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6 000 Zimbabwean babies, 500 mothers, died in 2025
More than 6 100 babies died within the neonatal period in Zimbabwe last year – most from birth asphyxia – while 563 women lost...
SA company plans Ebola treatment trial, and vaccines enter human trials
Research by a South African pharmaceutical company has identified a drug that prevents the Ebola virus from replicating, with a team now planning a...
SA prepares for Ebola outbreak as DRC health workers threaten strike
Government has designated 36 hospitals – 12 private and 24 public facilities – to manage any Ebola patients if the virus reaches South Africa,...
US and Tanzania ink $1.3bn five-year health pact
Tanzania has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States that clinches an American investment of more than $1.3bn in the country’s health...
Now Uganda has suspected Marburg case
Uganda, which is struggling to contain the threat of what is already the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record – centred in the neighbouring Democratic...
Thousands missed in Ebola contact tracing, warns Africa CDC
The Africa Centre for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) says that the majority of people testing positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of...
Ebola response highlights the value of African science
Every part of the global response to the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rests on an early act of...
'A matter of time' before Ebola arrives in SA, says expert
One of South Africa’s top infectious disease experts has warned that it’s simply “a matter of time” before an Ebola case is imported to...
Trump’s African health deals threaten human rights – report
Human Rights Watch has warned in a recent report that America’s bilateral health pacts with African countries – and its condition that the US...
Ghana asks anti-vaxxer, anti-WHO activist, to address ‘Family Values’ congress
Ghana’s Parliament recently invited an anti-vaccine Kenyan and a conservative Dutch activist campaigning to curtail the WHO to address visiting MPs on “health sovereignty”,...
Clinical trials for Ebola Bundibugyo drug to start soon, say scientists
Scientists are hopeful about several medications that have shown promise in preliminary studies against the virus responsible for the current deadly Ebola outbreak, with...
SA university leads global experts in Ebola response study
A Stellenbosch University-led team of scientists who collaborated with regional experts to assess the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda – and...
World experts call for urgent response, saying Ebola was preventable
Global health leaders, including a number of leading South African health professionals, have signed an open letter to governments in which they urge “an...
Race to find Ebola vaccine accelerates
As the Ebola virus continues to spread, and to claim lives, three new vaccines are being developed to tackle this latest, rare species, while...
Responders struggle to contain Ebola as outbreak surges
The military governor of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri province, the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak, has likened the struggle to contain the...
Ebola outbreak opens old wounds about African healthcare
To some Africans, the claim last week that the continent’s largest health agency had already bungled its response scratched a familiar wound, reports The...
Demand for new HIV jab outstrips supply in African rollout
Demand for the twice-yearly HIV prevention injection lenacapavir is outpacing supply in parts of Africa, with distribution covering a fraction of estimated need and...
SA’s Ebola risk ‘low’ as rare virus strain rips through Congo
As the number of Ebola deaths rises to more than 130 in the Eastern Congo, and despite the WHO having declared a global emergency...
Zambia wants US health deal uncoupled from minerals access
The proposed critical minerals agreement contained in the Washington health deal with Zambia has been rejected by the African county, with its government clarifying...
Africa CDC launches group to guide genomics governance, innovation
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), recently launched the African Strategic Advisory Group on Genomics (ASAG), which aims to independent...
Hantavirus in Africa – why scientists are worried
Hantaviruses – which have circulated for decades in rodent populations, particularly in rats and mice, and can infect humans who may be bitten or...
Malaria mortality slashed in African children after vaccine
WHO’s approval of the RTS,S/AS01 (Mosquirix) malaria vaccine in 2021 was a milestone in global public health, representing not only the first vaccine approved...
Action urged for sickle cell disease in Nigeria, across Africa
The growing burden of sickle cell disease in Nigeria – and across sub-Saharan Africa – has prompted calls by health professionals and researchers for...
Southern Africa inches ahead in war against drug-resistant malaria
As malaria cases nudge their way upwards on the continent, and while the cunning parasite evolves to evade detection and conquer drugs used to...
Mystery illness in Burundi kills five
At least five people have died in Burundi, and another three dozen become ill from unexplained causes, reports CIDRAP News.
The case-fatality rate of 14%...
Africa, Europe sign €100m in pacts to boost health systems
Three agreements have been signed between the African Union and the European Commission to reinforce and strengthen Africa’s health systems, reports Health Policy Watch.
The...
Nigerian doctors demand justice after attacks
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has demanded justice for a doctor and a nurse who were assaulted at the Kwara State University...
One in three young girls in Africa untested for HIV
HIV remains one of the biggest public health challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, a region which accounts for about two-thirds of 40m people with HIV globally....
Africa needs to reassess fight against malaria
As progress on malaria stalls, the case for local research in Africa is stronger than ever, write Edwine Barasa of the KEMRI-Wellcome Research Programme...
Africa’s health worker brain drain tracks colonial patterns
Africa has a challenge to retain the health staff it needs – with the WHO estimating a global shortfall of 11m health workers by...
Supplier still selling expired medicines to Malawi state facilities
Despite a recommendation to revoke its licence, one of Malawi’s largest pharmaceutical suppliers that was shut down for supplying state hospitals with faulty antibiotics...
Genetic risk factors threaten kidney disease crisis for Africa
With kidney disease rising across the continent, there’s an overwhelming need for African health systems to boost investment in early disease detection, for pharmaceutical...
Kenyan president slams healthcare scheme critics
President William Ruto has dismissed criticism of the government’s Social Health Authority (SHA), saying opponents lack the capacity to understand or interpret the scale...
Low CD4 count linked to cervical cancer risk – Swiss-SA study
A team of scientists, led by the University of Bern, Switzerland, and in collaboration with the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, has found...
Africa’s deadly legacy – one stillbirth every 30 seconds
A major report has revealed that a baby is stillborn every 30 seconds in Africa, exposing major cracks in the continent’s healthcare systems. Most...
Tpoxx no longer advised for mpox: EMA
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is recommending that the antiviral drug tecovirimat (Tpoxx) no longer be used for treating mpox, after studies found it...
Half of all badly injured patients don’t reach medical care – UK-Stellenbosch study
Many seriously injured patients in Global South countries fail to reach medical care within the lifesaving “golden hour”, with ambulances often associated with these...
Expert urges caution on Africa-US health agreements
The United States has been signing bilateral health deals with African countries, with pacts worth $19.8bn having been negotiated and inked by the end...
Zambia stands firm against US bullying over health support
The US State Department is threatening to withhold lifesaving health support to Zambia as a negotiating tactic to force that country’s government to sign...
Africa summit flags fungal diseases as public health priority
A landmark summit held in Addis Ababa this month – Africa’s first event dedicated to fungal diseases – concluded with a multi-stakeholder commitment to...