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COVID-19 transmission — An absence of data
Professor Robin Wood is conducting internationally ground-breaking research into infectious disease transmission at the Aerobiology and TB Research Unit, University of Cape Town, an...
Coronavirus chaos: BBC goes inside SA's 'hospitals of horrors’
An exclusive, weeks-long investigation inside filthy hospitals in South Africa has exposed an extraordinary array of systemic failures showing exhausted doctors and nurses overwhelmed...
UK safety review damns interventions that ruined women's lives
Britain's Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review has published a two-year review of "harrowing" evidence three medical interventions: a pregnancy testing drug, an...
In finite health systems, it's all about setting priorities
No health system can afford everything that may be demanded of it, making priority-setting arguably the most significant and challenging health policy issue, writes Prof...
Could the debate over SA’s alcohol sales ban have a subtext you’re missing?
No, South Africa’s alcohol ban wasn’t the only thing that helped lower hospital trauma admissions recently, but it did play a substantial role, write...
High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in African populations
A research reviewed of all published studies that assessed the vitamin D status of healthy populations in Africa found that the average prevalence of...
Health officials in bitter new clash with medical professionals
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown stark divisions between medical professionals, on the one side, and bureaucrats and politicians on the other, writes MedicalBrief. Following...
PFAS exposure associated with early menopause
A study of 1,120 midlife women in a 17-year-long prospective cohort study found that women with high PFAS levels in their blood reached menopause...
MRC drops 'impulsive and high-handed' investigation into Prof Gray
The SA Medical Research Council (MRC) has abandoned what the Academy of Science of SA described as an “impulsive and high-handed” investigation into Prof...
Counting the cost of COVID-19 for SA medical schemes
The financial health of SA medical schemes during COVID-19 looks positive for 2020 but could deteriorate next year due to a ‘significant’ rise in costs, with...
Medical experts rebel over SA's 'nonsensical' lockdown strategy
The South African government is coming under strong criticism from medical experts on its own ministerial advisory committee (MAC), who say the present lockdown...
Lockdown must go or else non-coronavirus mortality will outstrip COVID-19 deaths
While the lockdown bought some time to bolster health resources, it has is now setting up South Africa for even greater mortality from non-COVID...
Novel way to treat snakebite
Snakebite is one of the world's biggest hidden health problems with up to 138,000 victims dying every year, and around 400,000 victims left with...
Scientists 'deeply divided' over how UK should leave lockdown
The Sage committee of scientists advising the UK government has been split by “heated arguments” over how the country should leave lockdown. The Daily...
Webinar series spotlighting Covid-19 issues and research
Starting next week, MedicalBrief, partnering with Discovery and the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation (DTHF) in conjunction with the SA Medical Association, the SA Private Practitioners Forum and the Unity Forum for...
R440m fraternal Cuban Brigade 'won't take SA jobs'
Health Minister Zweli Mkhize says the deployment of Cuban doctors — apparently costing the South African government R440m — would not take jobs away from SA doctors and...
Men pose a significantly higher risk to other road users than women
Men pose more risk to other UK road users than women do and they are more likely to drive more dangerous vehicles, reveals the...
Ethnicity as a factor in vulnerability to COVID-19
The head of the British Medical Association wants the an urgent investigation into the possible greater vulnerability of black, Asian and minority ethnic...
Infectious disease expert on the great COVID-19 mask debate — Wear them
Protection for medics must be a priority in the COVID-19 pandemic, says Professor Robin Wood, a global expert on the aerobiology of infectious disease...
SA lockdown necessary but more testing crucial — UCT's Professor Robin Wood
It is easy to throw stones at idiosyncratic bits of South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown programme, but it was the right move, said the University...
The Imperial College London study that overnight changed UK govt's COVID-19 strategy
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveiled much more stringent measures to tackle the coronavirus outbreak after new research indicated a quarter of a million...
World in lockdown as global infections exceed 200,000
Emergencies were declared in SA and Australia while the EU sealed its borders and infections surfaced in every state in the USA, writes MedicalBrief. In the UK, a chilling modelling...
SA hospitals will struggle to cope with a likely exponential infection rate
In just over a week, the number of South Africans who have contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus has gone from one to 16, to 116....
Older people not being considered in national and global planning on COVID-19
The largest numbers of deaths will occur among older people in low and middle-income countries, yet the global response neglects this group, write researchers...
South Korea and Italy are contrasting case studies in dealing with pandemic
In Italy, millions are locked down and more than 1,000 people have died from the coronavirus. In South Korea, hit by the disease at...
Strategic approach to COVID-19: Making sense of the 'knowns unknowns'
For a government's strategic planners, what is not known is as important as what is known, when it comes to thinking about the coronavirus,...
Italy shows that draconian quarantine measures don't work in the West
Quarantine in China is a world away from the less-absolute and rather haphazard measures of Italy, writes The Telegraph columnist Ross Clark.
Clark writes...
Health Department outlines SA's preparedness for COVID-19
On Wednesday, 26 February Spotlight and Daily Maverick report that they sent a combined list of 22 questions about South Africa’s state of preparedness...
Budget 'protects' NHI from cuts but Treasury hints at implementation delay
The National Health Insurance (NHI) is protected from government-wide budget cuts, according to the National Treasury. But there is also a hint in the...
The word from within the Wuhan lockdown
Wang Xiuying, a self-proclaimed pessimist who’s trying to self-quarantine in Wuhan, describes in London Review of Books how misinformation and disinformation dominates lives in...
Soft drink taxation, advertising and labelling laws significantly impact behaviour
Laws affecting the labelling, marketing and taxation of sugary soft drinks impact the behaviour of both consumers and manufacturers, according to separate studies from...
Misinformation making coronavirus fight 'even harder’ — WHO head
World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says that misinformation is "making the work of our heroic workers even harder". "I would also...
Surgical masks, airport screenings and 'involuntary quarantine' – what works and what doesn't
Public use of surgical masks, airport screenings, and so-called "involuntary quarantine” — forced isolation — are all being used to try to contain the...
Africa becomes WHO priority in fight against fast-spreading coronavirus
The likelihood of a coronavirus outbreak in Africa was “very, very high”, the World Health Organisation warns, as cases of the respiratory illness...
Anti-FGM movement gains ground in Sierra Leone, where 9/10 women are 'cut'
About 700 traditional ‘cutters’ in Sierra Leone have pledged to abandon and advocate against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is still not illegal in...
WHO 'between a rock and a hard place' over coronavirus
Before the World Health Organisation dares declare a the coronavirus a global emergency, it must weigh scientific imperatives against China's political sensitivities, writes MedicalBrief.
Most...
Warning on sustained transmission of 2019-nCoV outbreak – WHO
The World Health Organisation warns of 'possible evidence' of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China spreading, writes MedicalBrief. UK scientists say that official totals...
The 8 issues that will define SA healthcare in 2020
2020 will be a critically important year for healthcare in South Africa, writes Spotlight. It has formulated eight questions to set out what is...
Vaping may increase risk of chronic respiratory disease
A recent outbreak of deadly lung illnesses linked to vaping has put the practice in health professionals’ and regulators’ crosshairs, says a Scientific American...
Vitamin E acetate closely associated with product use-associated lung injury (EVALI)
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), state and local health departments, and other clinical...