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News Update
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...
Anaesthetist’s name omitted from memorial at Netcare helicopter crash site
When a memorial was unveiled yesterday (Wednesday 23 February) and tribute was paid to the crew that died a year ago in a Netcare...
SAMA chair Dr Angelique Coetzee resigns
Dr Angelique Coetzee, the chairperson of the South African Medical Association (SAMA) board, has stepped down from the position with immediate effect.
Previously, the SAMA...
Hospital Association ‘perplexed’ by omission of medical skills from Critical Skills List
Hospital Association of SA Chief Executive Officer, Dr Dumisani Bomela, says HASA is “perplexed” by the omission of medical skills, in particular nurses and...
1 Military Hospital: Top officials liable for R156m in irregular expenditure
Despite more than R411m being spent on the Department of Public Works’ repair and maintenance programme at One Military Hospital (Pretoria) between 2006 and...
Report exposes 'widespread and overwhelming' racial discrimination in NHS
Racism, discrimination and poor ethnicity data have for years “negatively impacted” the health of black, Asian and minority ethnic people in England and radical...
MRC: Pandemic deaths approach 300,000 mark, triple SA’s official tally
When excess deaths are factored in, a SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC) calculates that early 300,000 people have died from COVID-19 in South Africa...
Turkish man tests positive for COVID for 14 straight months; remains isolated
When Muzaffer Kayasan first caught COVID-19, he thought he was destined to die as he already had leukaemia. Fourteen months and 78 straight positive...
Eastern Cape Health owes R3bn, causing unpaid contractors to halt services
Unpaid service providers at Eastern Cape hospitals have halted their services, putting patients’ lives at risk.
Provincial health said it owed creditors more than R3bn,...
Scepticism from EU experts over abolition of all COVID curbs in England
Last week Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to abolish all COVID regulations in England, including the need to isolate after testing positive, from...
UK’s Chief Medical Officers issue first exercise guidelines for disabled children
Britain’s chief medical officers have recommended that disabled children and young people, who are often overlooked during the COVID pandemic, should do 20 minutes...
WHO chief calls for Trips waiver and praises SA’s vaccine development project
On a high-level visit to Cape Town this past weekend (11/12 February) with a delegation comprising European diplomats and South African ministers, the World Health...
New Critical Skills List records no shortage of medical skills in South Africa
It’s official, writes Peta Lee for MedicalBrief. There is no shortage of medical skills in South Africa. The latest Home Affairs Critical Skills List,...
SAHPRA comes under pressure over illegality of home testing
Rapid home tests for COVID antibodies are used widely in the UK, the US and many European countries, as they are cheap, easy to...
KZN Health’s turnaround plan labelled an ‘attack on lives’
A cost-cutting plan drawn up by the financially struggling KZN Department of Health has been criticised by the SA Medical Association (SAMA), labour parties,...
SAHPRA approves Chinese COVID vaccine Sinopharm for use in SA
The SA Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has registered Chinese COVID-19 vaccine Sinopharm, effectively clearing the way for its use in the country.
In a...
Gauteng Health fails to pay full January salaries to dozens of doctors
Despite working long hours and over the 80-hour overtime limit for the month, dozens of doctors working for Gauteng Health did not receive their...
New penalties for those who refuse to be vaccinated
The negative implications of being unvaccinated are manifesting in unexpected ways, writes MedicalBrief. In the US, a patient has been refused a heart transplant...
UK government backs down on mandatory Covid vaccinations for NHS staff
A contentious legal requirement for frontline NHS workers in England to be fully vaccinated against COVID by 1 April, and to have their first...
CGE retracts on COVID vaccine's supposed effect on women’s reproductive health
In an about-turn, the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has withdrawn its statement that COVID-19 vaccines have an impact on women’s reproductive health, following...