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News Update
Biovac urges investment in African vaccine-makers
Government-backed Biovac has said that investment in local products was critical, and paying a premium to emerging African vaccine manufacturers for their products would...
Ambulance shortage places Eastern Cape patients' lives at risk
Eastern Cape paramedics have accused the provincial Health Department of being responsible for the preventable deaths of critically ill residents by failing to provide...
NICD issues flu warning
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has warned that pregnant women and people with HIV and chronic conditions are at high risk of severe...
Lung specialists and sniffer dogs to help schools fight vaping problem
The extraordinarily high rate of vaping in South Africa’s top private and former Model C schools has led to sniffer dogs being brought in...
Call for more awareness of depression in cancer patients
There needs to be greater awareness of patients with mental health issues, particularly among cancer patients, says the SA Society of Psychiatrists, warning that...
Call for former Premier and MEC to be held accountable for Esidimeni tragedy
Former Premier David Makhura, former Gauteng Finance MEC Barbara Creecy and former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu, all at the centre of the tragedy...
Unclaimed bodies pile up in SA state mortuaries
Nearly 20 forensic pathology mortuaries countrywide are running out of space because of unclaimed bodies, according to Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla, in response...
Stellenbosch Hospital forges ahead with upgrades
The 86-bed Stellenbosch Hospital has been given a new lease on life after the Acute Psychiatric Unit (APU) was officially opened last week, one...
Toxic porridge kills 15 members of Namibian family
A total of 15 people from a family of 21 in Kavango, rural Namibia, have died after eating toxic porridge in one of the...
Reducing medico-legal claims to be included in Gauteng hospital CEOs contracts
Gauteng Health is to implement several reforms in a bid to slash the province's medico-legal claims, including holding hospital CEOs accountable.
This was said by MEC...
HPCSA and SAPS crackdown on bogus medics
More arrests have been made in the nationwide crackdown on healthcare practitioners operating illegally, with the latest case reported in the Northern Cape town of...
Field hospitals set up as cholera cases spread and deaths climb
In efforts to manage the spread of cholera in the township of Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, Gauteng Health has set up field hospitals –...
Cancer statistics in SA skewed by incomplete data, under-reporting
The World Health Organisation said in February that about 1.1m new cancer cases are being reported in Africa annually, with about 700 000 deaths,...
Mahikeng Hospital gets 18 incubators after box saga
Mahikeng Hospital has received 18 incubators after images surfaced on social media showing newborn babies in the neonatal ward sleeping in cardboard boxes instead...
Bara oral hygienist shot and killed
A 53-year-old woman shot dead inside her vehicle outside Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital on Tuesday was later identified as the chief oral hygienist,...
Tembisa Hospital tender prices were upped by 2 000%
Investigations into the rampant corruption at Tembisa Hospital through fake and forged documentation have uncovered further intricate networks through which companies inked to extraction...
Nurses union threatens legal action over security concerns
Legal action is being threatened by the Democratic Nursing Union of South Africa against the Eastern Cape Health Department amid concerns over the security...
Health Department gets court order against striking nursing students
The Gauteng Department of Health has obtained an interim court order preventing final year nursing students, who have interfered with and disrupted first and...
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...