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News Update
Auditor-General on DoH’s vaccination-spend: Some teething issues but quick footwork
The Auditor-General’s audit of the national Department of Health’s vaccination procurement processes and nationwide rollout found some “teething issues” but paints a generally positive...
CCTV footage shows alleged murderers of Dr George Koboka
CCTV footage shows the events around the murder of Soweto GP Dr George Koboka at his surgery.
CCTV footage shows a group of men entering...
Crisp: Payroll tax, surcharges on personal income tax to fund NHI
Funding for the proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) fund will come from various sources, including surcharges on personal income tax, payroll tax, and reallocating...
DoH now concedes that COVID death toll may exceed 250,000
The national Department of Health has admitted the government may be under-reporting COVID-19 deaths, after a SA Medical Research Council report estimating that South...
Auditor-General on DoH’s vaccination-spend: Some teething issues but quick footwork
The Auditor-General’s audit of the national Department of Health’s vaccination procurement processes and nationwide rollout found some “teething issues” but paints a generally positive...
Cancer Alliance research: Gauteng state hospitals’ failures hamper treatment
Research by the Cancer Alliance into backlogs of people waiting for cancer treatment at state hospitals has uncovered evidence of widespread administrative failures,...
Nelson Mandela Bay: Acute malnutrition cases increase while R67m distress grant remains unspent
Hundreds of children are receiving treatment for severe acute malnutrition as communities in Nelson Mandela Bay lose the battle against hunger, intensified by a...
Phaahla: Crime has delayed repairs to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital
Crime is becoming the major obstacle in attempts to accelerate repairs to and refurbishing of Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.
Speaking at a media briefing,...
South Africa’s latest COVID-19 regulations ‘go against MAC advice’
Revised COVID-19 regulations announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa last Tuesday (22 March) go against the advice from the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC), reports BusinessLIVE.
It writes...
Gauteng’s ‘new’ R1.2bn COVID ICU hospitals lie abandoned and unfinished
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Gauteng government has spent a staggering R1.238bn of much-needed COVID-19 funds on the construction of four...
DA questions Modise over Mabuza’s medical trip to Russia
The SA Air Force has not flown Deputy President David Mabuza to Russia since January 2020, according to Defence & Military Veterans Minister Thandi...
SA’s public hospital staffing disaster: 12,000 vacancies for nurses and doctors
South Africa’s public hospitals have more than 10,831 vacancies for nurses and 1,339 unfilled posts for doctors, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla revealed in a...
Surge in assaults on staff by psychiatric patients at Helen Joseph Hospital
Staff at Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg have been exposed to a surge in violent attacks by psychiatric patients, with 32 assaulted in the...
Largest study yet: Ivermectin ‘not clinically effective’ for COVID hospitalisation
In a trial of nearly 1,400 COVID-19 patients, those who received the antiparasitic drug Ivermectin didn’t fare better than those who received a placebo,...
SA’s shortage of public health podiatrists reflected in diabetic foot amputations
There’s a drastic shortage of public health podiatrists in SA, reports Daily Maverick. Currently, there are about 300 podiatrists in South Africa, with only...
Mkhize continues to claim innocence on Digital Vibes allegations
Former Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, apparently eyeing election to the ANC presidency, is pinning his hopes on being able to refute the damning...
Omicron spike puts China’s ‘zero-COVID’ policies under pressure
China and Hong Kong are seeing their largest spike in COVID cases in more than two years, despite pursuing the world’s strictest virus elimination...
Omicron sub-variant BA.2 warning for US as European cases surge
Nearly half of all European countries have recorded increases in new COVID-19 cases in the past week, according to an analysis of data from...
Experts and opposition seethe over yet another State of Disaster extension
The government’s decision to extend the State of Disaster for yet another month has been met with criticism and dismay from health experts and...
SAHPRA approves ‘game-changer’ vaginal ring but DoH still undecided
The SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has approved the widely hailed vaginal dapivirine ring to protect women from HIV for up to a...
Clinics in crisis as nurses exit Zimbabwe over R1,000 per month salaries
Health clinics in Zimbabwe are facing a crisis as increasing numbers of nurses leave the country in search of better prospects, reports the BBC’s...
Loss of 4,000 COVID posts a body blow to already stretched Gauteng hospitals
Gauteng Health’s decision to not renew numerous contracts of about 4,000 staff appointed temporarily to help hospitals through the COVID-19 pandemic has been met...
Four gunshot wounds but a two-week wait for surgery at George Mukhari Academic Hospital
Godfrey Thulare lay in a ward at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital for two weeks awaiting surgery for the gunshot wound on his leg,...
Doctors feed patients at Bara as supplies run out and medical waste piles up
Doctors are having to take lunch to patients at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, as a failure to pay food suppliers...
Kenya, Namibia and Netherlands end mandatory masks in public
Kenya’s Health Ministry no longer requires the wearing of face masks in public. However, reports BBC News, it encourages people attending events indoors and...
China: Millions in lockdown as new cases hit two-year high, testing its ‘zero COVID’ resolve
COVID-19 cases are at a two-year high in China as the country posted a steep jump in daily infections, with new cases more than...
Govt bars SA science agencies from comment on Russia-Ukraine conflict
South African science agencies have been ordered by the Department of Science and Innovation not to make public comments about the conflict between Russia...
Frozen posts but Gauteng Health spends R30m on Cuban doctors
While many local doctors are unemployed, and vacant positions frozen, and despite its tardiness in paying its own junior doctors, Gauteng Health spent R30.3m...
Reducing US autopsy caseloads: Photos instead of bodies
The US state of Massachusetts has over recent years increasingly switched to “autopsies” using photographs and medical records rather than the actual bodies to...
Medical schools face PAIA applications over admission requirements
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has submitted Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) applications to South Africaʼs 13 medical schools to ascertain their admissions...
FDA and Fauci eyeing a second COVID-19 booster in coming months
US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are “very carefully” considering second booster doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, while Anthony Fauci, the US...
Zim health sector workers boycott duties citing incapacitation
Zimbabwe’s troubled health sector is headed for paralysis after doctors, radiographers, nurses and other specialists have boycotted on-call and night duties, citing incapacitation., reports...
HPCSA hikes registration fees by up to 13%
The annual fees due to the Health Professions Council of SA, as well as fees regarding registration, examinations and restoration to the register, have...
South Africa's health sector in the 2022 budget
Despite a commodities-fuelled revenue bonanza of R182bn and the winding down of COVID-29 related expenditure, Health expenditure increased only marginally, reports MedicalBrief. The lack...
With 7m doses set to expire, DOH tries to boost sluggish vaccination campaign
With a third of South Africa’s vaccination doses expiring midyear and less than half of adults vaccinated, the national Department of Health is trying...
NICD: No evidence that municipal water is source of typhoid outbreak
There is no evidence that contaminated municipal water is implicated in the recent outbreak of typhoid in South Africa and the spreading of such...
Malawi declares outbreak following Africa’s first wild polio case in five years
Malawi has declared an outbreak of polio after a child in the countryʼs capital, Lilongwe, developed the disease in the first case of the...
SAHPRA approves COVID-19 pill but only private patients will benefit
Medicines’ regulator SAHPRA has granted drug-maker MSD emergency authorisation to import its coronavirus pill molnupiravir, the first treatment that high-risk patients can potentially take...
Mogoeng stirs controversy with latest vaccine remarks
Retired chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, in hot water previously for controversial comments about the COVID-19 vaccine, has once again come under fire for a...
Calls for improved hospital safety following hijacking and attempted rape of doctor
The SA Medical Association (SAMA) has again called for better, more stringent security measures at public sector hospitals after a doctor was hijacked and...