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Thursday, 30 October, 2025

FOCUS: HEALTH GOVERNANCE

Doctors, experts owed millions by Road Accident Fund

Venilla Yoganathan - 0
Millions are owed to doctors and other healthcare specialists, with bills stretching to a decade ago in some cases and others forced to retrench staff or downscale their practices as the Road Accident Fund (RAF) dodges payment for services, reports MedicalBrief. Acccording to witness testimony heard by Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts last week, millions are still awaiting payment for work done more than a decade ago, said Mariëtte Minnie-Botbijl, owner of a close corporation that helped facilitate payments...
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NEWS UPDATE

SA first to register anti-HIV jab

South Africa is the first African country – and SAHPRA the third regulator worldwide – to register the twice-yearly anti-HIV jab, lenacapavir (LEN), inking the approval on 21 October, writes Mia Malan for Bhekisisa. The US Food and Drug Administration registered LEN in June under the name Yeztugo and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved it in July as Yeytuo. It has been registered here under the name “Lenacapavir 464mg solution injection Gilead”, SAHPRA’s CEO, Boitumelo Semete-Makokotlela, told Bhekisisa. SAHPRA registered LEN within 65 days, 10 days faster than the 75 days it took the regulator to approve the Johnson & Johnson Covid...

SIU calls for probe into Health HoD’s suspicious finances

Suspended Acting Gauteng Health HoD Lesiba Malotana received more than R1.6m in questionable ATM cash deposits, suspected to be linked to the R1.8bn looting at Tembisa Hospital, a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe found. The report described him as a “high risk” individual and requested a special proclamation for a deeper forensic probe into his finances. The Sunday Times reports that the contents of the report into Malotana, who was suspended two weeks ago by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi after he had received the document as part of a widescale lifestyle audit of the provincial government’s senior officials, have only now...

Conference hears encouraging news on antibiotic data

New data by Japanese drugmaker Shionogi highlight the real-world effectiveness of cefiderocol in patients with serious infections caused by gram-negative (GN) bacteria, while GSK announced promising data for an experimental oral antibiotic for complicated urinary tract infections (cUTIs). The presentations were made at the recent IDWeek 2025 – the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the HIV Medicine Association, the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Society and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists – took place last week in Atlanta, Georgia, reports CIDRAP. Sold under the brand name Fetroja, cefiderocol is a...

TB caucus relaunched by Motsoaledi

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has relaunched the SA Tuberculosis Caucus, a platform for political leaders to advance the response to the disease, as the Department of Health’s End TB Campaign aims to test 5m people in 2025/26. At Tuesday’s launch, the Minister described the caucus as a bridge between political leadership, the health sector and communities, and said it aimed to “champion” the response to the disease, reports Daily Maverick. The SA TB Caucus was originally launched in 2018, after the establishment of the Global TB Caucus – a worldwide network of parliamentarians – in 2014. Motsoaledi co-chaired the global group at the...

Hospital oxygen plant tender unchanged despite assurances

Despite public undertakings from Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to remove the tainted R836m hospital oxygen plan tender from the Independent Development Trust (IDT), the Maziya joint venture’s contract remains firmly as it was, writes Azarrah Karrim for amaBhungane in Daily Maverick. A R152m contract with the Maziya On-Site Gas Systems joint venture to supply the plants is still with the IDT — despite the Minister promising that the entire tender had been taken away from the trust. After reporting by amaBhungane and Daily Maverick, which raised numerous red flags about the IDT adjudication and prompted a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) investigation into the...

Ritshidze forced to shrink after US aid cuts 
 

Ritshidze, the world’s largest community-led monitoring system, is in jeopardy after the cuts to US development aid announced in January, writes Chris Gilili for Health-e News. Established in 2019, Ritshidze monitored service delivery and the availability of essential medicines at more than 450 clinics in 25 health districts across eight provinces in the country – every quarter. Its purpose is to document, report and escalate service delivery issues at primary health facilities. The findings are published in reports that are publicly available. But now, the entire system is at risk. “We had to retrench more than a hundred people and are left with a quarter...

World class Groote Schuur scoops global recognition

Flagship Cape Town hospital Groote Schuur has been awarded European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) accreditation for its world-class oncology and palliative care teams. The state hospital, operating under the Western Cape Department of Health & Wellness, received the accreditation at the ESMO Congress in Berlin last week. The award recognises the hospital’s excellence in providing compassionate, multidisciplinary care to patients with cancer and other life-limiting illnesses. It also puts the hospital in an exclusive international network of healthcare centres that offer world-class treatment and care for cancer patients. Groote Schuur is the only hospital in South Africa with the ESMO accreditation, which...

New Gauteng forensic lab misses 5th deadline

Johannesburg’s new forensic pathology services laboratory (FPS), first planned for completion in 2019 and sitting at a critical “98% complete” point, has had numerous delays, cost overruns, and missed deadlines, and has remained on pause due to an outstanding payment of about R100m owed to the contractor, reports News24. While the fifth deadline facility has now come and gone, the state-of-the-art, “best in Africa” lab is still not up and running. After years of delays, the deadline was previously extended until the end of September, but, says contractor Maziya General Services CC, it has still not been paid in full, and...

New pharmacy rival likely to chase Clicks, Dis-Chem

Ambitious plans to double its pharmaceutical retail stores next year are a step closer for the SPAR Group, after getting the nod from the Competition Commission to acquire the Aptekor Group this month. This also puts it in line to take on other pharmacy retail leaders in the field, including JSE-listed Clicks and Dis-Chem, reports BusinessTech. SPAR Health, a wholly owned subsidiary of the SPAR Group, received the nod from the Commission to acquire the Aptekor Group (Aptekor Sneldiens and Aptekor Wholesale), without conditions. Founded more than half a century ago, Aptekor evolved from a small group of independent pharmacies into a...

Justice sought for teen who died after clinic turned her away

A Free State community is up in arms and demanding justice after the death of a young woman who was refused care at Bophelong Clinic in Welkom this month, writes Thabang Thembani for Health-e News. Mpho Vanessa Staal (17) had woken up on 1 October with severe stomach cramps and headed to her local clinic in Thabong. But after she had been waiting for an hour to be seen, the nurses told her she wasn’t sick, accusing her of being an attention-seeking teenager and saying she should go and take care of herself at home, according to other patients. Staal left,...

African self-reliance punted at key public health conference

The “Durban Promise”, the ambitious outcome document of the Conference of Public Health in Africa 2025 (CPHIA), will be on the menu when world leaders gather at the G20 summit in Johannesburg on 22-23 November, reports Health Policy Watch. That was the message from the conference, which closed on 25 October, with a pledge from its convenors to keep pressing for universal health coverage (UHC) at the next G20 meeting, capitalising on South Africa’s presidency. Along with UHC, the CPHIA outcome document cites five key priorities as “pillars of Africa’s Health Sovereignty”. Those include: African manufacturing; innovative health financing; pandemic preparedness and response; and...

Surgeons remove 100 magnets from New Zealand teen’s gut

A team of New Zealand surgeons recently removed nearly 100 high-power magnets a 13-year-old boy had swallowed, and which had caused necrosis in sections of his abdomen, reports AFP. After suffering four days of abdominal pain, the teen was taken to Tauranga Hospital where “he disclosed ingesting approximately 80-100 5x2mm high-power (neodymium) magnets about a week before”, said a report by doctors in the New Zealand Medical Journal. The magnets, which have been banned in New Zealand since January 2013, were bought on the online shopping platform Temu, they said. An X-ray showed the magnets had clumped together in four straight lines...

Last Ebola patient discharged in Congo

The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was discharged a week ago, marking an important milestone in the efforts to end the outbreak, reports the World Health Organisation (Africa). The recovery kicks off a 42-day countdown to declaring the outbreak over if no further cases are confirmed, the agency announced. A total of 19 patients have recovered from the disease. No new cases have been reported since 25 September. In total, 64 cases (53 confirmed and 11 probable) have been reported since the outbreak was declared on 4 September in Bulape health zone, Kasai Province. The outbreak occurred...

MEDICO-LEGAL

Health Department 100% liable after brain injury birth

A maternity nurse told a woman experiencing labour pains to go home and return “only if she sees something coming out of her vagina”. When the woman, who was two days past her due date, initially refused to go she was called “one of those people who knew everything”. Matthew Hattingh, for MedicalBrief, reports that the woman, who has successfully sued the Eastern Cape Department of Health for negligence, testified that she left after the rebuke, only to return by taxi about 4pm with severe pains. She said the nurses, at East London’s Frere Hospital, told her to stay in the...

Texas AG sues makers of Tylenol for ‘hiding autism risks’


Johnson & Johnson, which makes Tylenol, and its spin-off company Kenvue, which has sold the medication since 2023, are being sued by the Attorney-General of Texas, Ken Paxton, who accuses them of deliberately concealing the risks of the drug on brain development of children. The lawsuit – the latest fallout from the Trump administration’s unproven claim last month that using Tylenol during pregnancy can cause autism – claims the companies knowingly withheld evidence the information about Tylenol’s links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It further claims that Kenvue was created specifically to shield J&J from liability over Tylenol,...

Bail reduced for US doctor accused by 180 patients of sexual abuse

A former family physician in Oregon accused of widespread sexual abuse by his patients has had his bail reduced by 80% in a pre-trial release hearing. Five days earlier, a different circuit court judge had set bail for David Farley at $500 000, after the former doctor pleaded not guilty to 11 felony counts related to the alleged abuse, reports OPB. But last week, Judge Katherine Weber reduced this amount to $100 000 at the request of his defence attorney. Farley will need to post 10% of that amount to get out of Clackamas County Jail, where he has been in...

SOME RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IN THE PAST WEEK

CARDIOVASCULAR

Stroke risk upped by bright night light – Biobank study

Researchers have discovered that people exposed to brighter light at night face up to 50% higher risks of heart disease, while daytime light may protect the heart by reinforcing...

DENTISTRY

Bad gums tied to big brain risks – US study

Scientists in South Carolina have tied periodontal disease to cerebral small vessel disease and stroke, reports Medpage Today, with data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort linking...

DIET

Why gluten may not be the culprit – Australian review 

Social media and lifestyle magazines have turned gluten – a protein in wheat, rye and barley – into a dietary villain, with athletes and celebrities often promoting gluten-free eating as the secret...

ONCOLOGY

Pioneering light therapy may kill cancer cells in 30 minutes – Texas study

American scientists have suggested that a groundbreaking light therapy could kill cancer cells in just 30 minutes, and while the research is in its earliest stages, they said that ultimately, it...

Covid-19 jabs could unlock new tumour treatment – US study

The Covid-19 mRNA-based vaccines that saved 2.5m lives globally during the pandemic could help spark the immune system to fight cancer, write Adam Grippin and Christiano Marconi in The...

PSYCHIATRY

Anti-depressant side effects review prompts call for guidelines update

A major review of the potential side effects of certain anti-depressants has found that some people can gain as much as 2kg in weight within the first two months...

ABOUT US

MedicalBrief is Africa’s authoritative weekly digest of medical matters, both on the continent and around the world. It brings you a succinct summary of the latest developments, both in news and research, with links to the original material. Contact us: info@medicalbrief.co.za

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