HomeNews Update
News Update
Global ingredients’ shortage threatens SA medicine supply, warns Adcock
Pharmaceuticals manufacturer Adcock Ingram has called for government incentives to give South African companies a reason to stay in business, warning that continuing global...
World first as UK rolls out seven-minute cancer jab
Britain’s NHS will be the first state-run health service in the world to offer an “under-the-skin” injection to hundreds of cancer patients, which could...
UCT team develops device to speed up STI diagnosis
A research group from the University of Cape Town (UCT) is developing a user-friendly technology to rapidly detect bacterial vaginosis (BV) and associated genital...
CDC issues new guidelines on sepsis management
The US Centres for Disease Control & Prevention has released new guidelines for hospitals to detect and treat sepsis, a factor in 1.7m admissions...
Medical aid flags rise in women’s chronic illness
Chronic diseases among female medical scheme members are increasing, according to Discovery Health, which noted an upward spiral from 24% in June 2017 to...
UFS team probes deadly fungi that kill millions of people
South African researchers are working to combat diseases caused by fungal infections, which affect more than 3m people a year in this country, and...
Frustrated Free State community closes clinic
Community members in a section of Botshabelo in the Free State closed their local clinic last Wednesday in protest against a staff shortage at...
Live worm found in Australian woman’s brain
A Canberra neurosurgeon recently pulled a live, 8cm-long parasitic roundworm from the brain of her 64-year-old patient.
The New South Wales resident had first been...
New ‘spiral’ tampon shape approved by FDA
The US Food & Drug Administration has just given the green light to a newly-designed tampon – created by two women – that will change...
Aspen and Lilly seal drug deal for SA
A deal that is expected to close in the first quarter of next year will see Aspen Pharmacare partnering with a subsidiary of US...
Eviction order against KZN nurse who refuses to leave hospital duplex
A nurse who refuses to move out of Durban’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital residential village, where she has lived in a three-bedroom duplex...
FDA approves RSV jab for use in pregnant women
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Pfizer’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for use in women during the middle of the third...
Another new Covid variant alert
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has reported its first case of another new, highly mutated Covid-19 variant BA.2.86, which has also been identified...
Alleged 'bid-rigger’ scores millions in Gauteng Health contracts
Johannesburg businessman Paul Mojalefa Mokoena, previously implicated in irregular contracts at Tembisa Hospital, has been accused of repeated bid-rigging at the Gauteng Department of...
Delays for patients as Charlotte Maxeke left without angio suite
Staff at the beleaguered Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital have slammed a badly planned decommissioning process of a specialised angiogram machine, causing a three-month delay...
Public comments deadline extended for NHI Bill
The deadline for written submissions on the National Health Insurance Bill has been extended from 1 September to 15 September, Parliament's Select Committee on...
WHO holds first traditional medicine summit
The WHO’s first global summit on traditional medicine kicked off last week in India, and while the health agency seeks to “collect evidence and...
Mixed reaction to new smoking, vaping Bill at public hearing
The public appears divided over the new Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, with the first public hearings – in North West...
First UK womb transplant with donated uterus
In the first British case of its kind, surgeons carried out a womb transplant on a woman with a rare condition who received a uterus donated...
FDA approves rare bone disorder drug
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved French drugmaker Ipsen’s drug for a rare bone disorder, making it the first treatment available to...
Danish commission calls for end to Ozempic subsidy for diabetes
Denmark should stop subsidising Ozempic and other “so-called GLP-1 drugs” for type 2 diabetes patients, and rather pay for cheaper drugs as a preferred...
Donor helps upgrade of Bara’s acute care unit
Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital’s newly upgraded medical acute care unit was unveiled last week by the SA Pandemic Intervention and Relief Effort (Spire)...
New centralised info system for Gauteng Health
An upgraded, centralised system for storing patient information – expected to improve service healthcare and quality, and reduce fraud – has been initiated by...
Unregistered PMB doctor arrested
An unregistered doctor, who was also found to be selling schedule four, five and six medicines, was arrested in Pietermaritzburg this week after a...
Licence suspension for doctor who said Covid vax ‘magnetised people’
An American osteopath has had her licence indefinitely suspended by the State Medical Board of Ohio after failure to co-operate with an investigation into...
First SA case of Covid’s EG.5 variant
The first recorded case of the Covid-19 Eris variant in the country has been detected in a test sample that was taken on 20...
Bara runs out of vital drug after supplier switch
Doctors at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital warned this week that the last ampoule of critically needed Fresenius Adrenaline had been used, apparently due to...
SIU gets Presidency nod for Tembisa Hospital probe
Pension benefits of Tembisa Hospital officials who left the facility during a preliminary probe into alleged tender corruption will be frozen, says the Special...
Man in custody for murder of Gqeberha physiotherapist
The man who appeared in court this week in connection with the fatal stabbing of Gqeberha physiotherapist Marolien Schmidt a week ago was being...
New blood cancer therapy from Pfizer approved
Accelerated approval has been granted to a new therapy from Pfizer for a specific type of blood cancer that is difficult to treat, said...
Crime slows Gauteng EMS response times, says MEC
Gauteng Health is working on measures to speed up medical emergency response times, with the current notorious delays blamed on staff shortages, protests and...
Groote Schuur team changes lives with epilepsy surgery
Groote Schuur is the first government hospital to perform a procedure to alleviate seizures in adults with temporal lobe epilepsy – an operation, known...
WHO issues new advisory for global Covid response plans
With Covid-19 no longer classified as a pandemic, the WHO has issued new standing recommendations for member states, said Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus...
Long term remission for most UK cancer patients with latest treatment
Experimental work into blood cancers like myeloma has produced some “impressive results”, say British researchers, whose trials show seriously ill people going into remission...
HIV fight bolstered by traditional healers’ help
A Wits University research initiative is enabling traditional healers to conduct HIV testing and to refer HIV positive patients for treatment, the project helping...
Western Cape Health on target with alternative energy
In a bid to evade Eskom’s constant power outages, and reduce soaring generator fuel costs, the Western Cape Health Department has earmarked R87m to...
Motsoaledi to the rescue in plane medical emergency
Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi, a doctor by profession (and national Health Minister between 2014 and 2019), put his medical training to good...
Pharmacists recruitment drive after Botswana nurses refuse to fill scripts
After nurses in Botswana stopped filling prescriptions last month, the country is aiming to recruit at least 1 000 pharmacists, including from abroad, to...
Top HIV experts call for PrEP to be prescribed by all nurses and midwives
With 1.5m global incident HIV infections in 2021 – of which 210 000 were in South Africa – there is an urgent need to...
Tembisa Hospital officials suspended after SIU report
The suspension of Tembisa Hospital officials implicated in the SIU report into fraudulent contracts will be welcome news to slain whistle-blower Babita Deokaran’s family,...