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Prolonged Grief Disorder: One year of mourning is enough rules APA’s new diagnostic manual
The latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s definitive diagnostic manual, DSM-5, published this week, lists a controversial new condition: Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD),...
Neurologist lashes RAF chief’s ‘pitiful and preposterous excuses’
Responding to Road Accident Fund (RAF) CEO Collins Letsoalo attack on medical professionals for approaching Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo over non-payment for specialist...
RAF chief attacks medical experts over ‘unethical and potentially unlawful’ letter to Zondo
The approach by medical professionals to Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo over the failure of the Road Accident Fund to pay them for expert...
‘Just a hernia’: The common operation with recurrence and complication rates stuck in the 1990s
Hernia repair is one of the most common operations performed and is widely viewed as a simple procedure carrying minimal risk, writes MedicalBrief. Yet...
Excess mortality estimates put global COVID deaths at more than 18m
Some 18.2m people have died during the coronavirus pandemic, three times higher than official figures of 5.9m at the end of last year, according...
RAF revolt: Experts withdraw medico-legal opinions over non-payment
This article has been updated with comment from the RAF
Medical professionals contracted to provide expert opinions in Road Accident Fund (RAF) court hearings, have...
COVID -19 may cause neurological tissue damage, grey matter loss – Oxford
COVID-19 may cause changes in the brain, including greater loss of grey matter and tissue damage, than naturally occurs in uninfected people, a large...
MAC advisories on COVID-19: Heel dragging despite govt promises of transparency
Despite a publicly stated commitment to transparency and several Promotion of Access to Information requests , there have been “significant delays” in the National...
ANC says NHI Bill is next best thing to the Cuban solution
While the ANC was of the view that the Cuban national health system, “the best in the world”, this was at present regrettably beyond...
‘Heartbreaking’: South Africa has more than 134,000 orphans from COVID-19
In what researchers describe as a “heartbreaking hidden pandemic”, up to 6.7m children globally have been orphaned or lost a caregiver due to COVID-19....
Higher COVID-19 mortality in young Africans than European and US counterparts
African children and adolescents hospitalised with COVID-19 experience substantially higher mortality rates than Europeans or North Americans of the same age, according to the...
SA employers must weigh implications of conflicting regulations on COVID-19
Under the newest South African regulations, a person who has tested positive for COVID-19 and is asymptomatic is not required to isolate, writes Jacqui...
Poles apart: Starkly divergent views on NHI before parliamentary committee
The parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health heard starkly divergent views on the likely effect of the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, writes MedicalBrief. The...
Antarctic find fuels theory of accidental COVID leak from research lab
The controversial theory that COVID-19 accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory was given fresh momentum after scientists studying soil samples in Antarctica stumbled upon...
Anti-abortion doctor asks High Court to order HPCSA to hold his disciplinary hearing
A doctor, who five years ago allegedly tried to dissuade a woman from an abortion, has asked the High Court to compel the Health...
Prenatal DNA testing is booming. Many tests are wrong 90% of the time
Noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPTs) are being sold aggressively to would-be parents as an early warning of chromosomal abnormalities, permitting a choice between preparing to...
Vitamin D and Omega-3 supplementation reduced autoimmune disease – VITAL trial
Vitamin D supplementation for five years reduced autoimmune disease by 22%, while taking both vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acid supplements decreased autoimmune disease by...
CCMA again rules in favour of employers over mandatory vaccinations
For the second time in a fortnight, the Council for Conciliation Mediation & Arbitration has ruled that suspending an employee for refusing to be vaccinated...
SIU report reveals massive scale of looting from COVID-relief funds
The Special Investigating Unit examined less than 10% of R152.5bn spent by the South African government between April 2020 and September 2021 on COVID-19...
Gender Commission under crossfire over ‘ill-advised’ stance on vaccinations
The national Department of Health (DoH) and a formidable array of medical professional organisations have criticised the Gender Commission for Equality (GCE) for its...
Global nursing crisis deepens as pandemic and staff shortages wreak havoc
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on nursing across the world. With burnt-out and traumatised staff leaving the profession in droves, a study estimates that 13...
Gender Commission joins opposition to mandatory vaccination policies
The South African Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has warned against “trampling on human rights” with mandatory vaccinations and “harsh sanctions” against employees and...
China’s bid for Zero Covid: Economic pain, rights abuses and data manipulation
As the Beijing Winter Olympics approaches, with the announcement that tickets will not be sold due to the “grave and complicated situation of the...
Switch to heated tobacco from cigarettes may reduce toxic exposure – Cochrane Review
There is moderate‐certainty evidence that people who switched from cigarettes to heated tobacco had lower levels of exposure to harmful chemicals and very low-...
Reverse zoonoses in COVID-infected lions and pumas at Gauteng zoo
Reverse zoonotic COVID-19 transmission from asymptomatic animal handlers at a Gauteng zoo not only posed a risk to endangered big cats kept in captivity...
SANDF medical students lose appeal for reinstatement after Cuban ‘mutiny’
A group of 35 SA Military Health Service personnel who went absent without leave (AWOL) during their Cuban medical training as doctors have lost...
UK slammed for ‘baffling’ response to SA expertise, as Omicron sweeps the world
Top medical scientists in Britain have again come under fire for ignoring the expertise of respected South African COVID-19 researchers after the Omicron variant...
Evidence review: Intermittent fasting for weight loss and lower cardiometabolic risk
A US meta-analysis of clinical trials shows moderate- to high-quality evidence that intermittent fasting delivers weight loss, as well as improving markers for heart...
WHO: Humanity’s biggest mistake has been to underestimate the coronavirus
Humanity’s biggest collective failing regarding COVID-19 has been underestimating it – and the virus has sequentially exploited the resulting opportunities – says Dr Mike...
Blow for J&J vaccine as CDC downgrades it over rare blood clots
The Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine, which was extensively and successfully tested in South Africa’s Sisonke Trial among health workers, has been downgraded by...
South Africa’s overseas-trained doctors no longer to do training year
South African doctors trained abroad will now be allowed to sit local entry exams without needing to complete a conversion year of clinical training,...
Discovery Health’s large real-world analysis of Omicron
Discovery Health, South Africaʼs largest private health insurance administrator, has released at-scale, real-world analysis of the Omicron outbreak based on 211,000 COVID-19-positive test results...
South African sanitisers: Barely a quarter meet WHO virucidal standards
An analysis of South African hand-sanitisers found that barely a quarter conform to World Health Organization guidelines on the alcohol content necessary to have...
My cup runneth over: Is coffee becoming the beverage equivalent of daily aspirin?
A brace of new studies — involving, among others, the US National Institutes of Health —has indicated beneficial effects to coffee and/or tea consumption...
State of play with Omicron – The discovery, the spread, the politics, and the science
In the past week, a new coronavirus variant has thrust South Africa into the global limelight. We have been praised for science and punished...
Mounting concern over SA’s child and teen pregnancy crisis
Nearly half a million teens aged 15-19 fell pregnant in the past four years, as well as another 14,000 of the ages 10-15, writes...
Jailed gynae whose conviction was reversed by ConCourt ends silence
Dr Danie van der Walt, the first South African doctor jailed for the death of a patient and who served eight months of a...
Critical remarks by a medical colleague spark ‘most negligence claims’
Around 60% of patients taking action against healthcare professionals said they only considered doing so when another healthcare professional suggested they had received sub-standard...
‘Strong evidence’ of COVID-19’s origin in Wuhan live-animal market
COVID-19’s Patient Zero was a woman working at China’s Wuhan animal market, not an accountant unconnected to the facility, as previously concluded by the...
Crisp: Private sector is to blame for much of SA’s wasted healthcare spend
Much of the waste in SA’s healthcare expenditure is the fault of “unjustifiable private sector costs and gross public sector inefficiencies”, says Dr Nicholas...