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News Update
KZN Health ‘lied’, say protesting unemployed doctors
Hundreds of unemployed doctors protested outside the KwaZulu-Natal Premier’s office in Pietermaritzburg yesterday, accusing the provincial Department of Health of lying and failing to...
Call for action as diabetes now leading cause of natural deaths
Tens of thousands of South Africans are dying annually from diabetes-related illnesses, the Diabetes Alliance has revealed after its review of mortality data released...
Pregnancy fears after birth control pill shortages
A contraception shortage in some North West and Gauteng clinics for the past three or four months is increasing women’s concerns about unplanned pregnancies,...
Zulu folk music used to encourage heart health
Cardiovascular disease (CVD), the world’s leading cause of mortality, is becoming a major killer of Africans, killing more than 1m people in sub-Saharan Africa...
Major expansion for Umhlanga’s Gateway Private Hospital
New ICU and high-care beds as well as a seventh operating theatre at Busamed Gateway Private Hospital are indications of the growing healthcare demand...
Africa-first pioneering liver transplant machine at Wits
A new R2.7m liver perfusion machine that could save more lives has been introduced at the Wits University Donald Gordon Medical Centre, making it...
Dis-Chem chooses ‘bold’ over ‘safe’ in multi-million rand investments
Dis-Chem says its R300m investment in its innovation hub – X, bigly labs – among other projects last year, was intended to force an...
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...
Bran flakes may be classified as ‘junk food’ in UK reforms
The British Government is considering updating rules on what it views as unhealthy food – which could mean popular cereals like bran flakes, frequently...
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”,...
Life sentence for man who shot and killed nurse wife
A Limpopo man who murdered his wife, a nurse who was on duty at Lebowakgomo Hospital at the time, has been sentenced to life...
More Tembisa fraud revelations likely after audit records enforcement
In a move that has put the Department of Health in a corner, and which could potentially lead to more damning revelations relating to...
Minister promises SA-made generic as LEN rollout begins
South Africa launched the revolutionary anti-HIV Lencapavir with much fanfare last week, with the Health Department announcing plans to expedite the manufacture of the...
Medscheme denies backlog and blame by Bonitas
Bonitas members have complained about unresolved queries and hospital authorisations after the administrative switchover of Bonitas medical scheme members to Momentum last week. But...
High risk baby’s access to clinic allegedly blocked by vigilantes
The March and March vigilante group has denied any knowledge of a mother and her critically ill four-month-old baby being barred by its members...
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...
South Africa must slash its reliance on imported drugs – Pharmisa
The Health Department’s growing dependence on medicines from outside South Africa is jeopardising local jobs and the country’s security of supply, say pharmaceutical companies...
Medical aids feeling the pinch
A new analysis from AlexForbes Health, using Council for Medical Schemes data on the country’s 10 biggest open schemes and the 10 largest restricted...
UCT clinches licence to manufacture medical devices
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has granted a medical device manufacturing licence to the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Biomedical Engineering...
Madhi receives leading global infectious diseases award
Professor Shabir Madhi, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, has been named the recipient of the 2026...
Japan orders warning for vasculitis drug after fatalities
Japanese drugmaker Kissei Pharmaceutical has been ordered by the country’s Health Ministry to add a warning to the package insert of Tavneos (avacopan), a...
Limpopo doctor sells sandwiches to fund patients’ surgeries
A doctor in Burgersfort, Limpopo, is transforming needy patients’ lives by funding their surgeries through the sales of a popular township sandwich, called a...
Johannesburg doctors fund security to keep suburb safer
A group of doctors has resorted to funding a private security company in the bustling suburb of Mayfair, Johannesburg, to make the area safer...
Father and daughter volunteer to change lives with cleft surgery
A Cape Town father and daughter recently joined a team of volunteers who helped deliver life-changing corrective surgery to children born with cleft palates...
Scientists nabbed for smuggling mpox virus into US
Two scientists at an American government lab were charged with smuggling vials of deactivated mpox virus into the country from Africa and lying about...
Health Minister says bid plans to ‘enhance infrastructure' on track
The National Department of Health, which is to submit 11 funding bids to the Budget Facility for Infrastructure (BIF) for projects linked to various...
Fraud triggers medicine shortage crisis in Namibia
A critical shortage of medicines is pulverising Namibia’s public health sector – the first time this has happened in the country’s 36 years of...
SIU net closes in on ‘Syndicate X’ in Tembisa Hospital probe
The Tembisa Hospital probe has netted more fish, with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) obtaining a preservation order and an interim interdict against a...
Novo Nordisk sues local pharmacy over alleged 'knock-off' weight-loss jabs
Pretoria compounding pharmacy iDexis, which was raided by the regulator and the Pharmacy Council last month, will come up against Danish pharma giant Novo...
Adcock allegedly probed for Covid-19 profiteering
Adcock Ingram is facing prosecution by the Competition Tribunal for allegedly overcharging patients for its kidney dialysis products. Business Day reports that the Competition...
Chaos and bottlenecks in Bonitas-Momentum changeover
The official ending of the 43-year-long relationship between Medscheme and Bonitas Medical Fund on Monday, when Momentum Health stepped in as the new administrator...
Health Minister dismisses CoN ruling impact on NHI
The Constitutional Court recently ruled the Certificate of Need (CoN) sections of the National Health Act unconstitutional, and in a Sunday Times Q&A last...
No evidence migrants causing hospital overcrowding – SAHRC
The SA Human Rights Commission said there is no evidence or data showing that foreign nationals are causing overcrowding at local hospitals, telling a...
Commission probes Dis-Chem over customers' discount
After a complaint by Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi about a 5% discount Dis-Chem customers get on non-dispensary products, an investigation has been launched by...
Rehab centre owner and staff face assault, murder charges
The owner of a controversial Eastern Cape rehabilitation centre near Butterworth – and six of his staff – were due to appear in court...
Hundreds of children dying in outbreak the world ignores
Hantavirus and Ebola are making headlines. But another deadly outbreak is unfolding that’s barely registered on the global scene – a devastating measles outbreak...
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...
First African mRNA ‘hub’ gets manufacturing certificate
'Failure was never an option,” said Afrigen Biologics CEO Professor Petro Terblanche last week as the company – which developed an mRNA vaccine from...
Life Healthcare boss flags perils of cost-over-quality options
Occupational health standards are waning due to “inexperienced” new players, Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood told Business Day last week, warning that companies are...
‘Filthy’ Eastern Cape hospital slammed by patient
Complaints alleging unhygienic and filthy conditions at a hospital in Gqeberha have been deflected by the Eastern Cape Department of Health, which said the...