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News Update
NHS to use genetic analysis to match more cancer patients to clinical trials
In a significant breakthrough, thousands of NHS cancer patients, who have exhausted all other options, are being offered liquid biopsy blood tests to match...
Donations plea to fund Groote Schuur’s 6,000 surgery patients’ backlog
A Surgery Recovery Project has been launched by Groote Schuur Hospital in partnership with humanitarian group Gift of the Givers to raise R10m to...
Landmark CCMA decision on dismissal of employee refusing vaccination
In what appears to be a landmark decision, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has ruled that a company’s decision to fire...
Accepting the virus: Europe under pressure to shift its COVID-19 strategy
The European Union is under pressure from some member countries like Spain and Portugal – as well as from growing population resistance to onerous...
Most State of Disaster restrictions 'unfit for purpose', say SA's top health experts
End all curfews, school and outdoor activity restrictions, and do away compulsory mask-wearing outdoors. And stop the “hygiene theatre” at many workplaces, venues and...
Only one paediatric ICU in UK is fully staffed with specialist nurses – PICANet report
The UK’s paediatric intensive care units (PICU) that are struggling with severe shortages of specialist nurses, with only one PICU in the entire country...
Latest CDC COVID-19 travel risk list: South Africa more dangerous than Zim and Mozambique
The US Centres For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued its updated list of COVID-19 Travel Recommendations by Destinations. South Africa is on the...
Soon-Shiong launches new vaccine manufacturing plant in SA
President Cyril Ramaphosa has given weight to the policy of vaccine self-reliance in SA and Africa broadly with the launch of the NantSA vaccine...
Strict new vaccine law and hefty penalties approved by French government
Franceʼs parliament approved a law on Sunday (16 January) that will exclude unvaccinated people from all restaurants, sports arenas and other venues, in government...
Warnings of ‘catastrophe’ as 80,000 unvaccinated NHS workers face dismissal
More than 80,000 unvaccinated “patient-facing” staff —about 6% of the NHS’s workforce — face dismissal at the end of March if not vaccinated by...
Monthly fines for unvaccinated over-60 Greeks
Greece has imposed a vaccine mandate for people 60 and older as a spike in infections exerts pressure on local hospitals, where most of...
Ethiopia pulls support for Ghebreyesus for second WHO term
Ethiopia’s government has said it will not support the re-election of Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus for his second term as DG of the World Health...
WHO condemns attacks on Sudanese doctors and medical staff
Dozens of Sudanese doctors have demonstrated in Khartoum, protesting attacks by security forces against medical personnel and doctors during pro-democracy rallies opposed to the...
Home testing is ‘single most powerful tool' in reducing COVID transmission’
Mass home use of self-administered lateral flow tests have been “the single most powerful tool in reducing transmission of the virus,” says Prof Irene...
University protests loom as students reject mandatory vaccines
Student protests could be on the card for Wits University, with the Student Representative Council (SRC) remaining adamant that the mandatory vaccine policy violates...
Africa CDC says stringent lockdown no longer a tool to contain COVID-19
Despite global opinion that COVID-19 could become endemic, particularly on this continent, Africa’s top public health official said last Thursday (6 January) that severe...
Trainee doctors in Eastern Cape petition for jobs
A number of junior doctors, who have completed their studies and community service in the Eastern Cape, have sent a petition to the SA...
UK vaccination committee says 4th booster not necessary
British government advisers have recommended against giving a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents and people over 80 because data show...
DoH warns of chaos if calls to end State of Disaster are heeded
With the end of South Africa’s current national State of Disaster due in a few days, a number of scientists and politicians have called...
Bed shortage has patients sleeping on floors at Northdale Hospital, PMB
Patients are being given medical treatment and having drips administered while on benches, in wheelchairs and on the floor at Maritzburg’s Northdale Hospital, which...
Patient, nurses, attacked at Mediclinic Brits by man wielding drip stand
A patient has been left traumatised, dependent on sleeping pills, after she and three nurses were attacked by another patient wielding his drip stand.
Hazel...
New Year ushers in flurona — a rare and potentially deadly double infection of flu and COVID
In the first week of 2022, the first case of flurona, a rare new double infection of coronavirus and influenza, was diagnosed in a...
France detects new variant in traveller from Cameroon
A new COVID-19 variant has been detected in a traveller who returned to France from Cameroon, the hospital IHU Mediterrannee in Marseille announced, reports...
Madhi lashes DoH and calls for end to State of Disaster
Prominent vaccinologist and an infectious diseases expert Prof Shabir Madhi has called for and end to the State of Disaster and the disbanding of...
SIU investigation into Cuban doctor training programme
The Cuban Doctor Training Programme is being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) following a Department of Health internal audit, Health Minister Dr...
Zimbabwe wants compensation for brain drain of nurses and doctors
Zimbabwe is approaching the United Nations and aid agencies to discuss possible compensation as it faces a brain drain in its heath sector, with...
Thousands of unvaccinated South Africans believe vaccines harmful
A study by the University of Cape Town has revealed that at least a quarter of South Africans who have not been vaccinated against...
New radiotherapy machines in storage while Gauteng patients are turned away
While thousands of cancer patients await treatment from public hospitals in Gauteng, and increasing numbers of them are being turned away at overwhelmed facilities,...
Zuma’s medical parole unlawful and he must be returned to custody — High Court
UPDATED
The Gauteng High Court late yesterday (15 December) ruled that the decision of Arthur Fraser, the former National Commissioner of Correctional Services to release...
Pathology labs slash ‘exorbitant’ PCR test charges after Competition Commission intervention
Following the intervention of the Competition Commission, the top three private pathology laboratories have cut the price of gold-standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR tests) ...
SAMA: Compensation Fund changes will cause doctors to cease treatment
In a survey of its members, the SA Medical Association (SAMA) said 76% of those who work with people injured at work will stop...
China offers 300,000 free vaccine jabs to SANDF troops
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which over the past year has made vaccine donations to militaries in 28 countries, has offered 300,000 free doses...
Court application to challenge constitutionality of ‘certificate of need’
The controversial “certificate of need”, in terms of which healthcare practitioners will have to apply to the State for approval regarding where they may...
SA life insurers: Doubling in death claims since COVID-19 started
South Africaʼs biggest life insurers received 22,544 mortality claims against fully underwritten life policies in the 19 months after the start of the first...
Top SA cop investigating PPE fraud killed by poison, not COVID
A case of murder has been opened after the death of Lieutenant-General Sindile Mfazi, whom police sources confirmed didn't die of COVID-19, as previously...
Nigeria to destroy a million expired COVID-19 vaccines
Nigeria will destroy around 1m expired COVID-19 vaccines, Faisal Shuaib, head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said on Monday (13...
EU provides €100m for COVID-19 training in 12 African countries
A dozen African countries have been thrown a lifeline after the European Union (EU), through the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), availed a...
Schoub: More SA children get COVID, but 'not a priority to vaccinate them'
As the cases of COVID-19 positive children continue to grow during the fourth wave, questions are being raised as to why they appear to...
SA’S trans community panics over Pfizer's testosterone hormone therapy shortage
THE transgender community is facing a dire shortage of testosterone hormone therapy treatment and fear many could resort to the black market. The shortage...
‘Outraged’ SAMA threatens court action over placement of almost 5,000 junior doctors
The SA Medical Association (SAMA) is considering going to court to compel the government to finalise placement of junior doctors for internship and community...