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News Update
Hidden market fuels fake script industry
The illegal prescription business is flourishing in South Africa, posing increasing public health and economic risks, warn experts, who urge greater effort to combat...
Nestlé removes infant formula from SA and other countries over toxin risk
Swiss giant Nestlé is recalling some batches of its infant nutrition products, including SMA, BEBA and NAN formulas, in 25 countries due to possible contamination...
FDA green-lights Wegovy weight-loss pill
The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first oral glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist for weight loss and to reduce the...
Aspen cuts debt with R26.51bn deal
South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical producer, Aspen Pharmacare, has announced it will sell its Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific assets, excluding China, to Australian...
Weedkiller concerns renewed after landmark study retracted
Concerns over a 25-year-old landmark paper on the safety of weedkiller Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate, have led to calls for the US Environmental Protection...
Outcry after US childhood vaccine changes
In a radical shift in child immunisation policy, US federal officials this week announced unprecedented changes to its childhood vaccine schedule, sparking widespread condemnation...
CDC ends decades-long hepatitis jab policy
Experts have expressed concern about the Centres for Disease Control's (CDC) decision to end the recommendation that all newborns should receive the hepatitis shot,...
Western Cape surgery backlog climbs to 100 000
Almost 100 000 patients are awaiting surgery in the Western Cape – more than 5 000 at Groote Schuur Hospital alone – thanks to...
Gauteng 'crisis' warning as specialists resign from hospitals
A rash of resignations from public hospitals in Gauteng should have set off alarm bells within the Department of Health – but it denies...
Medscheme launches urgent bid to pause Bonitas move
Medscheme, which administers medical aid schemes including for Bonitas Medical Fund, has brought an urgent High Court application to suspend or terminate certain requests...
Patient racially abused Mediclinic ER nurse, rules judge
A patient who was apparently unhappy that he had to wait before being assisted for an injury at a Mediclinic in Cape Town last...
Discovery digs in its heels over cancer treatment for canoe champ
An ongoing struggle with Discovery Health – relating to its stance on covering some of his cancer treatment costs – is frustrating Oscar Chalupsky...
Nurse attacked by patient’s relative fails in R10m claim
A nurse who waited eight years before launching a R10m damages claim against the Minister of Health – for having been assaulted by a...
Premium hike slammed by GEMS members
The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) has defended the 9.8% contribution premium hike for its 2m members for next year, telling outraged unions that...
Now US shifts focus to RSV shots despite safety, efficacy data
RSV vaccines, which have drastically lowered infant hospitalisations, have come under review by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) despite no previously published reports...
FDA approves second antibiotic for gonorrhoea
The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has given the green light to zoliflodacin (Nuzolvence) as an oral treatment for gonorrhoea, a day after...
SAHPRA and WHO pilot new approval process
The WHO and SAHPRA have agreed to pilot a new review mechanism for locally manufactured vaccines to speed up the process, and has called...
Millions lost to dangerous fake drugs, warns Motsoaledi
Sales of counterfeit and illicit medicines are thriving in South Africa, with SAHPRA having recorded 507 suspected cases in 2024/25, of which 110 were...
First organ donation at pioneering Tygerberg Life Pod
The Life Pod at Tygerberg Hospital recently housed its first organ donor – the first posthumous multi-organ donation in more than two years facilitated...
CMS blocks medical broker with fake certificates
The Council for Medical Schemes has warned the public not to do business with a woman who was running a brokerage with fraudulent accreditation...
Ekurhuleni medical supplies factory fire contained
Police are investigating the cause of a fire that broke out in the early hours of Tuesday morning at a multi-million rand factory in...
US doctor jailed for 30 years for filming women, children
A former Michigan doctor is headed to prison for 31 counts of sexual misconduct, receiving a sentence last week of 35-60 years behind bars.
Oumair...
Woman dies after striking nurses turn away patients
An ongoing pay dispute between the Northern Cape Health Department and nursing staff came to a tragic head this week when a woman died...
Eastern Cape turns to emergency funding to fight HIV
Eastern Cape NGOs have welcomed the allocation of R100m for HIV programmes from the provincial government – to help fill the gap left after...
Judge orders government, police to block anti-migrant vigilantes
A Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) judge ruled last week that the City of Johannesburg, the Gauteng and national Health Departments – as well as...
Clinic staff extort money from migrants
Immigrants say clinic staff at several ciinics in Gauteng are now demanding money for them in exchange for ARVs, other chronic medications, and baby...
US to end recommendations for newborns’ hepatitis B jabs
A federal vaccine committee in the US has voted to end a decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunised at birth against hepatitis B,...
Nurse wins 'unjust dismissal' case over alleged ARV theft
A Free State nurse who was dismissed in 2021 for allegedly stealing anti-HIV medication from the MUCPP Community Health Centre in Bloemfontein has been...
GP dies while trying to save brother from heart attack
In a recent double tragedy, two Durban brothers died within 35 minutes of each other – with Dr Yogendiran Kista (57) collapsing and dying...
Global progress towards UHC, but poor still bear biggest burden
Since 2000, most countries, across all income levels and regions, have made concurrent progress in expanding health service coverage and reducing the financial hardship...
Millions more to be spent on abandoned Kopanong hospital
A R146m Covid-19 project at Kopanong Hospital in Vereeniging remains incomplete and abandoned four years after construction began, with the government now scrambling to...
UK health services alarmed by drop in international nurse numbers
Experts have sounded the alarm over the sharp decline in the numbers of international nurses and midwives arriving in Britain, predicting that stricter immigration...
Malaria tools saved 1m lives last year, but drug resistance rises – WHO
Wider use of new tools against malaria, including dual-ingredient nets and WHO-recommended vaccines, helped to prevent an estimated 170m cases and 1m deaths in...
Villagers build own clinic after years with no healthcare
A rural Eastern Cape village, frustrated and tired of its pleas falling on deaf ears, has taken the bull by the horns and built...
New mpox strain identified in England
A new strain of mpox has been detected, UK health officials have warned, describing it as a mix of two major types of the...
FDA recalls BP drug for possible cross-contamination
Thousands of bottles of a commonly used prescription drug to treat hypertension have been recalled for possible contamination with another drug, reports USA Today.
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, which has...
GPs dispute exorbitant tariff hike notions
South African GPs have denied that they are overpaid, saying the perception that their tariff increases are in line with the 10% hike in...
WHO fast-track medical training plan unrealistic for SA – SAMA
A new competency-based curriculum promising to fast-track medical students into the workforce has been launched by the WHO Regional Office for Africa but red-flagged...
SA lines up plans to make its own six-monthly anti-HIV jab
The government says it could fill the potential gap in the number of doses of the HIV prevention jab Lenacapavir (LEN) needed to end...
MPs demand action after forced sterilisations on HIV+ women
The National Department of Health denies ever having carried out forced sterilisation on HIV+ women, saying that has never been its policy, and that...