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News Release
SANCO calls for urgent removal of section 43 from COID Amendment Bill
The South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), representing over 1m members from poor and disadvantaged communities across South Africa, is calling for the urgent...
South Africans support innovative approaches to smoking harm reduction – Global survey
Four in five South African adults agree that governments should consider the role smoke-free products can play in tobacco harm reduction, according to an...
COHSASA elects new chairperson and vice-chairperson
The Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA) has elected a new chairperson and vice-chairperson to lead the organisation. The new chairperson...
SA Hospital Association: Private hospital vaccination sites for health workers
With the majority of the first consignment of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines now successfully injected into the arms of healthcare workers since the...
AfroCentric: Three key ways the latest Budget Speech impacts healthcare
Ahmed Banderker, CEO of AfroCentric Group, comments on the 2021 Budget Speech
With the funding and rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations acting as a centre-piece of...
Here's how SA will tackle the freezing and transit of COVID-19 vaccines
South Africa may be in a temporary lull between COVID-19 waves but there is little doubt we will experience another wave at the very...
Roll-out of the COVID-19 National Occupational Health Surveillance System
The National Department of Health and Department of Employment and Labour have directed the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH) to roll-out the COVID-19...
HEALA: Double SA sugary beverage levy to help fund fight against COVID-19
In 2018, South Africa introduced a health promotion levy of about 11% on sugary beverages to help curb the country’s sugar consumption, which is...
COID Amendment Bill bans the cession of medical invoices to third party administrators and financial institutions
On 16 February, Professor Alex van den Heever, Tim Hughes and Moira Wilson spoke on a webinar about the dire consequences the proposed amendments...
DA: Out-on-bail Eastern Cape Health MEC must step aside
As scandal upon scandal piles up against Eastern Cape Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba, the honourable thing for her to do would be to step...
Immunotherapy medication offers more treatment options for more cancers
Worldwide, cancer is the second leading cause of death with around one in six deaths due to cancer. In 2018, approximately 9.6m people died...
Merck warns on Ivermectin for COVID: No evidence of efficacy and safety
Drug maker Merck & Co has warned against the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19, saying there is no evidence of its efficacy and...
Johnson & Johnson: Single-shot Janssen COVID-19 vaccine candidate met primary endpoints in ENSEMBLE Trial
Johnson & Johnson has announced top-line efficacy and safety data from the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE clinical trial, demonstrating that the investigational single-dose COVID-19 vaccine...
Ranking places South Africa as the unhealthiest of the OECD countries
A new study reveals the healthiest and unhealthiest countries to live in and South Africa has been ranked as the unhealthiest.
The research by Compare...
Medtech industry welcomes arrival of COVID vaccines and outlines its support for SA’s vaccine programme
The South African Medical Technology Industry Association (SAMED) welcomes the arrival of the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines – intended for healthcare workers –...
University of Free State: Clinical trial on Ivermectin for COVID-19
FARMOVS, a wholly owned clinical research company of the University of the Free State (UFS), together with several medical and scientific experts at the...
GARDP: SA site activation in global phase 3 study of Zoliflodacin as gonorrhoea treatment
Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), a not-for-profit developing new treatments for drug resistant infections, and Entasis Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused...
GINA: Over-reliance on reliever pumps linked to increased risk of asthma attacks
Recent updated global recommendations have overturned decades of asthma care and represent the most significant change in asthma management in over 30 years. This...
Release of 4th edition of SA's 'Standards for Palliative Healthcare Services'
In a significant step forward for South Africa’s palliative healthcare sector, late last year saw the fourth edition of the Standards for Palliative Healthcare...
Year of the Healthcare Worker: Community health workers must be better supported in 2021
Frontline health workers, who are to be honoured during the World Health Organisation’s International Year of the Healthcare Worker in 2021, must be better...
IFP calls for caution around unproven COVID-19 'cure' Ivermectin
The IFP wants to categorically state that it is not against the use of any existing medication or new vaccines that could cure COVID-19...
Verve Therapeutics announces lowering of LDL-C with single gene editing treatment
Verve Therapeutics, a biotech company pioneering gene editing medicines to treat cardiovascular disease, has announced new data demonstrating both durable and consistent lowering of...
Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation: Support for the COVID-19 vaccination
Governments are seeking to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission presently wreaking havoc worldwide through vaccination rollout strategies and plans. Vaccinations have ignited hope...
Lack of doctors hamper disability grant applications
The Democratic Alliance (DA) once again calls on the Department of Social Development (DSD) to urgently increase its efforts to recruit more medical doctors...
Medscheme: Admissions data sets expectations for how second wave will spread
Medscheme, which is South Africa’s largest health risk management services provider and a division of AfroCentric, conducted a hospital admission analysis across all provinces...
Netcare readies itself for Gauteng COVID-19 surge
Netcare has assured the South African public that it was doing everything humanly possible to bolster resources in order to continue providing the best...
Africa Centres for Disease Control: Guidance on Use of Rapid Antigen tests for COVID-19
The Africa Union Commission, through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and partners, has released a new Guidance on the...
DA: R500m wasted on incomplete COVID-19 Hospital on West Rand
About R500m of funds meant for urgent COVID-19 beds has been wasted on the AngloGold Ashanti Hospital on the far West Rand that will...
110 staff of Gauteng Health still do business with government despite regulations
Despite efforts to enforce conflict of interest regulations there are still 110 staff of the Gauteng Health Department who conduct business with Government departments.
This...
CHRU: SA’s TB tests drop over 30% due to COVID-19; worse outcomes predicted
One of South Africa’s foremost tuberculosis (TB) researchers, Dr Francesca Conradie, a principal investigator at the Clinical HIV Research Unit (CHRU), has called for...
Cigarette sales in Japan reduce by 34% since launch of heated tobacco products
With the sale of cigarettes dropping since the arrival of heated tobacco products, which are believed to be less harmful to health than traditional...
DA: R3.5m prefabricated Eastern Cape field hospital still not open
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic currently ripping through the communities of Kouga Local Municipality, the newly built Covid-19 facility at the Humansdorp Hospital remains closed,...
SASOG calls on its members to observe five days of mourning
As we mourn the tragedy of those who have lost their lives to South Africa’s dual pandemics of COVID-19 and gender based violence (GBV),...
ANTICOV clinical trial will be carried out at 19 sites in 13 African countries
Thirteen African countries and an international network of research institutions have joined forces to launch the largest COVID-19 clinical trial in mild-to-moderate outpatients in...
Solidarity: Junior doctors' internship placement system 'old-fashioned and impractical'
Solidarity highlighted the inefficient and harmful process by which junior health practitioners are placed for internships. This comes after numerous prospective doctors, who have...
DA: Gauteng Health criticised for poor planning of Covid infrastructure
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is not surprised that the Health Portfolio Committee, during a recent committee meeting, questioned the planning and quality...
COHSASA: First Rwanda hospital achieves four-year accreditation
King Faisal Hospital Kigali has become the first hospital in Rwanda to receive a four-year accreditation award from The Council for Health Service Accreditation...
Local manufacturing of six-in-one paediatric vaccine
Cape Town based, biotech company, Biovac, has begun local manufacturing of global pharmaceutical company, Sanofi Pasteur's six-in-one paediatric vaccine. This is the first time...
African Academy of Sciences: Continent’s first real-time clinical trial platform launched
The Clinical Trial Community (CTC) is a versatile, comprehensive, and accessible platform providing quick and real-time visibility of African clinical trials sites, capacity, and...
Global Health Advocacy: ‘Big Food’ used pandemic to aggressively promote unhealthy food and drinks
A report released by the Global Health Advocacy Incubator details how food and beverage corporations – such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nestlé and PepsiCo –...