Juta MedicalBrief

Unpaid provincial Health Department accounts, regulatory disputes with SAHPRA, and manufacturing pressures are among the reported causes of a widespread medicine shortage in South Africa – this despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s intervention last year, reports News24. A task team that was established a year ago and which has met three times, has failed to resolve the issues, with critical shortages worse than ever. In fact, the Department of Health’s latest internal report for September, which tracks national medicine stock levels, shows that new shortages are emerging faster than existing problems can be resolved, reports News24’s sister publication Rapport. Reasons cited include the...

The chances of the Health Department offering GLP-1 drugs to public sector patients for obesity any time soon are remote, reports Business Day. While the WHO backed the treatments for long-term obesity almost a year ago, the department has yet to begin assessing whether to make them available, a senior official has confirmed. The national essential medicines committee is considering adding the medicines to the list of drugs that can be prescribed for diabetes patients on state healthcare facilities, but it has not yet even started to review the evidence for their use in obesity care, said the department’s chief director...

Four actuaries from Medscheme, one of the country’s largest medical scheme administrators, presented evidence at the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA) convention in Cape Town recently on the impact of delayed medical scheme regulatory reform on South Africans, and possible solutions to the conundrum of higher costs for fewer benefits, reports News24. Using Medscheme and partner insurers’ data, Medscheme actuaries Stephanie van Niekerk, senior manager for actuarial product and group technical marketing; Elizabeth Greyling, senior actuarial analyst; Homaam Arend, actuarial analyst; and Allan Williams, associate consultant, highlighted how: Medical scheme benefits are reducing As the cost of providing prescribed minimum benefits...

Despite at least 830 people having been affected by the contaminated water in Bronkhorstspruit, and having sought medical help for gastrointestinal problems, Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina insists there is no “outbreak”, reports Daily Maverick. She said the situation cannot be classified as an outbreak without fatalities or critical cases. And meanwhile, there is still no timeline on when piped tap water will be safe to drink, with communities complaining that water tanker supplies are erratic and unreliable. So far, 833 people have been affected by the outbreak, with about 40% of patients being toddlers under four, after drinking water from...

Shortages of critical medicines and endless queues at clinics around the country are frustrating outpatients, whose anger is compounded by fear of having to do without vital medication, and safety concerns while waiting for opening hours. TimesLIVE reports that at Madidi Clinic in North West, Samuel Mogauwe (54) is clutching a prescription slip instead of the high blood pressure medicine he desperately needs. For weeks, he has left the clinic without his medication, forced to choose between his health and his finances as medicine shortages affect this rural community. “I haven’t had my tablets since September,” he said. “I just can’t afford...

Patients in Beaufort West who need lifesaving dialysis and chemotherapy have to travel for 10 hours for help, with some having to book overnight stays for their treatments 300km away, reports GroundUp. The provincial Health Department said it has no immediate plans to introduce these treatments in the area any time soon. One patient, Phoebe Stephenson, makes the arduous 10-hour round trip to the George National Renal Care centre three times a week for treatment. Stephenson was diagnosed with a chronic kidney disease in April 2025, so every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she and seven other patients from Beaufort West are...

Continuing weak financial control in provincial Health Departments – and lack of improvement in audits – has been slammed by the Treasury, with a warning that this poses significant fiscal risks, reports Business Day. Five of nine Health Departments received qualified audits for the 2025/26 financial year, three received unqualified audits with findings, and only the Western Cape achieved a clean audit, with the the accumulation of accruals peaking at almost R25bn in 2024/25. While the Treasury helped reduce this to R20.5bn in 2025/26 with additional allocations to the provincial equitable share, the remaining accruals indicate continued pressure within provincial health...

The surge in malaria cases in Gauteng this year was not caused by mosquito bites within the province, but rather, linked to people who had visited neighbouring countries and provinces after the January floods in southern Africa, reports Daily Maverick. More than 400 infections and 11 deaths in the first three months of 2026 had initially caused alarm, and in a public webinar last week entitled “What caused the 2026 spike in malaria cases in Gauteng?”, senior University of Pretoria malaria expert Professor Tiaan de Jager said the cases – reported in Johannesburg and Pretoria – were a shock in a province...

Two people in Sasolburg have tested positive for mpox, with health officials saying both infections are linked to the same source, reports The Citizen. The development comes amid a wider increase in reported infections across the country, according to the Sedibeng Ster, with the National Department of Health noting South Africa had recorded 26 laboratory-confirmed cases since the start of 2026. The Free State Department of Health said the the two Sasolburg cases were linked to the same source, and that it was following up with a small number of close contacts, with assessments and testing under way. The first patient was reported to...

After an unannounced visit to two hospitals in the Eastern Cape, an irate Public Protector Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka said the public health sector was in dire need of renewal, and that no progress had been made since Covid-19, reports Daily Dispatch. Gcaleka said she was prompted to visit the facilities – in Gqeberha and Butterworth – after numerous reports were sent to her office and the provincial offices “of a stagnant health sector which has continually deteriorated since the Covid-19 pandemic”. She expressed “extreme dissatisfaction” after her visit to Livingstone Hospital in Gqeberha, which had already been under investigation by her...

Bogus doctor Abdulkader Elyas, who had approached the Western Cape High Court seeking a second opinion after his expulsion from the DA, was dealt a blow on Monday after his urgent bid to overturn his expulsion was postponed, reports News24. The postponement leaves Elyas’ challenge unresolved as he races to reverse the DA’s decision to terminate his membership and to protect his political position before the local government elections next week. Elyas had pleaded guilty in September 2024 to five charges of misrepresenting his credentials, including false claims of holding a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB), a BCom...

Cancer drug prices are to be drastically reduced in India after a retired bank clerk took her case to the Supreme Court, reports The Guardian. She died in September 2022, while her case was still pending. In a victory for sufferers, from next month, 137 cancer drugs will be cheaper as the government tries to stem the crisis of poorer patients either abandoning treatment, selling land, or falling into debt to meet the high cost of some medicines, which are raking in massive profits for hospitals and pharmacists. Sarojam Radhakrishnan, who worked for a bank in Kerala, was diagnosed with breast...

A disease normally only ever found in animals has been detected in humans for the first time, with the first known case of the Shamonda virus (Shav) being identified in a French patient who died in early October, reports the BBC. Shamonda belongs to the same group as Schmallenberg virus, which causes reproductive disorders in livestock. Health officials said it was an “exceptional case in a severely immunocompromised patient” but that there was currently no risk to the public. Shav primarily affects cattle and can be spread by infected midges. Cases have also occurred in sheep, goats, alpacas and horses, but infections...

The US state of Iowa’s Attorney-General Brenna Bird has sued OpenAI, alleging the company misled consumers about its product ChatGPT’s safety and reliability, including the risks of receiving inaccurate or dangerous medical advice from the chatbot, reports Becker’s Health IT. Seven other states have filed separate lawsuits against OpenAI, all broadly challenging ChatGPT’s safety and OpenAI’s representations to consumers, while Iowa’s petition specifically includes allegations involving medical advice. The 91-page petition alleges that OpenAI violated the state’s Consumer Fraud Act by misrepresenting ChatGPT as a safe and trustworthy product despite evidence of potential harms to users. It specifically raises concerns about ChatGPT’s...

A nurse was killed and a health worker severely injured after being attacked while responding to an Ebola alert in the Congo, reports the Associated Press. The WHO said this was the latest in a series of attacks on health workers and responders that authorities say is hampering efforts to slow the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in the world. The attack took place on Saturday in the town of Bafwasende. Local authorities have not yet commented on the attack or the suspects. Last month, a Congolese politician was beaten to death in North Kivu after publicly defending the government’s response to Ebola. Earlier, on a radio show,...

A public inquiry in Britain has found appalling lapses in government decisions made during the pandemic, which, among other things, allowed Covid-19 to spread “like wildfire” among vulnerable and elderly people, reports The Guardian. It also revealed that the so-called “protective ring” around care homes – a long-held claim by former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock – did not even exist and that the “opposite was true”. According to the report by Heather Hallett, who is leading the inquiry, and who has rejected his claim, the care sector was an “afterthought”, and the government’s failure to advise that...

The Retreat Community Health Centre in Cape Town’s southern suburbs has reopened after a temporary lockdown last week triggered by a fatal shooting directly outside the medical facility, reports the Cape Argus. The violent incident unfolded late on the Sunday afternoon, a stone’s throw from the clinic. Western Cape South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson Captain Wesley Twigg said officers had responded to reports of gunfire and discovered four victims at the scene: one man was dead, while three others, aged between 16 and 21, were seriously injured and needed immediate emergency care. Twigg said preliminary reports indicated that the victims were...

A family is questioning the decisions made by an emergency room doctor after a toddler was pronounced dead “in error” at Mercy Gilbert Medical Centre in Arizona, and later found breathing inside the hospital morgue, reports ABC15 News. It was previously reported that 18-month-old Vincent Fiordilino had been taken to the hospital – on 8 February – after being found in his family’s pool. Police records and body-camera video, obtained by ABC15, show officers observing apparent signs of life after Vincent was pronounced dead. More than five hours later, he was found alive in the hospital morgue, when the Medical Examiner’s transport...