January 13th, 2021‘Long COVID’ – a version of COVID-19 that results in continued illness of a significant number of people for many months after the initial disease has waned – was neglected, with the focus on life-saving treatments and vaccine development,...
January 13th, 2021The government and the tobacco lobby are squaring up for another round of appeals and counter-appeals in the South African courts, over the state’s right to ban tobacco to as part of its anti-COVID-19 campaign. Both legal teams will be...
January 13th, 2021Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients with high levels of antibodies appeared to delay or stop progression of illness in mildly ill older adults infected with the novel coronavirus, a small randomised, controlled, double-blind Argentine trial...
January 6th, 2021South African medical scientists, joined by activist groups, health workers and opposition parties, have slammed the government and its Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) over the “perilous fiasco” of the vaccine roll-out, reports MedicalBrief....
January 6th, 2021One year on, US hospital doctors say the best and most reliable drug for COVID-19 is cheap, familiar, and has all the glamour of an aspirin, writes MedicalBrief. And in the UK, the drug — dexamethasone — has been described as "one of the most...
January 6th, 2021Medical xenophobia is widespread among South African health workers — especially nurses — in Gauteng health facilities, reports MedicalBrief. A University of the Witwatersrand study found that a majority of health workers believe that migrants...
December 16th, 2020Are South Africa's Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng comments on a COVID-19 vaccine that is ‘of the Devil’ deserving of calls by medical scientists and the media for his impeachment? Or is it manufactured outrage, with Mogoeng exercising his right...
December 16th, 2020Despite the COVID-19 global mantra of ‘No one is safe until we are all safe’, the world's wealthy nations have not only hogged vaccine supplies coming on-stream but have also rejected patent waivers that would allow low-income countries the...
December 16th, 2020For the second time, the Eastern Cape High Court has rebuffed attempts to revisit a medical negligence claim that was previously settled but is now being challenged by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU), writes MedicalBrief. In both cases,...
December 9th, 2020World rugby authorities face a group class action for negligence following diagnoses of early onset dementia among retired players allegedly caused by repeated blows to the head, writes MedicalBrief. It is speculated that similar actions may follow...
December 9th, 2020South Africa’s strict lockdown over five weeks had devastating societal consequences but did not achieve its COVID-19 objectives, writes Seán Mfundza Muller of the University of Johannesburg. To make the best decisions for society, policy-makers...
December 9th, 2020A recent South African Supreme Court of Appeal judgment, in the case of a clinical psychologist against a mining company, may open the door for medical practitioners — and their insurers — to institute claims for malicious prosecution against...
December 2nd, 2020A leading orthopaedic surgeon who emigrated to South Africa but for more than seven years couldn’t get the Health Professions Council to accept his foreign qualifications, scored an important victory in the High Court (Pretoria), writes...
December 2nd, 2020The Danish Mask Study has caused a furore, writes MedicalBrief. It has been seized upon by those militantly opposed to wearing masks as proof that medical recommendations to do so are rubbish. From the other side of the spectrum, some public health...
December 2nd, 2020A novel blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer, often before symptoms show, is to be trialled by the UK's National Health Service, reports The Independent.
The Galleri test has been described as a “game-changer”, after...
November 25th, 2020The past week saw the United States hit more than 12m COVID-19 infections, with a quarter of a million dead, while Europe was caught in a second wave that has new cases growing five-fold and deaths up four-and-a-half-fold to 5,000 per day....
