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News Update
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...
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...
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...
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....
Scientists construct human gene ‘atlas’
Based on achievements of the Human Genome Project, scientists from the RIKEN Centre for Life Science Technologies in Japan have constructed an ‘atlas’ that...
Hospital infections in the US decreasing
About 1 in every 25 patients seeking treatment at hospitals acquired an infection there in 2011. WCVB reports that a new study in the...
UK to roll out meningitis B vaccination campaign
Every baby in Britain could soon be protected against meningitis B, after the government announced the UK would become the first country in the...
Cloud computing system being used to treat brain cancer
IBM is teaming up with the New York Genome Centre to help fight brain cancer, reports Health24. The company's Watson cloud computing system will...
Netcare accused of delays
Netcare has been accused of deliberately delaying the Competition Commission inquiry into what is driving up 'hospital and doctors’ fees, reports The Times. The...
Political parties silent on SA’s health challenges
Less than half of the 20 political parties asked about how they would deal with key health challenges provided answers in response to a...
British GPs 'on the brink of extinction'
General Practitioner services in the UK are ‘under severe threat of extinction’ because they cannot cope with the growing demand for care says Dr...
Guinea confirms cases of Ebola
Guinea has received confirmation that the disease that has killed up to 59 people in the West African country, and may have spread to...
Uganda research warns of an NCD ‘explosion’ following urbanisation
The rapid urbanisation of sub-Saharan Africa ‘could lead to an explosion’ in rates of heart disease and diabetes. VOA News reports that a study...
KZN Health Department’s birth control stance under fire
The KwaZulu-Natal Health Department has stirred a hornet’s nest by insisting on contraceptives for 12 female pharmacology students who have for India on scholarships...
Cape Town’s Tygerberg Hospital is a ‘shopping centre’ for crooks
Tygerberg Hospital – the country’s second-biggest – has been described as a ‘shopping centre’ for crooks who have stolen vehicles, petrol, taps, pipes, ceiling...
New UK research project could ‘revolutionise’ medicine
A project aiming to revolutionise medicine by unlocking the secrets of DNA is under way in centres across England, reports BBC News. The first...
Scientists find cause of genetic heart fault
A test to identify those at risk of sudden cardiac death syndrome – the condition that nearly killed footballer Fabrice Muamba – could be...
Workplace stress could increase heart attack and stroke risk
Stress at work may raise your risk of heart attack and stroke, but being unemployed might be just as unhealthy. Lead researcher Dr Sara...
UK drug shortages putting patient safety at risk
Medicines shortages in the UK are putting patient safety at risk and piling ‘almost daily’ pressures on family doctors to find second-choice alternatives to...
Vaccinations not reaching those in need
While most babies get their first measles vaccination, many miss the second dose as mums struggle to reach far off clinics in the Eastern...