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News Update
Recall of foetal scalp electrodes poses risks, warn experts
A global shortage of foetal scalp electrodes could reduce access to internal heart rate monitoring, potentially leading to more perinatal deaths and other complications,...
Illegal vapes packed with unsafe lead, nickel levels, laboratory tests find
Vapes confiscated from British school pupils were found to contain high levels of lead, nickel and chromium after being tested in a laboratory, the...
School governing bodies group calls for Prime energy drink ban
One of South Africa’s largest umbrella organisations for school governing bodies is encouraging a ban on new energy drink Prime from school premises, claiming...
Kidnapped paramedic begs for help in new video
Another video, received by Gift of the Givers, shows kidnapped South African medic Gerco van Deventer in Mali pleading for help.
The humanitarian aid organisation, which...
CDC flags cosmetic surgery-linked meningitis in Mexico
Mexican and United States authorities want the WHO to declare a public health emergency over a fungal outbreak linked to cosmetic operations in Mexico,...
FDA green-lights Musk’s brain implant for human study
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which had initially rejected the application, has finally given Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-implant company, the green light...
Mumps outbreak data outdated: NICD
Due to various delays, no new mumps tests have been done since March, rendering current data on the recent outbreak outdated, according to the...
Sama warning as Limpopo Health aims to slash doctors' long hours
The Limpopo Health Department has defended its proposals to amend its healthcare workers’ shift systems – including the reduction of doctors’ overtime hours –...
Damning findings against Kalafong Hospital CEO
An investigative report into the unions-instigated unrest last year at Kalafong Provincial Tertiary Hospital, west of Pretoria, has made damning findings against some of...
Mpumalanga Health underspends budget despite chronic staff shortages
Despite more than 100 clinics in Mpumalanga having no visiting doctors, hundreds of people awaiting surgeries, and only 60 working ambulances to service a...
Dora Nginza Hospital infested by rats
The paediatric unit in the Eastern Cape’s Dora Nginza Hospital is over-run with rats, and doctors and staff have raised their concerns, saying the...
NICD alert after two cases of diphtheria in SA
South Africa has recorded two positive cases of diphtheria, the uncommon but vaccine-preventable infection caused by a toxin-producing bacterium called Corynebacterium diphtheria. The toxin...
No action yet against company which inflated PPE deal by 200%
Despite the Competition Commission finding that a company marked up by a whopping 236% the hand sanitiser it sold to the SAPS during the...
Expired Covid vaccines will not be destroyed, Health Department says
Millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine have expired, and the shot is largely unavailable, despite an announcement in February that South Africa’s...
No pay since April for 1 000 Gauteng healthcare staff
More than 1 000 doctors and nurses hired by Gauteng Health Department to help hospitals during the peak of the pandemic in 2021 have...
WHO alerted as one baby dies, others in ICU after ‘mild virus’
A “usually mild” virus that apparently triggers a serious heart condition has resulted in the death of one baby and seven others being admitted...
Eastern Cape medical supplies go up in smoke
The Eastern Cape Department of Health has warned of a possible shortage of medication in Ncora, outside Cofimvaba, after a fire in a nurses’...
Historic KZN Children’s Hospital opens new centres
Efforts to re-establish the iconic KwaZulu-Natal Children’s Hospital in Durban have received a major boost with the completion of another phase of renovations, celebrated...
Development Bank investment to help Africa make its own medicines
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, aimed at improving the continent’s access to technologies for making medicines, vaccines...
Home Affairs Minister says Magudumana's arrest 'legal'
The Department of Home Affairs is challenging Dr Nandipha Magudumana’s urgent court application regarding her arrest in Tanzania, with Minister Aaron Motsoaledi saying she...
Health bosses must abide by free treatment order
Health departments countrywide have been issued with a circular by the national department ordering that free healthcare services be given to pregnant women and...
SA’s largest medical stores facility opened at Charlotte Maxeke
Humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers unveiled a new, multimillion-rand medical stores facility at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital last week, having donated R60m for...
Zambia's cardiac specialists get help from US
Zambia, which also suffers from a scarcity of healthcare personnel, with fewer than 10 cardiac specialists in both the government and private sector for...
Opposition parties reject NHI Bill in current form
Most of the opposition parties on Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health have opposed the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill, citing the probability of tender...
Western Cape mulls freezing health posts as wage deal threatens jobs
The Western Cape’s Health Department has threatened to freeze more than 2 000 jobs after Treasury’s warning that the state’s wage settlement with public...
FDA approves pill for menopausal hot flushes
The US Food and Drug Administration have given the nod to Japanese drugmaker Astellas Pharm’s non-hormonal pill Veozah to treat hot flushes linked to...
Two die as malaria cases rise in Limpopo
Malaria has claimed the lives of two people in Limpopo, with 1 423 cases being reported over the past two weeks, according to the...
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...