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US life expectancy drops due to rise in working-age mortality — National Academy report
Increasing mortality rates among the working-age in the US since 2010 have been mainly driven by drug- and alcohol-related deaths, suicide, and cardiometabolic conditions...
Madhi's plea to government: Don't waste the AstraZeneca vaccine
Professor Shabir Madhi, eminent Medical Research Council vaccinologist and principal investigator in the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine trial locally, has urged the Health Department not to...
South Africa's AstraZeneca vaccine now on 'half-price' sale
The muddled acquisition AstraZeneca vaccine from India, found on delivery to have an April expiry date and not the normal six-month one, continues, writes...
Obesity, excess body fat may kill more in England and Scotland than smoking
Obesity and excess body fat may have contributed to more deaths in England and Scotland than smoking since 2014, according to University of Glasgow...
Wide ethnic minority health inequalities in England — GP Patient Survey data
England’s most extensive ever study of ethnic minority health in the over-55s has revealed substantial inequalities across most groups, compared with white British people....
SA needs 'all hands on deck' to avoid vaccine chaos — Scientists' Collective
For South Africans to get their lives back, they need vaccines by winter and herd immunity against COVID-19, says a Scientists’ Collective of 15...
Medical scheme resistance to ‘unfair’ vaccine funding model grows
The Department of Health’s funding model for South Africa's vaccination roll-out is “inherently unfair, unethical and illegal”, Profmed CEO Craig Comrie told MedicalBrief in...
Growing anger over SA government's vaccine 'fiasco'
South African medical scientists, joined by activist groups, health workers and opposition parties, have slammed the government and its Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) over...
Medical xenophobia and discrimination widespread in Gauteng health care
Medical xenophobia is widespread among South African health workers — especially nurses — in Gauteng health facilities, reports MedicalBrief. A University of the Witwatersrand...
AIDS battles hold valuable lessons for managing COVID-19
World AIDS Day this year found us deep amid another pandemic – COVID-19 – writes Prof Linda-Gail Bekker of the University of Cape Town...
Preterm birth a strong predictor of ill health throughout childhood — 1m-child NHS study
Preterm birth is a strong predictor of ill health throughout childhood, up to age 10, even among children born at 38 and 39 weeks...
Fauci wants a global rollout of America's 'right on schedule’ vaccines
Top global infectious diseases scientist and US presidential adviser Dr Anthony Fauci told doctors in South Africa during a PPS-sponsored webinar that it should...
COVID-19: Airlines and medical experts differ over risk of flying
Airlines suffered a COVID-19 setback this week when an expert rejected safety conclusions they drew from his research, writes MedicalBrief. But while numerous studies...
Sibling death markedly higher in low-and-middle-income African countries
In multiple sub-Saharan countries more than half of women reported having lost at least one sibling before the age of 25, found a large...
Mkhize culls his critics in order to 'strengthen' the MACs
All the most outspoken medical scientists serving on the South African government's Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) on COVID-19 who found themselves at public odds with government actions...
Healthy living – chiefly, not smoking – extends life for people with multi-morbidities
A large United Kingdom analysis covering a 10-year period found that regardless of multi-morbidities, engaging in a healthier lifestyle was associated with up to...
Lockdown's terrible damage to South African healthcare
While South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown may have saved 16,000 lives by end December, its profound impairment of general healthcare meant slashed access to drugs...
Expert estimates of SA's pandemic deaths plummet again
Expert estimates of South African COVID-19 mortality continue to plummet, with the Actuarial Society of SA (Assa) this week slashing by almost in half an earlier...
FDA commissioner 'overstated' benefits of convalescent plasma
US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn has apologised for overstating the life-saving benefits of treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma. Earlier, in...
Malaria resurgence linked to decreased bio-efficacy of long-lasting insecticidal nets
Malaria resurgence in Papua New Guinea has been tied to apparent problems in the manufacture of long-lasting insecticidal nets.
Research shows that insecticide-treated mosquito nets,...
Ramaphosa scrambles to staunch anger over medical relief corruption
President Cyril Ramaphosa's administration is scrambling to deal with a wave of national outrage over evidence of billions of rands of corruption and looting...
Corruption feeding frenzy involving R2.2bn of pandemic relief funds
More than R2.2bn of emergency COVID-19 funds have been stolen in a corruption feeding frenzy, the news embarrassingly emerging just as the International Monetary...
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...