HomeNews Update
News Update
NHI Bill delayed
Parliament’s Health Committee has run out of time to process the controversial National Health Insurance Bill in the National Assembly before the ANC’s elective...
Three companies score R100m contracts, latest Tembisa exposé shows
Three little-known companies owned by ANC Ekurhuleni treasurer-general Sello Sekhokho have scored nearly R100m in Gauteng Health Department contracts in three years, supplying everything...
Hospital patients, staff hit hard by public sector strike
Several major provincial hospitals were hard hit by striking workers last week, with doctors and nurses struggling to care for patients as protesters blocked...
Gauteng surrenders R215m to Treasury after delays in fixing hospitals
Despite the state of its many unsafe hospitals, the Gauteng Health Department has failed to spend millions of rands that had been allocated for...
Health Departments unable to absorb graduates from pharmacy schools
Financially-strapped provincial Health Departments have slashed the number of community service pharmacy posts available next year, meaning there won't be enough positions to meet...
WHO, CDC issue global measles warning
A record high of nearly 40m children missed a measles vaccine dose in 2021 due to hurdles created by the COVID pandemic, the WHO...
Weekly COVID cases drop 9%, older people still the most infected
The number of new COVID-19 cases in South Africa has decreased by 9.1% week on week, with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD)...
Global vaccine inequality not unique to COVID vaccines – first WHO report
The World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Global Vaccine Market Report 2022, the first to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the global vaccine market, shows...
Oral cholera vaccine to be produced by SA’s Biovac
The Biovac Institute, South Africa’s partly state-owned vaccine producer, has clinched a deal with the International Vaccine Institute to make an oral cholera inoculation...
Wrong UK laboratory results could have caused 20 COVID deaths
England’s government agency charged with responding to public health emergencies said mistakes at a testing laboratory could have resulted in tens of thousands of...
WHO announces new name for monkeypox, first vaccines sent to Africa
The World Health Organisation has given a new name to monkeypox, saying the disease will now be called “mpox” in a bid to help...
US twins born from 30-year-old frozen embryos
Twins Timothy and Lydia Ridgeway were born 30 years after they were frozen as embryos in 1992, holding the record for developing from the...
KZN leads in some health services, lags in others – Ritshidze report
KwaZulu-Natal clinics are outperforming facilities monitored in other provinces on various indicators and its health services have improved year-on-year, but some marginalised groups still...
NHS nurse walkout could delay chemo, dialysis and urgent procedures
NHS England’s national director for emergency, planning and incident response, Mike Prentice has warned that the planned strike by the Royal College of Nursing...
Malawi starts world-first malaria vaccination drive
Malawi has begun vaccinating children as part of a world-first, large-scale campaign against malaria. The RTS,S vaccine, more than three decades in the making, was...
Solar panel back-up possible for state hospitals
Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla has, in reply to a parliamentary question, said that his department, with the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research,...
COVID protests escalate as China lockdown anger erupts
People in the Chinese manufacturing hub of Guangzhou clashed with white hazmat-suited riot police this past Tuesday night (29 November), showed videos on social...
Netcare frustrated by bureaucracy restricting nurse training
Thousands of potential nurses are being turned away by hospital group Netcare, previously the largest trainer of nurses in the private sector, while it...
Limpopo Health fires 21 emergency workers
The Limpopo Health Department has fired 21 emergency officers after finding out they were deregistered by the Health Professional Council of South Africa (HPCSA) ...
Eastern Cape cancels air ambulance tender over bidder non-compliance
A second effort to establish an air ambulance service for the Eastern Cape has failed to take off after the Health Department said the...
Tambo Hospital declared ‘unfit’ but refurbishment plans on hold
In 2017, an assessment commissioned by the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, Gauteng, reportedly found the building was “unfit for human habitation” and “an...
Helen Joseph allegedly a fire hazard before 2010 World Cup, and still is
Had there been a disaster during the 2010 Fifa World Cup, Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg was prepared and on standby to provide emergency...
Health Department defends Tobacco Bill
The Tobacco Control Bill, currently before Parliament, remains a contentious issue for pro-smoking lobbyists, and while the Department of Health has again denied plans...
Albert Luthuli Hospital nurses picket over pay and vacancies
Unions at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital in Durban say they will shut down the facility if the provincial Health Department ignores their pleas, with...
SA, Britain health partnership announced during Ramaphosa visit
Britain and South Africa announced a new health and science partnership yesterday to mark the second day of President Cyril Ramaphosa's state visit to...
World’s most expensive drug approved by the FDA at R60m a dose
The world’s most exorbitant medicine has just been approved by US regulators, who have given the go-ahead to CSL Behring’s haemophilia B gene therapy,...
Scottish NHS two-tier plan may see ‘wealthy pay for treatment’
In contrast to South Africa's move towards a “free healthcare for all” National Health Insurance Fund, Scotland, home to the UK’s age-old National Health...
Concern as measles spreads to Mpumalanga
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has issued a warning about the measles outbreak, which has now spread from Limpopo to Mpumalanga.
The outbreak...
Mkhize says ‘no evidence’ implicating him in Digital Vibes scandal
Former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has still not provided him with any evidence that implicated him in the...
COVID cases on the increase in China
China has seen its first deaths from COVID-19 in six months, and thousands more people are catching the disease, despite the government's former super-strict...
Flexi-time, cooler uniforms, for menopausal NHS England staff
Under new guidance, and in a call to help “break the stigma”, NHS England will offer menopausal women on its staff the option to...
Call for more awareness around men's health issues
Calls for psychological and other health services to be expanded to cater for males were raised at the ‘national men’s Parliament’ convened at the...
Ebola trial vaccines head for Uganda
Three Ebola candidates for a planned vaccine clinical trial are expected to be shipped to Uganda this week, World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom...
Specialists slam closure of maternity facility at KZN hospital
The South African Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (SASOG) has hit out at Netcare’s decision to shut maternity facilities at its Ballito facility on...
New contract sees big drop in price for HIV medicines
The national Department of Health (DOH) has managed to secure a significant reduction in prices for antiretroviral medicines that treat HIV, with the price...
South Africans still dying but COVID vaccine drive slows to a trickle
Daily COVID vaccinations have more or less levelled off since July, with most vaccine sites having closed and the number of jabs plummeting to...
Cost concerns over roll-out of SA's pilot HIV prevention shot
South Africa is expected to begin piloting the every-other-month HIV prevention shot early next year, according to the international medicine financing initiative Unitaid, with...
Healthcare unions join in protests over wage increase
Healthcare unions joined several other trade unions last week on a countrywide strike and are threatening further action if government continues to ignore their...
DA calls for release of Cuban student programme annual report
The DA has written to Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla asking for the annual report of the controversial Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro Medical Collaboration programme,...
Community health workers demand full-time jobs in Western Cape
Some 300 community health workers marched to Premier Alan Winde’s office in Cape Town last week to demand they be in-sourced by the Western...