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Ramaphosa scrambles to staunch anger over medical relief corruption
President Cyril Ramaphosa's administration is scrambling to deal with a wave of national outrage over evidence of billions of rands of corruption and looting...
SCA on negligence appeal: No such thing as diagnostic infallibility
Medical science has not advanced to the stage of diagnostic infallibility and sympathy is not grounds for imposing legal liability, wrote Judge Malcolm Wallis...
COVID-19 models – Fatally flawed?
In the fourth of the highly successful PPS Webinar series on COVID-19, Professor Robin Wood of the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine...
Corruption feeding frenzy involving R2.2bn of pandemic relief funds
More than R2.2bn of emergency COVID-19 funds have been stolen in a corruption feeding frenzy, the news embarrassingly emerging just as the International Monetary...
COVID-19 transmission – The global misuse of data
Decisions on COVID-19 made by governments and the World Health Organization may literally be life-or-death and yet political leaders have made avoidable errors and misused ‘scientific data’, respected medical...
A new gold standard? Sputum testing provides higher rate of COVID-19 detection
Sputum testing detected the RNA of the virus that causes COVID-19 at significantly higher rates than oropharyngeal swab testing, the current gold standard, found...
ConCourt overturns conviction of jailed gynaecologist
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Danie van der Walt, found guilty in 2017 of culpable homicide in connection with the death of a patient and...
COVID-19 transmission — An absence of data
Professor Robin Wood is conducting internationally ground-breaking research into infectious disease transmission at the Aerobiology and TB Research Unit, University of Cape Town, an...
Cautious optimism over Oxford-AstraZeneca candidate vaccine results
The candidate coronavirus vaccine AZD1222, being developed by University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, generated an immune response in a study of roughly 1,000 patients, according to interim results...
Coronavirus chaos: BBC goes inside SA's 'hospitals of horrors’
An exclusive, weeks-long investigation inside filthy hospitals in South Africa has exposed an extraordinary array of systemic failures showing exhausted doctors and nurses overwhelmed...
Fast and dangerous — The road to a COVID-19 vaccine
There is a great deal to worry about in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine, said leading medical scientist Professor Robin Wood. Challenges include...
Herd immunity assumptions challenged by latest research
There is a growing body of evidence that immunity to COVID-19 is short lived, writes MedicalBrief. The latest study, from the UK, found levels of...
UK safety review damns interventions that ruined women's lives
Britain's Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review has published a two-year review of "harrowing" evidence three medical interventions: a pregnancy testing drug, an...
Urgent need to mitigate surgical risk during pandemic
A large, 24-nation cohort study reporting post-operative outcomes in COVID-19 of post elective and emergency surgical patients found poor outcomes exceeding those seen in most...
Med scheme support sought for distressed private practitioners
COVID-19 has slashed patient numbers, leaving many private doctors in financial distress and worsening patient health outcomes, writes MedicalBrief. While private health offers to...
Coronavirus vaccine likely in 12 months — ARV drug co-inventor Larry Corey
Unlike HIV, the coronavirus is more open to the development of a vaccine and one should be within the grasp of modern science by...
COVID focus must stress prevention and good, early treatment
Professor Robin Wood, one of South Africa’s eminent medical scientists, says that while Western medicine tends to focus on the sickest patients, to make a...
Top American scientist in webinar on COVID-19 vaccine development
Best case scenarios for COVID-19 include the development of a vaccine. This week, medical professionals can tap into the knowledge of top United States...
Health officials in bitter new clash with medical professionals
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown stark divisions between medical professionals, on the one side, and bureaucrats and politicians on the other, writes MedicalBrief. Following...
Beware false negative PCR tests, warns Groote Schuur doctor
Clinicians should be wary of false negative COVID-19 PCR swab tests and rather rely on typical infection symptoms, backed by radiological scans. This warning...
Steroid treatment for sickest COVID-19 patients a 'major breakthrough'
Dexamethasone, a cheap and widely-used steroid, has become the first drug shown to save COVID-19 lives, in what University of Oxford scientists said is...
Leading virologist warns that C-19 vaccine not likely soon
Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and one of the world's leading virologists, says the much-anticipated prospect...
Most-used COVID-19 test may miss 1 in 5 infections
The majority test for the novel coronavirus — a back of nose or throat swab using the RT-PCR laboratory procedure for genetic analysis —...
High Court scuppers Mkhize's plans for pre-emptive state quarantine
This week Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize again raised the possibility of compulsory state quarantine as a pre-emptive measure for those potentially at risk, in...
Even mild coronavirus infection leads to antibodies — Pasteur Institute
A medical study in France suggests even mild cases of coronavirus infection, not requiring hospital treatment, produce antibodies in almost all patients, with the...
Renowned microbiologist and co-discoverer of Ebola for our webinar
Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, will next week join our webinar series in which local practitioners can interact...
MRC drops 'impulsive and high-handed' investigation into Prof Gray
The SA Medical Research Council (MRC) has abandoned what the Academy of Science of SA described as an “impulsive and high-handed” investigation into Prof...
Counting the cost of COVID-19 for SA medical schemes
The financial health of SA medical schemes during COVID-19 looks positive for 2020 but could deteriorate next year due to a ‘significant’ rise in costs, with...
Medical experts rebel over SA's 'nonsensical' lockdown strategy
The South African government is coming under strong criticism from medical experts on its own ministerial advisory committee (MAC), who say the present lockdown...
Former UCT doctor warns SA: Be ready for an enigmatic disease and a flood of patients
COVID-19 is not a single-specialty disease. Everyone has to collaborate, parceling out work where resources are most needed and finding the best way to...
Most critically ill COVID-19 patients survive with standard treatment
Clinicians from two US hospitals report that the majority of even the sickest patients with COVID-19 - those who require ventilators in intensive care...
Anti-coagulants may improve survival in hospitalised COVID-19 patients
Treating hospitalised COVID-19 patients with anti-coagulants may improve their chances of survival, researchers from the Mount Sinai COVID Informatics Centre report. The study could...
Webinar series spotlighting Covid-19 issues and research
Starting next week, MedicalBrief, partnering with Discovery and the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation (DTHF) in conjunction with the SA Medical Association, the SA Private Practitioners Forum and the Unity Forum for...
COVID-19 trial: Remdesivir accelerates recovery and improves survival
A clinical trial by the US National Institutes of Health found that hospitalised patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received remdesivir recovered...
R440m fraternal Cuban Brigade 'won't take SA jobs'
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says the deployment of Cuban doctors — apparently costing the South African government R440m — would not take jobs away from SA doctors and...
Oxford University way ahead of the pack in race for COVID-19 vaccine
In the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop the coronavirus, sprinting fastest isOxford University, with of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than...
Safety of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for treating COVID-19
Physicians and patients should be aware of several rare but potentially life-threatening adverse effects of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, even during short courses of...
COVID-19: Intensive Care Society issues new guidelines on ‘proning’
Following a national survey, the UK's Intensive Care Society has issued guidelines on "proning", a technique usually applied to unconscious patients on ventilation, which...
Zoonotic transfer study fuels call for ban of wildlife trade, markets and medicinal use
A major study has found that the exploitation of wildlife and destruction of habitat have substantially increased the risk of transfer of dangerous viruses, including COVID-19, from...
Ethnicity as a factor in vulnerability to COVID-19
The head of the British Medical Association wants the an urgent investigation into the possible greater vulnerability of black, Asian and minority ethnic...