Through?

Over the last decade, it has become clear that South Africa's progress against TB depends on diagnosing more people more quickly. In this Spotlight special briefing, Marcus Low… Read more »

South Africa: Signed and Stalled - Critical Healthcare Deal in Gauteng Teetering On the Brink

An extended impasse over a vital agreement for training and improved hospital management between the Gauteng Department of Health and Wits University remains derailed, despite… Read more »

South Africa: Where Are We in the Search for an HIV Cure?

Highly effective treatments for HIV have existed since the mid-1990s. But while these treatments keep people healthy, we do not yet have a safe and scalable way to completely rid… Read more »

South Africa: Women in SA Could Have Access to a Three-Monthly HIV Prevention Ring By 2026

A flexible silicone ring that slowly releases antiretrovirals is one of just two long-acting HIV prevention products registered for use in South Africa. Results from a new study… Read more »

South Africa: How Tissue Donations in KZN Are Helping to Boost Our Understanding of TB

Some patients at KwaZulu-Natal hospitals are donating lung tissue for use in TB research. Sue Segar tracks what happens to these tissue samples and explores why these samples are… Read more »

Africa: 56 000 TB Deaths in SA in 2023, According to WHO

An estimated 56 000 people in South Africa and 1.25 million around the world died of TB in 2023, according to just-published figures from the WHO. This means that in 2023 TB… Read more »

South Africa: Why Including Pregnant Women in a TB Study in SA Was a Big Deal

Pregnant women are typically excluded from clinical trials of new TB medicines. This has led to a lack of solid scientific evidence on how best to treat women who fall ill with TB… Read more »

South Africa: NHI Offers an Opportunity to Boost Primary Healthcare - We Must Seize It

To see National Health Insurance primarily as the setting up of a state-run medical aid scheme risks underplaying its massive potential to restructure how public healthcare… Read more »

South Africa: Highrises, Hellholes and Healthcare - Hillbrow's Heritage Story

Hillbrow started out as Johannesburg's first health hub in the late 1880s. It's also been a suburb associated with pimps and prostitution, a middle finger to the Nationalist Party,… Read more »

South Africa: Efficacy of 6-Monthly HIV Prevention Jab Confirmed in Second Major Study

In June, we heard what could be this year's biggest HIV breakthrough: a twice-yearly injection can prevent HIV infection. Findings from a second large study of the jab has now… Read more »

South Africa: NHI Act Offers No Answer to High Medicines Prices

The National Health Insurance Act does not deal with the systemic issues that cause high prices and inequity in medicine access, and government is not listening, argues Fatima… Read more »

South Africa: Nelson Mandela Bay Clinics Under Siege As Crime Threatens Healthcare

A series of robberies at healthcare facilities in the Eastern Cape has disrupted services, with patients sometimes left waiting outside while clinics limit the number of people… Read more »

South Africa: How Will NHI Unfold? Here Are Three Possible Scenarios

As health department officials move to set up National Health Insurance's basic structures, including its board, several experts say the scheme remains a pipe-dream, doomed to the… Read more »

South Africa: Why People Stop Taking Their HIV Treatment and What We Can Do About It

Stopping antiretroviral treatment when you are living with HIV can result in increased HIV transmission, illness, hospitalisation, and eventually death. To combat such… Read more »

South Africa: Virchow Prize Winner Prof Lucy Gilson On SA's NHI - 'Service Delivery Requires People, Not Just Money'

Professor Lucy Gilson scooped the prestigious international Virchow Prize. She chats to Biénne Huisman about her upbringing, unexpected dive into the world of public health,… Read more »

South Africa: Mandatory Health Insurance for South Africa Is an 'Upgrade' On NHI, Proponents Say

The idea of mandatory medical scheme coverage for employed people has made a comeback after the case for it was made at a recent conference. The policy move was previously on the… Read more »

South Africa: High-Stakes Head of Health Post in Northern Cape Trapped in a Merry-Go-Round

The Northern Cape health department has had several heads of department in the last five years. Spotlight unpacks the implications of this leadership instability and asks what it… Read more »