March 31st, 2021More than a year after the coronavirus pandemic began, the World Health Organisation has released its report laying out how the virus spread to humans. But, reports The New York Times, it is already raising more questions than answers, including...
March 31st, 2021The reasoning behind the National Department of Health and the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines refusing to use the AstraZeneca vaccine locally are “muddled”, “misguided” and raise “deep ethical concerns”, write scientists from...
March 17th, 2021Despite the World Health Organisation and the European regulator backing continued use, inoculations using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have been suspended in numerous countries, in what the Italian medicine chief described as “a political...
Increasing mortality rates among the working-age in the US since 2010 have been mainly driven by drug- and alcohol-related deaths, suicide, and cardiometabolic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, according to a sweeping report, released by...
March 3rd, 2021Professor Shabir Madhi, eminent Medical Research Council vaccinologist and principal investigator in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine trial locally, has urged the Health Department not to abandon the vaccine but to make immediate strategic use of it...
February 17th, 2021The muddled acquisition AstraZeneca vaccine from India, found on delivery to have an April expiry date and not the normal six-month one, continues, writes MedicalBrief. After India refused to exchange the vaccine or give a refund, the Health...
February 17th, 2021Obesity and excess body fat may have contributed to more deaths in England and Scotland than smoking since 2014, according to University of Glasgow research published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.
Between 2003 and 2017 the...
England’s most extensive ever study of ethnic minority health in the over-55s has revealed substantial inequalities across most groups, compared with white British people. The University of Manchester study showed people from some ethnic minority...
February 10th, 2021For South Africans to get their lives back, they need vaccines by winter and herd immunity against COVID-19, says a Scientists’ Collective of 15 top experts in the SA Medical Journal. The public health sector cannot achieve this alone – to avoid...
February 3rd, 2021The Department of Health’s funding model for South Africa's vaccination roll-out is “inherently unfair, unethical and illegal”, Profmed CEO Craig Comrie told MedicalBrief in an interview. Profmed's Comrie was this week the first medical scheme...
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, 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 9th, 2020World AIDS Day this year found us deep amid another pandemic – COVID-19 – writes Prof Linda-Gail Bekker of the University of Cape Town in The Conversation. The lessons learned from HIV and AIDS can be used to inform the COVID-19 response since...
Preterm birth is a strong predictor of ill health throughout childhood, up to age 10, even among children born at 38 and 39 weeks of gestation, finds a study in The BMJ.
Being born early (before 37 weeks’ gestation) is associated with a higher...
October 28th, 2020Top global infectious diseases scientist and US presidential adviser Dr Anthony Fauci told doctors in South Africa during a PPS-sponsored webinar that it should be known “within weeks” if there is a safe and effective vaccine, writes Karen...
October 21st, 2020Airlines suffered a COVID-19 setback this week when an expert rejected safety conclusions they drew from his research, writes MedicalBrief. But while numerous studies suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted during flights, there appears to be...
