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News Update
Microwave fire sparks false alarm at Charlotte Maxeke
A malfunctioning microwave at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital that prompted an alert for staff to evacuate was a false alarm, said Gauteng Health last...
Limpopo night-shift nurse raped and robbed
A newly-appointed nurse was raped last week en-route to a night shift at Madumane Clinic in Tzaneen, when a man dragged her into the...
Blackouts cost state hospitals R700m in diesel – Phaahla
State hospitals are coughing up a fortune keeping the power running during Eskom’s blackouts, spending almost R700m on fuel between 1 April 1 2022...
Gauteng Health staff undergo vetting process
Nearly 2 000 Gauteng health department senior managers and officials in supply chain management (SCM) and human resource (HR) management have undergone a stringent...
Global report urges more investment in Aids war
Fully financing the HIV response in Africa to end Aids as a public health threat by 2030 will save millions of lives and improve...
SA feels the sting of snake anti-venom shortage
The critical lack of snake anti-venom in South Africa, as reported in MedicalBrief last week, is creating growing panic, and despite the National Health...
GF Jooste Hospital plans stalled for 10 years
Cape Town’s Health MEC has been grilled over a hospital in Manenberg that was decommissioned in 2013, with opposition MPs accusing the province of...
Boiler breakdown at Steve Biko Hospital affects crucial services
Services at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Tshwane have been disrupted after the breakdown of three vital boilers, with air conditioning and air heaters,...
Colostomy bag stock still erratic at Gauteng hospitals
Six months after Spotlight first reported on the plight of stoma patients experiencing shortages of colostomy and urostomy bags at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic...
Ghana and Nigeria first countries to approve Oxford’s malaria jab
A malaria vaccine from Oxford University has secured its first approval, from Ghana, which is ramping up efforts to combat the disease that kills...
Zimbabwe plans to criminalise poaching of health workers by other countries
The Zimbabwean Government is digging in its heels, refusing to grant clearance letters to health workers now stranded in Ireland and other countries under...
Big Pharma seeks protection for IP rights
The world’s largest pharmaceutical companies’ bosses have issued a call to G7 leaders to oppose the inclusion of intellectual property rights waivers and pathogen benefit sharing...
New Covid strain raging through India more infectious than others
A new Covid variant called Arcturus, which is wreaking havoc in India – with more than 3 000 cases reported daily – has already...
Racism blamed for more black maternal deaths – UK report
A recently released UK report has found that too many black women experience healthcare treatment that falls short of acceptable standards, and that racism...
New leadership team for the WHO
Nearly a year after his appointment to a second term as the World Health Organisation’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has finished a revamp...
Hospital group pioneers e-scripting
In a nod to the digital era, electronic prescriptions (e-scripting) at Netcare hospitals is making traditional handwritten prescriptions obsolete, and reducing the risks of...
Beijing hospital fire kills 26
A deadly blaze at a Beijing hospital this week killed 26 patients and injured dozens of others in one of the Chinese capital’s worst...
Cancer deaths in South Africa on the rise
Deaths due to cancer are increasing in South Africa, with the black and coloured population seeing the most alarming climbs, according to a report...
Regulator intensifies probe into GEMS vitamins tender
After concerns were raised about a multimillion-rand contract for vitamins awarded by the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS), the medical scheme regulator has now...
Sahpra withdraws pholcodine from shelves
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) has withdrawn all pholcodine-containing medicines from the market due to the increased risk of sudden, severe...
World's first bird flu death recorded in China
In the first known human fatality from the avian influenza strain, a woman has died from H3N8 bird flu in China, according to the...
Noose tightens as doctor’s role in Bester escape uncovered
The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is launching an investigation into Dr Nandipha Magudumana, lover of fugitive and convicted murderer Thabo Bester,...
Gauteng Health owes thousands of suppliers R4bn
The R4bn owed to more than 42 000 service providers by the Gauteng Department of Health is ballooning because senior managers ignore invoices, and...
Africa faces 5m shortage of healthcare workers
During the pandemic, around half of the world’s health workers experienced burnout, while 55 countries face serious shortages of health workers, exacerbated by the...
SA measles cases dropping – NICD
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said measles cases countrywide appear to be decreasing, except for Limpopo, where numbers have remained stable and...
Urgent plea to Phaahla to resolve snake anti-venom crisis
A group of 27 experts in South Africa has written to Health Minister Joe Phaahla for urgent intervention in the critical shortage of anti-venom...
TB drug shortages hamper North West healthcare
A shortage of critical tuberculosis medication is frustrating primary healthcare facilities in North West Province, with Kopano Klaas, project co-ordinator from the Stop Stockouts...
Covid DIY home tests available off the shelf in SA soon
South Africans will finally be able to buy Covid self tests off the shelves – at the end of April – after the South...
Vaccine candidates offer hope for African Marburg spread
Africa’s slow but steady spread of Marburg, the Ebola-like virus that can kill as many as 90% of the people it infects, could be...
Dying UK scientist’s breakthrough with new class of antibiotics
Britain’s Kirsty Smitten (28), has achieved something that hasn't been done for nearly 40 years: created a new class of antibiotics, leading the fight...
Post-menopause testosterone patch in the pipeline
British researchers are developing the world’s only testosterone patch aimed at easing symptoms in post-menopausal women, a follow-on from the testosterone gel clinicians are already prescribing...
Phaahla asks for more funding for hospital generators, power supplies
Out of more than 200 hospitals in South Africa, just 76 are exempted from Eskom’s power cuts, with Health Minister Joe Phaahla asking Treasury...
Gauteng gets more than 200 new ambulances
The chronic shortage of emergency vehicles in Gauteng will be bolstered shortly when the province receives 255 new ambulances, to be distributed across all...
Gift of the Givers to negotiate kidnapped paramedic's release
A Gift of the Givers hostage negotiator is in Mali hoping to secure the release of Swellendam paramedic Gerco van Deventer, who has been...
MEC to face inquiry after rejecting xenophobic rant sanction
Civil society groups and activists are calling for controversial Limpopo Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba to be deregistered if found guilty at an inquiry in...
Generics green-light for new HIV drug, but Africa peeved
British pharmaceutical company GSK has signed deals with three companies allowing them to make inexpensive generic versions of its long-acting HIV preventive medicine for use...
TB drug costs to drop after J&J loses patent extension bid
People with drug-resistant TB could soon have access to critical medication at a far lower cost after Johnson & Johnson’s application to extend a...
Cable theft rife at state hospitals because of security failures
Gauteng Health spends R59m a month on rolling contracts to hospital security providers, writes Thabo Molelekwa in Spotlight, yet spokesperson Motaletale Modiba said the...
Medical aid schemes shrink, but member numbers grow
Although the number of registered medical schemes continued to decrease over the past year, the number of principal members had increased by the end...
More time for MPs to discuss NHI Bill
The FF Plus has persuaded Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health to grant opposition parties more time to obtain their own legal opinions on the...