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News Update
Cancer drugs shortage sees Eastern Cape state patients suffer
The Eastern Cape Health Department has a shortage of critical chemotherapy drugs, with doctors who are treating blood and bone marrow cancers fighting for...
Cancer replaces Covid in insurance claims – Liberty
Cancer and lifestyle-related conditions have returned as the leading drivers of claims payouts, according to life insurer Liberty’s latest statistics, with cancer making up...
Phaahla to enlist private sector help for psychiatric assessments
Health Minister Joe Phaahla last week said he was negotiating with private hospitals to take in detainees needing pretrial psychiatric assessments because public hospitals...
Northern Cape buckling under financial stress and no full-time HoD
The Northern Cape Department of Health has been without a permanent head since 2020 – it’s had at at least two acting heads of...
First measles, now mumps outbreak in SA
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has confirmed an outbreak of mumps in South Africa, saying recent data shows unexpected, steady increases in...
Clinic turns away pregnant Zimbabwean teenager
Gauteng Health authorities are investigating a clinic in the Ekurhuleni metro after a Zimbabwean teenager was refused help in terminating her pregnancy because she...
HPCSA should revoke Magudumana’s licence: DA
The DA is calling on the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) to revoke the licence of Dr Nandipha Magudumana in light of...
UK chemists to issue scripts without GP referrals for several conditions
To free up millions of family doctor appointments, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
is launching a scheme under which 7m people a year, suffering from...
UK first as baby born from three people’s DNA
In a UK first, a baby has been born using three people’s DNA, the pioneering technique being an attempt to prevent children from being...
FDA recalls 500 000 contaminated Covid tests
More than half a million DIY Covid tests have been recalled by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which said it had “significant...
Dis-Chem CEO bows out after four decades
Pharmaceutical retailer Dis-Chem’s CEO Ivan Saltzman, who founded the company in 1978 with his wife Lynette, is stepping down from his position at the...
WHO ends mpox global health emergency
The World Health Organization (WHO) has ended the global health emergency for mpox, just days after it declared the end of the global health emergency...
Court orders state to end hospital, school, load shedding within 60 days
In a shock verdict last week, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruled that all hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations should be exempted from...
State plans to use private hospitals to slash psychiatric assessment queues
Health Minister Joe Phaahla says that in future, mental health patients awaiting trial could have psychiatric observations in private hospitals, as government patients wait...
Cipla to produce anti-HIV injection in Benoni, Durban
The South African arm of Indian drug company Cipla has confirmed that a generic version of the two-monthly HIV prevention injection, CAB-LA (long-acting cabotegravir),...
Business plea to keep medical aids under NHI
Business Unity SA (Busa) pleaded with the government at the Summit to allow medical schemes to continue operating under National Health Insurance (NHI), to...
Overcrowded hospital transfers 29 pregnant women
A total of 29 pregnant women, who were sleeping on the floor at Dora Nginza Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay and not being given...
SIU Covid corruption probes plod on with little action
The updated, ‘Third Final Report’ by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) into Covid-related corruption reveals the mammoth scale of the brazen plundering and looting:...
Gauteng clinics still denying treatment for pregnant migrants
Pregnant women who are immigrants are still being turned away from some clinics in Gauteng, despite an April High Court ruling that pregnant women...
Eastern Cape doctor shot and killed
Police are searching for four people who shot and killed a doctor inside his surgery in Gqeberha last Wednesday night.
Police spokesperson Captain Andre Beetge...
Nine Gauteng hospitals still without permanent CEOs
Nine out of 37 public hospitals in Gauteng are still being run by acting bosses, with two of them having already gone 12 months...
Contract chaos blamed for hospitals food shortages
Over-contracting several suppliers and non-payment by the Department of Health (DoH) are causing chaos in Gauteng’s hospitals, the long-standing cash flow problems and backlog...
Covid the final straw for SA's abandoned children
South Africa has one of the highest rates of child abandonment in the world, (10 000 per year), one in three of them dying...
Ministerial committee to address maternal and newborn health
It has been reported that South Africans still face challenges when accessing antenatal care visits and skilled birth attendants, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said...
WHO ends Covid global state of emergency
The World Health Organisation has declared the Covid global health emergency over, nearly 40 months after it was first declared a public health emergency...
Soweto hospital’s first heart surgery saves hero pupil
Emergency staff at Bheki Mlangeni District Hospital (BMDH) in Jabulani, Soweto, saved a Grade 12 pupil’s life last month by performing their first heart...
Aspen signs deal with US biotech group
SA’s biggest generic drugmaker, Aspen Pharmacare, has concluded a deal that will give it exclusive rights to market, distribute, use and sell American pharma...
Call for smoke-free SA – like Sweden
Health experts are calling for a smoke-free South Africa, urging President Cyril Ramaphosa to emulate Sweden’s policy that combines tobacco control methods with harm...
Another Covid jab-related death, but more highly unlikely
A third person has died after receiving the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine in South Africa, but it’s very unlikely, says an immunisation expert, that...
New boss for HPCSA
Former North West Health MEC Dr Magome Masike has been appointed to take over as the new CEO of the Health Professions Council of...
SA failing to meet palliative care needs, conference hears
Just 18% of people needing palliative care in South Africa have access to it – and over the past decade, the number of hospices...
Ageing population contributes to high cancer deaths in SA
Early detection remains critical to reducing cancer rates in South Africa, with a recent report revealing that deaths from the disease rose from 5.6%...
Call for tighter safety measures for acne drug linked to suicides
Health authorities in Britain have called for boosted safety measures when prescribing a treatment for severe acne, after reports that numerous people have committed...
Teen pregnancies surge in Eastern Cape
The rate of teenage pregnancies in the Eastern Cape has become a major concern, particularly in the OR Tambo district municipality, which leads for...
Under-diagnosis of ectopic pregnancies is killing women – UK expert
Women are dying or suffering avoidable harm because of a failure to recognise ectopic pregnancy, says a leading British maternal health expert, who has...
FDA approves first oral faecal-based therapy
The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has given the nod to the first oral faecal microbiota product, named Vowst and developed by Seres Therapeutics,...
NHS extends ‘soup and shakes’ diet to slash diabetes epidemic
Tens of thousands of British patients will be eligible to have their type 2 diabetes reversed as the National Health Service (NHS) rolls out...
WHO alert after more contaminated Indian cough syrups detected
Another batch of contaminated Indian-made cough syrup has been found, with the WHO saying the tested samples of Guaifenesin TG syrup showed “unacceptable amounts...
Sudan health sector 'on its knees' as hospitals close, supplies dry up
Seventy percent of hospitals in Sudan have shut down and the country is running out of vital medical supplies as a result of the...
No nod yet from South Africa for African Medicines Agency Treaty
South Africa has yet to sign the African Medicines Agency (AMA) treaty, which is dedicated to improving access to quality and safe medical products...