September 14, 2023
South Africa: Free State Bottom of the List When It Comes to Multi-Month Dispensing of ARVs, Survey Finds
The percentage of people living with HIV receiving a three to six-month supply of ARVs at a time in the Free State has dropped from 13% last year to 3% this year, making the… Read more »
September 13, 2023
South Africa: In-Depth - Why an Eastern Cape TB Hospital Closed and What Comes Next
In 2021, Orsmond TB Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay closed its doors as a result of its dwindling patient numbers. The Eastern Cape Department of Health decided to repurpose it as a… Read more »
September 12, 2023
South Africa: Arsenic-Contaminated Drinking Water Found in Two SA Villages - Scientists Blame Government Mismanagement
A study published in April this year found that residents in two villages in Limpopo's Giyani local municipality have dangerous amounts of arsenic in their drinking water - a… Read more »
September 08, 2023
South Sudan: In-Depth - What Two Major Bills Might Mean for Health Sector Procurement in SA
Recently, in a major feat for transparency and accountability, the North Gauteng High Court ordered that the public must have access to COVID-19 procurement contracts - details of… Read more »
September 07, 2023
South Africa: A UN Meeting On TB Is At Best a Means to More Important Ends
In 2018 the first findings from a landmark tuberculosis (TB) vaccine trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The experimental vaccine, called M72, was found to… Read more »
September 05, 2023
South Africa: Hospital Histories - the Many Lives That Started At Mowbray Maternity
Weighing little more than three bricks of butter, baby Lunathi Sitembile is pressed against mum Yolanda's bare chest, a thin tube entering her nostril and another taped to her tiny… Read more »
September 04, 2023
South Africa: MTN Temporarily Pulled Plug On Eastern Cape Health Due to Non-Payment
In August, telecommunications company MTN joined the list of service providers who have temporarily withdrawn services because the Eastern Cape Department of Health failed to pay… Read more »
September 01, 2023
Africa: Women in Health - Vaccine Safety Prof On Her Passion for Making a Difference
Professor Johanna Catharina Meyer, a pharmacist turned academic and then vaccine expert and advocate, lives her life with many mottos - her main one being - "life is an echo, what… Read more »
August 31, 2023
South Africa: Breastfeeding While Hungry - Is Enough Being Done to Support Mothers in the Free State?
Earlier this month, from 1 to 7 August, the world celebrated breastfeeding week under the theme - "Enabling breastfeeding: making a difference for working parents". This global… Read more »
August 30, 2023
South Africa: Mental Health Needs of GBV Survivors Are Not Being Met - What to Do?
A year or so ago, a young woman arrived at the St Anne's Homes Women's Shelter in Woodstock, Cape Town, so traumatised after a brutal sexual assault that she wept, alone, in her… Read more »
August 29, 2023
South Africa: Calls Mount to Act Against Senior Northern Cape Health Officials Implicated in Alleged PPE Corruption
The head of health in the Northern Cape Dr Dion Theys - appeared in the Kimberly Magistrate’s Court on Monday. Read more »
August 25, 2023
South Africa: We Are Short-Changing Women With Budget Cuts, Corruption, and Underspending in Health
It is often said that when you educate a girl; you educate a nation. The same rings true for investing in women's health, which ultimately benefits our entire country. The World… Read more »
August 23, 2023
South Africa: Sr Wattie - the Midwife From District Six Who Heeded the Call to Nurse and Deliver
For decades, most stories from Cape Town's District Six started with - "I was born at Peninsula Maternity Hospital!" The Peninsula Maternity Hospital was established in 1921 as a… Read more »
August 22, 2023
Africa: A New African HIV Control Working Group to Propel African Voices in the Global HIV Response
The response to the HIV epidemic is more than 40 years old. The African continent has been the most affected with millions of people over the years having battled HIV-associated… Read more »
August 21, 2023
South Africa: The Good Doctor - Mark Blaylock On Finding Meaning Back At Manguzi
There was a time, about 20 years ago, when, at the Manguzi district hospital in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, (and, of course, at hospitals throughout South Africa too) mothers and their… Read more »
August 18, 2023
South Africa: In-Depth - the Court Ruling That Gives Qualifying Pharmacists the Green Light for HIV, TB Meds Without Script
Specially trained and accredited pharmacists in South Africa will now be allowed to provide people with medicines to prevent HIV and tuberculosis (TB) and to treat uncomplicated… Read more »
August 17, 2023
South Africa: Surgeries Delayed At Charlotte Maxeke As Key Machine Decommissioned Before Replacements Are Ready
What appears to be a poorly planned decommissioning process of a specialised angiogram machine has led to a three-month delay before patients will be able to access potentially… Read more »
August 16, 2023
South Africa: TB Contact Tracing Helps Save Lives - This Is How It Works in SA
Globally an estimated 850 000 lives could be saved by 2035 if short-course tuberculosis (TB) preventive therapy is provided to people living with HIV and contacts of individuals… Read more »
August 14, 2023
South Africa: Incentives Seem to Work in Private Healthcare, Why Not in Public?
Doing 'the right thing' for one's health, be it eating well, exercising, or going for an annual HIV test or blood pressure check, is easier said than done. One way to nudge people… Read more »
August 11, 2023
South Africa: Women in Health - 'No One Taught Me How to Treat a Sick System,' Says Leading Young Professor
In high school, a guidance councillor told Salome Maswime that she would never be accepted at medical school. Undeterred, in 2001, Maswime successfully enrolled for an MBChB… Read more »
August 07, 2023
South Africa: What Climate Change Might Mean for Malaria in South Africa
Malaria-carrying mosquitoes will, and are already moving to new habitats as the earth warms up due to climate change. They are expected to breed faster and bite more often. As a… Read more »
August 03, 2023
South Africa: SA's New Mental Health Plan and the Problem of Stigma
Before being diagnosed with bipolar disorder Type 1, Sifiso Mkhasibe says he was often labelled as the "black sheep" of the family and he did not know where to go for help. He was… Read more »
August 02, 2023
South Africa: There Are Paths to Quality Universal Healthcare Besides NHI
One of the most damaging aspects of our public discourse on National Health Insurance (NHI) is the mistaken notion that the only two options are NHI and the status quo. Often… Read more »
August 01, 2023
South Africa: Mixed Responses to Gauteng Health's Latest Security Plans
Following reports of healthcare workers who have been bitten, punched, hit in the face, robbed, assaulted, or even killed in healthcare facilities in Gauteng, the province's health… Read more »
July 31, 2023
South Africa: Growing the Beta Variant - Young Scientist Remembers the Day They Danced in the Lab
In a Durban laboratory in 2020, there was dancing and scientists jumping with joy when Dr Sandile Cele realised they had finally successfully "grown" the SARS-CoV-2 Beta variant.… Read more »