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News Update
Job-seekers scammed by bogus hospital website
A bogus website is luring desperate job-seekers to a non-existent medical facility, supposedly under the auspices of a healthcare group, but using the address...
Aspen rebukes global vaccine bodies for ‘shirking responsibilities’
The lack of orders from Aspen’s vaccine facility in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, has left not just shareholders and the company disappointed, but also the...
Cancer claims shoot up as COVID focus takes eye off other deadly diseases
Cancer-related disability and critical illness insurance claims have shot up as the focus on COVID-19 saw less attention being paid to other deadly diseases,...
SAHPRA scraps Ivermectin programme, advises against use
SA’s medicines regulator has advised doctors to stop prescribing the anti-parasitic drug, Ivermectin, for COVID-19 and has scrapped a controversial programme allowing doctors and...
Pregnant women suffer “obstetric violence” in health systems
“Obstetric violence”, or mistreatment of pregnant women and neglect during child birth is prevalent in health facilities across all provinces, demonstrating a pattern of...
Gauteng hospitals deteriorate further after damning PP report
Two years after the Public Protector (PP) found that the Gauteng Health Department had failed to ensure appropriate conditions for the delivery of healthcare services,...
Patients suffer as Eastern Cape ambulance crisis remains unresolved
In the Eastern Cape, it is common for patients in rural areas to wait more than eight hours for an ambulance. Some of them...
FBI’s free DNA system coming to SA soon
A deal between South Africa and the FBI in the US for the use of its high tech DNA system Codis is in the...
Jo’burg R590bn pathology services building unfinished after six years
Almost six years after construction began on the new forensic pathology services building in Johannesburg, the multimillion-rand project next to Helen Joseph Hospital is...
Senegal Health Minister fired after babies die in blaze
Senegal’s President Macky Sall fired his health minister on Thursday as his country mourned the death of 11 newborn babies in a hospital fire...
Floundering Rahima Moosa Hospital ‘needs to admit it has a crisis’
The Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg continues to make headlines, with its facilities buckling under the strain of faulty equipment, lack...
Netcare-EthiQal project aims to slash medical negligence claims
Netcare is implementing a new project it believes will drastically reduce successful medical negligence claims.
Beeld reports that the hospital group has partnered with medical...
Doctors back paediatrician’s account of Rahima Moosa collapse
Doctors have come out in support of an open letter by paediatrician Dr Tim De Maayer to the Department of Health, detailing how children...
NHI: Bill a step closer despite opposition’s objections
The Portfolio Committee on Health has voted to move forward with the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, reports News24, despite a negative response from...
Pfizer pledges cost price drugs to 45 lower-income countries
Pfizer will supply all of its current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries and is talking...
Nurses union demands end to 'austerity measures'
Government’s austerity measures in the health sector will destroy lives, says the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (Ynitu).
The union, which represents nurses and healthcare...
AfriForum Youth takes on HPCSA over outstanding certificates
AfriForum Youth’s legal team has sent an attorney’s letter to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to demand that Anneray Richards, a...
SA plans new e-cigarette and vaping rules
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has established a National Technical Committee (TC) to develop guidelines and standards on e-cigarette and vaping products.
BusinessTech...
First polio outbreak in Mozambique in 30 years
Health authorities in Mozambique declared an outbreak of wild poliovirus last Wednesday (18 May) after confirming that a child in the country’s north-eastern Tete...
Baby sleep products linked to 200 deaths now banned in the US
Popular, frequently used infant sleep products blamed for the deaths of more than 200 babies in the USA, are to be outlawed.
Last week President...
Poor security and power cuts cripple Soweto Clinic – DA
A female doctor was attacked by a patient last Thursday at the Lillian Ngoyi Clinic in Soweto, which has also suffered from power cuts...
Dis-Chem revenue tops R30bn for first time
South Africans’ return to larger malls, a better-than-anticipated uptake of its new health insurance offerings, opening a dozen new pharmacies, and adding three new...
Historic Durban hospital to be renamed after activist
Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital is being renamed after political activist Victoria Mxenge, who had completed a midwifery course at the hospital and subsequently...
DoH tells Parliament: Thousands of SA’s children have died of malnutrition
Almost 3,000 South African children have died of malnutrition in the past three years and the statistics are unlikely to improve any time soon,...
AU pleads for support for African vaccine manufacturers
The African Union (AU) has called on international organisations to acquire at least 30% of the jabs produced by the continent for global distribution,...
European warning that two strains of Omicron from SA are ’variants of concern’
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has issued a warning that two strains of Omicron from South Africa have been labelled...
Board members unpaid for seven months despite E Cape Health’s R17m budget
Despite sitting on a R17m stipendiary budget, the Eastern Cape Health Department has not paid one cent of this to hospitals’ and clinics’ board...
NHI will ‘require time and excellent leadership’ – Discovery CEO Adrian Gore
A one-size-fits-all National Health Insurance (NHI) fund would only be palatable if it provided current levels of medical scheme benefits for all – which...
North Korea admits to ‘explosive’ outbreak of COVID, then claims a miraculous recovery
Last week, North Korea, one of only two countries in the world without a COVID-19 vaccination campaign, reported its first COVID-related deaths, while hundreds...
CDC expresses concern over monkeypox outbreak in UK
An outbreak of the rare tropical disease monkeypox has global health authorities concerned and UK health chiefs, where the first case was diagnosed, considering...
FDA authorises Pfizer COVID booster for children aged 5-11
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the go-ahead to a booster shot of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to...
NICD: First case of Lassa fever in SA in 15 years linked to Nigeria traveller
The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has reported the first case of Lassa fever in South Africa since 2007.
A man with an extensive...
WHO plans sugar taxes and restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods to children
The introduction of a “sugar tax” on sweetened beverages and restrictions on marketing unhealthy food to children are just two measures planned by the...
R8.8bn donated to South Africa’s Aids, TB and malaria programmes
South Africa has received a massive boost in its efforts to eradicate HIV/Aids, TB and malaria, after receiving aa three-year, R8.8bn donation from the...
Pig heart used in US transplant may have been infected with porcine virus
Transplant specialists believe that the pig heart transplanted into a US patient earlier this year in a landmark operation carried a porcine virus that...
SA’s doctor shortage has worsened substantially in past 3 years
South Africa has a critical shortage of doctors, with less than one doctor to treat 1,000 patients, Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla revealed...
Another blow to Aspen’s SA plant: WHO has no plans to buy its vaccines
The World Health Organization (WHO) and its COVID-19 vaccine partner Gavi have no immediate plans to buy shots made by Aspen Pharmacare, the two...
WHO chief: China’s zero-COVID policy is ‘not sustainable’
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday (11 May) that China’s zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy is not sustainable, in rare public...
Doctors Without Borders grapples with charges of racism in its ranks
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), renowned for providing medical aid in some of the most challenging emergency zones around the world, is grappling with another...
Omicron: 9 symptoms affecting fully vaccinated; 2 new early signs of infection
Fainting and fatigue are two warning signs of Omicron infection – even if you have been vaccinated, while a cough, runny nose and headache...