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News Update
Cannabis could be used to treat severe epilepsy
The potential of medical marijuana and pure cannabidiol – an active substance in the cannabis plant – for neurologic conditions is highly controversial. However,...
Call for calm after ‘cancer-causing chemicals’ alarm
A cancer researcher has called for calm after reports that a US study had identified ‘cancer-causing chemicals’ in everyday life, reports The Times. A...
SA government plans to tackle ‘lifestyle’ diseases
‘If we do not stop the scourge of lifestyle diseases we will not be able to implement the National Development Plan,’ is the warning...
Inequality between SA's urban and rural hospitals a ‘problem’
The plight of doctors working in rural areas, an issue that was forced to the fore by a recent Constitutional Court case, has been...
UK shows dramatic improvements in cancer survival
Dramatic improvements in cancer survival mean that half of those diagnosed in the UK today can expect to live for at least 10 years....
Flawed dietary supplements lingering on US store shelves
Flaws in the way that dietary supplements are monitored and reported are causing potentially life-threatening delays in how long dangerous products linger on store...
Asthma still killing thousands in the UK
Children and adults in the UK are dying needlessly from asthma attacks, according to a Royal College of Physicians report, which found that in...
Row over Pfizer take-over bid on AstraZeneca intensifies
The row over Pfizer’s £63bn takeover bid for the British drugs company AstraZeneca has intensified as the predator’s own former top scientist railed against...
Scottish scientists develop novel flu treatment
Scottish scientists have developed a novel treatment that could protect against any strain of the flu. Medical Xpress reports that the preventative treatment could...
Advances helping the blind see and the deaf hear
Thanks to a high-tech procedure that involved the surgical implantation of a ‘bionic eye’, Roger Pontz, who was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa as a...
Surviving Ebola carries a stigma
A doctor has beaten the odds and survived Ebola, but he still has one more problem: The stigma of the deadly disease. News24 reports...
HIV-positive women sue KZN Health for ‘forced sterilisations’
More than a dozen HIV-positive Durban women are suing the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department after they allege they were ‘forcibly’ sterilised. The Independent on Saturday...
Discovery helps in the treatment of Cryptococcus infections
A discovery by University of Liverpool scientists means that the initial treatment for a brain infection caused by fungus could now be treated in...
Hospital group to build more SA day hospitals
More people will soon have the option of undergoing minor surgery at a hospital that will discharge them on the same day, following the...
UK’s NHS says breast cancer drug is too expensive
A Herceptin-style drug that can offer some women with advanced breast cancer nearly six months of extra life has been turned down for use...
Exodus of medical staff at Universitas alarms health professionals
Health professionals say that the exodus of medical practitioners from the Universitas Academic Hospital in Bloemfontein has reached ‘crisis level’. And, according to a...
SA’s NHI scheme could be threatened by medical negligence claims
Medical negligence claims may threaten the viability of SA’s proposed National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme. A Mail & Guardian report quotes Sylvester Chima from...
US regulators advise against power morcellator to remove fibroids
US regulators have advised doctors to stop using a surgical device used in tens of thousands of hysterectomies each year, citing its potential to...
Legal wrangle won’t stop inquiry into SA’s private healthcare sector
The inquiry into private health care in SA will continue despite legal wrangling between industry player Netcare and KPMG, which was appointed as a...
‘Revolutionary’ drug trial to open up ‘new era’ in cancer fight
A ‘revolutionary’ drug trial aimed at discovering personalised treatments for the UK’s biggest cancer killer will begin in July, in an advance which experts...
New sensor to prevent pressure sores
Researchers have developed a new type of pressure sensor – dubbed a ‘second skin’ – which could prevent dangerous sores, reports BBC News. The...
Super-immune bugs ‘worse than Aids’ — SA Health DG
The first patient with pneumonia resistant to all antibiotics was recorded in SA last year, raising the ‘terrifying’ possibility of a ‘post-antibiotic era’, writes...
Six new forms of inherited blindness discovered
Scientists have discovered six new forms of inherited blindness, each one resulting from mutations in a different gene important in eye development and vision,...
Changing diet behind SA’s rising cardiovascular disease rate
More South Africans are dying from heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases than before. Health-e reports that the World Heart Foundation’s recently released...
Medicare data sheds light on treatment decisions in the US
A tiny fraction of the 880,000 US doctors and other health care providers who take Medicare accounted for nearly a quarter of the roughly...
New drugs to treat hepatitis C welcomed despite costs
Doctors have welcomed the prospect of new drugs to treat the liver-destroying hepatitis C virus, writes Reuters Health. Gilead Sciences presented data at the...
Universal health coverage should be the goal – world medical students
Medical students worldwide have called for universal health coverage to be a specific health goal within the post-2015 global development agenda, reports University World...
No private medical training, says SA Health minister
Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has shot down suggestions that private institutions be allowed to train doctors to alleviate a shortage of physicians, saying...
British drug company faces GSK bribery allegations
UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is facing a criminal investigation in Poland for allegedly bribing doctors, according to a BBC Panorama programme. BBC News...
Hospital won't blow Lesotho's health budget – Netcare
SA's biggest private hospital group, Netcare has defended its flagship public-private partnership in Lesotho, after a damning Oxfam report said the project was costing...
Scientists warn against over-prescription of antibiotics
Doctors need to start prescribing antibiotics much more carefully or they will tip SA back to the pre-antibiotic era, when a simple infected scratch...
Health benefits of circumcision exceed any risks – study
A review in Mayo Clinic Proceedings claims the health benefits of circumcision exceed any risks by at least 100 to 1, reports The Daily...
Pharma payments to doctors under increased scrutiny
Doctors in Britain were paid £38.5m by drug-makers last year, slightly less than 2012, according to new data underscoring the links between the pharmaceutical...
Medical services for Presidency 'expensive'
Providing medical services for President Jacob Zuma, his dependants and predecessors is an expensive business, News24 reports. In reply to a parliamentary question, Defence...
Overloaded doctors jeopardising care in the UK
Care of hospital patients in the UK is under threat because overworked frontline doctors are looking after so many sick people that they are...
'Captive' Type-1 diabetes patients: Paying until it hurts
Traditionally, medical insurers lost money by covering chronic illnesses, because the patients often ended up hospitalised with myriad complications as their diseases progressed. Today,...
Heart surgery: new technique an option to rib cracking
A procedure, requiring just a 2.5cm incision that can take as little as one week of recovery time while open-heart surgery, which pierces the...
Harmonised management of TB could save billions
Southern African countries could realise savings 40 times what they would otherwise spend, if they were to test and treat all mineworkers in the...
SA heart spec ialist first to use frozen balloon technology
A local heart spec ialist made history when he became the first spec ialist in Africa to treat a patient with atrial fibrillation by...
SA’s generic drug market growing steadily
Boosted by a growing disease burden and the push to reduce the cost of medicine, SA’s generic drugs market isexpected to continue growing steadily....