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News Update
Health funders punt mandatory medical aid
The exorbitant cost of medical scheme membership could be reduced by as much as 30% if everyone earning above the tax threshold were required...
Aspen dumps LEN production interest
In a blow to the country’s plans to escalate local production of Gilead’s revolutionary lenacapavir HIV prevention shot, South Africa’s biggest pharmaceutical manufacturer, Aspen...
Cuban training for new batch of SA medical students
A new cohort of 18 young people from disadvantaged communities in Gauteng has been selected to study medicine in Cuba through the controversial Nelson...
Probe into Germiston ‘money-for-post-mortem’ claims
The Gauteng Health Department is investigating claims of extortion and corruption at the Germiston Forensic Pathology Service facility, where officials have been accused of...
Two major drug trial failures for Novartis in a week
In the wake of its high-profile setback in heart disease late last week, Swiss pharma giant Novartis really needed a win, but has flopped...
FDA adds boxed warning for iron replacement jab
A label change has been approved by the FDA for ferric carboxymaltose injection (Injectafer in the US but registered in South Africa as Ferinject...
Rising Covid cases close US schools
Covid-19 cases are continuing to spread in the United States, with a Texas school district being forced to cancel classes last week and highlighting...
WHO says 5 000 more staff needed to tackle the Ebola spread
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread across six provinces, placing severe strain on treatment centres and frontline healthcare staff,...
US teen dies from brain-eating amoeba
A teenager in North Carolina, United States, who was infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba, died last week – the second such death in...
New law to tighten regulation of scientists
The plan to force some South African scientists to register with a professional body could protect people and the environment, but the current version...
Acrimonious Medicross feud settled after doctor axed
Documents from a case that was settled out of court, with a non-disclosure agreement, have revealed the toxic situation that developed at a practice...
Crucial medicine shortages being managed, says KZN Health
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health says that despite global supply-chain pressures having a huge impact on local essential medication stock, and resulting in shortages,...
New option for KZN students with West Indies medical school deal
With medical school places for South Africans notoriously being at a premium, an academic affiliation agreement clinched recently will create new pathways for local...
New Johannesburg ambulances unused, parked for six years
Despite the chronic shortage of emergency services vehicles countrywide, 41 ambulances bought by the City of Johannesburg – for a total of R16m –...
Parliament to probe GEMS boss suspension
A multi-departmental parliamentary meeting is expected to be held over the precautionary suspension last week of Dr Stan Moloabi, principal officer of the Government...
Gauteng Health warns against bribes, hospital queue-jumping
A warning has been issued to both staff and the public by the Gauteng Department of Health that anyone asking for money to help...
Unvaccinated infant rates triple in SA
The Department of Health says continually plummeting vaccination rates have contributed to the rise in measles infections countrywide, with 3 462 laboratory-confirmed cases recorded...
Novartis CAR T trials halted after three deaths
Three patients died in Novartis trials of its CD19-directed CAR T treatment after a dangerous immune system response, and a similar therapy from Bristol...
Spanish agency slammed for menopause guide based on male studies
Complaints from several women researchers have prompted the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN) to review its recent report on diet and...
Raging Ebola hobbled by funding issues and misinformation
The response to the Congo’s fast-spreading Ebola epidemic has been hampered by a severe lack of funding and pervasive misinformation, according to people on...
Legal dilemmas as Australian surrogate has twins with different parents
In a case so rare it has not yet been contemplated by Queensland surrogacy laws, a woman gave birth to twin children with separate...
French court links flight attendant’s cancer to cosmic radiation
A former air stewardess for Air France has been victorious in her quest to have her breast cancer acknowledged as arising from her job,...
Zanzibar, US in billion-dollar health pact discussions
Zanzibar’s Ministry of Health has held talks with the United States Embassy in Tanzania on the implementation of a health-sector co-operation agreement between Tanzania...
South Africans urged to register as organ donors as demand rises
The Gauteng Department of Health is appealing to South Africans to sign up as organ and tissue donors and to talk openly with their...
Malaria from ‘stowaway mosquitoes’ kills two German airport staff
Two Frankfurt Airport workers have died of malaria after a rare outbreak led to six employees contracting the serious infection spread by mosquitoes, reports...
US device-makers, Novo, targeted in series of cyber attacks
US medical device-maker Boston Scientific said last week that a cybersecurity incident had disrupted global operations, including some information systems used to process and ship...
Cape Town trauma team’s skill saves impaled man’s life
A complex trauma scenario was resolved with remarkable skill and precision recently at Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital, after a steel rod impaled a...
Net closes in as Tembisa syndicate kingpin arrested
The arrest of a key player in the Tembisa Hospital procurement fraud scandal, six years after whistle-blower Babita Deokaran was assassinated for flagging irregular...
South African research funding ban reversed by US
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has done an about-turn on its funding ban on South African research projects, opening the door for...
PIMART pharmacists get go-ahead to apply for ARV dispensing permits
Ten months after an enabling court judgment, some specially trained South African pharmacists can finally start applying for permits allowing them to dispense ARVs...
Fourteen newborns die in Pakistan hospital fire
A horrific blaze in an Islamabad maternity ward on Wednesday killed 14 babies – while their desperate parents say they waited hours for help...
GEMS boss suspended by board
Stan Moloabi, principal officer of the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS), has been put on precautionary suspension, pending “the completion of an internal administrative...
Five years after Deokaran’s death, killers’ boss still unknown and free
This past Sunday marked five years since the assassination of Gauteng Health whistle-blower Babita Deokaran, who had first exposed the trail of suspicious payments...
Durban nurse suspended after viral video
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health has condemned a video on social media showing a nurse bullying a patient at King Dinuzulu Hospital, and placed...
Industry buoyed by promised hike for medicine price cap
After a major meeting last week with various pharmaceutical bodies, including the Pharmaceutical Task Group (PTG), the government has committed to considering an “extraordinary”...
Eastern Cape police arrest trio in illicit anxiety medicines bust
Three men arrested for allegedly dealing illegally in controlled medication appeared in two separate courts in Nelson Mandela Bay last week after being nabbed...
New Bill punts changes for MPs’ medical aid
Compulsory membership of the (expensive) parliamentary medical scheme, Parmed, is being reconsidered by the National Assembly, and may be replaced with voluntary membership, reports...
Probe after Helen Joseph patient complaint
Johannesburg’s Helen Joseph Hospital has initiated an investigation after a video posted on social media by a patient claimed the hospital is chaotic and...
Eastern Cape ambulance crisis at breaking point, warn staff, union
EMS workers and their union in the Eastern Cape say their ambulance fleet is so depleted that only a handful of vehicles is available...
Concern over Cape hospice inpatient unit closure
A Cape Town NPO that provides palliative and hospice care to people with life-threatening illnesses is being urged by former staff and volunteers to...