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News Update
Vaccine advisers slam US for alleged cover up of booster effectiveness
Angry US national vaccine advisers say government scientists and Moderna concealed data on a new Covid-19 booster last year during discussions on whether the...
SA Post Office in medical aid subsidies buy-out talks
The SA Post Office’s financial difficulties are likely to have a dire effect on pensioners belonging to medical aid schemes it subsidises, with the...
Alleged bid-rigging in Health Department’s R486m HQ deal
The national Department of Health (DoH) is about to fork out nearly R500m on a “suspicious”, possibly irregular lease contract for its new head...
Experts flag shortage of snake anti-venom stocks
A shortage of South African-produced snake anti-venom, partly caused by load shedding affecting production, and a waiting time of at least six months for...
China records 60 000 Covid deaths in a month
More than 60 000 Covid-related deaths have been reported in China in just over a month, the first statistics and death toll released since...
Indonesia families launch lawsuit over contaminated cough syrup
Families of Indonesian children who died after consuming contaminated cough mixture have demanded restitution at an Indonesian court, which has started hearing their class-action lawsuit...
Pfizer expands horizons for cancer and rare diseases drugs
Pfizer is forging ahead with the exploration of options for some early-stage treatments for rare diseases and cancer and focusing on “high-impact” medicines and...
Scientists slam BBC for airing claims by anti-vax cardiologist
An interview with a cardiologist whose views linking some Covid vaccines to excess heart disease deaths should not have aired, say scientists, who have...
Pfizer to sell drugs for no profit to world’s poorest countries
US drugmaker Pfizer is to offer its full portfolio of drugs, including off-patent medicines like chemotherapies and oral cancer treatments, on a not-for-profit basis to...
Gauteng scales up measles vaccines as infections increase
Amid escalating measles infections in the province, the Gauteng Department of Health is ramping up its vaccination campaign for children aged between six months...
Dumped hospital waste from hijacked vehicle, says company
A medical waste company has confirmed that the hazardous medical waste that washed up on Mdumbi and Mngcibe beaches this week had been dumped...
Uganda Ebola-free after beating outbreak
After a nearly four-month Ebola outbreak that it briefly struggled to contain, Uganda last week finally declared itself disease-free, managing to control the spread...
In the line of duty: healthcare staff killed in Boksburg explosion
In a tragic set of circumstances, the day before Christmas, a truck transporting liquefied petroleum gas exploded after it became wedged beneath a bridge...
Union urges stricter security after nurse killed in Eastern Cape hospital
The Public Servants’ Association (PSA) has repeated its calls for stricter and improved security measures to ensure the safety of health workers after the...
Robbers attack EMS crews, steal ECG machines, equipment, phones
Robbers have twice, in the past few months, ambushed a Gauteng Emergency Medical Services ambulance team and patients from Odi Base in Mabopane (Tshwane),...
Bara thefts 'deliberate sabotage', says Health Department
Two recent thefts in the space of three days at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital were deliberate acts of sabotage which put patients’ lives at...
Netcare again warns of SA’s critical nursing shortage
Netcare has again prodded the government about the acute shortage of nurses and appealed for an urgent response to the situation, saying the shortage...
‘Imported’ PPE for SAPS marked up 400%, sourced from Dis-Chem
A R515m Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) deal at the height of the pandemic, uncovered by SIU investigations, has revealed that hand sanitiser sold to...
Young doctors face uncertainty over placement in state hospitals
At least 400 doctors who have completed their community service face unemployment this year, according to the South African Medical Association Trade Union (Samatu),...
Measles cases continue to rise in SA
More than 305 laboratory-confirmed measles cases have been reported from five provinces in recent weeks, with declared outbreaks in Limpopo (131 cases), Mpumalanga (69...
SA’s teen births increase, including among 11 and 12-year-olds
A growing and worrying number of South African teenagers aged 17 and younger are having babies, with Stats SA saying 45 257 births registered...
No date yet for SA withdrawal of J&J baby powder
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) still supplies SA retailers with its baby powder, more than two years after withdrawing it from US and Canadian shelves...
Condom shortage places Mpumalanga sex workers, truckers at risk
A rise in STI cases and HIV diagnoses in Mpumalanga was possibly a result of a two-month shortage of condoms at a truck stop...
Tembisa 10 'births' 'unsubstantiated', Public Protector finds
The “Tembisa 10” decuplets never existed, and the sensational media claims, as well as allegations by the supposed father of the babies, were “unsubstantiated”,...
US medical school apologises for prisoner experiments
A Californian medical school has apologised for conducting dozens of unethical medical experiments on some 2 600 incarcerated men in the 1960s and 1970s,...
Prison for German GP who issued illegal mask exemptions
A German doctor has been sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for illegally issuing more than 4 000 people – most...
Experts debunk false claims from anti-vax film
A controversial documentary with misleading information and old, dated unrelated footage cunningly linked by the producers to Covid-19 vaccines, has prompted a slew of...
US hospital fires nurses involved in viral TikTok video
A group of labour ward nurses in the US who took part in a TikTok “ick’ challenge, have been fired.
IOL reports that a video...
WHO warns of SA’s health sector collapse if NHI derailed
South Africa needs to embrace universal healthcare if it hopes to change the trajectory of its healthcare system, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) co-ordinator...
Private healthcare shake-up looms large on South Africa’s horizon
The headwinds facing healthcare in South Africa are driving a reconfiguration in the private sector, likely to affect medical aid schemes and private hospital...
Seven babies die in Western Cape as whooping cough cases rise
Health authorities have noted a sharp increase in whooping cough infections countrywide, particularly in the Western Cape, where seven infants under two-months-old have died...
Gauteng drops costly Ashanti COVID hospital deal
The Gauteng Government has resolved to abandon the hugely expensive white elephant AngloGold Ashanti Hospital, formerly identified and refurbished as a COVID-19 critical care...
COVID paediatric jabs in 2023 for vulnerable 5-11-year-olds
Immunocompromised children aged from five to 11 would be eligible for two doses of the paediatric Pfizer vaccine from February 2023, Health Minister Joe...
Eli Lilly tightens diabetes drug access, frustrates obese patients
After the recent furore and viral social promotion on TikTok of a diabetic drug for weight-loss among teenagers, and its subsequent shortage, Eli Lilly...
Two BQ COVID strains cause for concern
The latest circulating COVID-19 Omicron variants – BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 – have shown greater immune escape, which is likely to lead to increasing cases...
COVID cases soar in China, ‘impossible’ to track
Chinese health authorities, who say the spread of COVID-19 is now “impossible” to track, have stopped recording asymptomatic cases in their daily tallies, amid soaring...
COVID vaccine for six-month-old babies gets green light in UK
A COVID-19 vaccine for infants as young as six months has been given the go-ahead by Britain’s health regulator, opening the door for vaccinating...
Rural provinces’ health services worst hit by COVID disruptions
A report by the Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP) has exposed the devastating aftermath for health systems countrywide of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted...
Africa’s neonatal death rate five times higher than 2030 target – WHO report
A World Health Organisation report says Africa’s health systems remain weak and way behind other regions of the world, particularly maternal health, and if...
Patient accuses medical practitioner of rape at E Cape hospital
A patient and her family are receiving psycho-social support after a doctor, who has since been suspended, allegedly raped her in a locked consultation...