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Public Health
Gauteng Health fails to vet thousands of childcare staff
The Gauteng Department of Health has not vetted nearly 40 000 staff who work with children, raising serious concerns about child safety and patient...
NICD finds two polio virus strains in Cape wastewater
The Department of Health has said there is no need to panic after the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) detected two polio virus...
NHLS flounders as Health Departments owe R11bn
The total collapse of the National Health Laboratory Service appears imminent if provincial Health Departments owing it nearly R11bn don’t pay their high outstanding...
KZN Health to investigate Pietermaritzburg hospital allegations
A complaint lodged with the South African Human Rights Commission has prompted action from the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health, which has now launched an...
More than 200 KZN ambulances in the sick bay
Nearly half of the entire fleet of KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health ambulances is sitting in workshops awaiting repairs, with diagnostic delays, inflated parts replacement costs...
Reusable catheters safe and shave millions from budget – UK study
Reusable catheters could not only slash hospital costs but are just as safe for patients as single-use ones and don’t increase the risk of...
Respectful maternity care can save South African lives – Lancet
A recent study led by the SA Medical Research Council and UKZN and published in The Lancet Regional Health – Africa, found that improving...
Demand for new HIV jab outstrips supply in African rollout
Demand for the twice-yearly HIV prevention injection lenacapavir is outpacing supply in parts of Africa, with distribution covering a fraction of estimated need and...
LEN jab launch date announced
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has said that the breakthrough long-acting HIV prevention injection Lenacapavir will be available at selected health facilities from 5 June,...
Injection of R65bn for Budget will boost SA’s healthcare
The national Department of Health will revitalise and expand its priorities after being allocated R64.8bn for the 2026/27 financial year, said Health Minister Aaron...
Illegal medicine sales rife amid drug abuse in Eastern Cape
Concern is growing over the cheap and easily available schedule 2 products at many outlets, including spaza shops, in the Eastern Cape – with...
More delays with Grey’s Hospital HVAC repairs
Despite operating theatres at Pietermaritzburg’s Grey’s Hospital having battled with malfunctioning air-conditioners for years, the KZN Department of Health has never declared the repair...
Municipality unable to account for millions paid by hospital
Questions have been raised and a forensic probe launched after more than R17m, apparently paid by Pietermaritzburg’s Northdale Hospital to the Msunduzi municipality for...
Illegal sexual enhancement jabs flagged after organ failure
An alert has been issued by Gauteng Health about the increasing use of unregulated injectable substances marketed for body enhancement and sexual performance, after...
US state sues AI firm over chatbot posing as doctors
The American state of Pennsylvania has sued the artificial intelligence company behind Character.AI to stop its chatbot from posing as doctors, reports Reuters.
Governor Josh...
Water crisis overwhelms Kalafong Hospital
Five days of no water supply at an Atteridgeville hospital took their toll on patients, staff and visitors last week, where not just the...
Patients prefer AI chatbot consult to GP visits – UK study
In startling findings, a UK study has found that one in seven people will use AI chatbots for health advice instead of seeing their...
SA’s ARV programme stagnates in 2025 – new Thembisa estimates
The number of South Africans on antiretroviral treatment remained roughly unchanged from 2024 to 2025, according to new estimates, suggesting that the disruption of...
Doctors divided as US moves towards new anti-depressants policy
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s stance on anti-depressants and his suggested policy changes have been criticised by some medical experts, who have...
Why South Africa’s boys should also get the HPV vaccine
South Africa’s 2026-2030 strategy, which will soon be launched, aims to get girls vaccinated from the age of nine against HPV before they turn...
How SA team homed in on hantavirus
South African scientists’ extraordinarily fast and accurate diagnosis of the rare hantavirus cases in the recent outbreak deserves credit, and did the country proud,...
Judge sets aside tender for untested circumcision device
The award of a tender for an unproven circumcision device used in 40 provincial health districts and the military has been deemed unlawful by...
MEC orders turnaround plan after Wentworth Hospital visit
While an unannounced late night visit to Durban’s Wentworth Hospital by KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane was welcomed by the nursing union, it was...
Call for action over high suicide rate among SA men
In South Africa, men comprise almost 80% of all recorded suicides in the country – the second leading cause of death for people between...
Unique Cape Town centre focuses on youngsters with kidney disease
Young people with kidney disease in South Africa often fall into the gap between the paediatric and adult healthcare systems, but an innovative clinic...
Malaria mortality slashed in African children after vaccine
WHO’s approval of the RTS,S/AS01 (Mosquirix) malaria vaccine in 2021 was a milestone in global public health, representing not only the first vaccine approved...
Global Fund to cut SA’s grant by 25% in two years – in eight years it will be gone
South Africa has less than eight years before one of the most important sources of funding for its HIV and TB programmes falls away,...
SA experts baffled by drop in teen pregnancies
Contrary to the norm, the most recent statistics show that teenage pregnancies in the country are reversing their usual trend and actually dropping, leaving...
UCT launches pioneering Liver Centre
The launch of a ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary liver centre, pioneered by clinicians at the University of Cape Town, represents a new dawn for patients suffering...
Ambulance crisis worsens TB burden in rural Eastern Cape – report
The scarcity of ambulances in rural areas continues to compromise patient care, particularly those with TB, reports IOL, with the Rural Health Advocacy Project...
Red Cross Children’s Hospital celebrates 70 years
The first and only stand-alone tertiary hospital in sub-Saharan Africa dedicated entirely to child healthcare, the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape...
Apology after women filmed carrying water buckets in wards
A video of mothers lugging buckets of water through an Eastern Cape Hospital ward has prompted an apology from the Department of Health after...
Kennedy stalls $600m in jabs for poor countries
US Health & Human Sciences Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s push to remake the US vaccination schedule is on hold after a federal judge’s...
Action urged for sickle cell disease in Nigeria, across Africa
The growing burden of sickle cell disease in Nigeria – and across sub-Saharan Africa – has prompted calls by health professionals and researchers for...
CDC flags rise in drug-resistant Shigella
Extensively drug-resistant Shigella – the mostly sexually-transmitted bacterium that causes infectious diarrhoea – is on the rise in the United States, reports Healio.
The latest...
Diabetes dashboard a step forward for SA
The establishment of South Africa’s national diabetes dashboard signals a major step forward in tackling one of the country’s leading causes of death, writes...
South Africa’s giant pain problem
Millions of South Africans suffer from chronic pain, but experts say the country is doing “a terrible job” of managing it, writes Sean Christie...
Southern Africa inches ahead in war against drug-resistant malaria
As malaria cases nudge their way upwards on the continent, and while the cunning parasite evolves to evade detection and conquer drugs used to...
Mystery illness in Burundi kills five
At least five people have died in Burundi, and another three dozen become ill from unexplained causes, reports CIDRAP News.
The case-fatality rate of 14%...
The down side of cheap sex pills
Seeking a quick boost to enhance sexual performance is not that uncommon, but experts warn that cheap unapproved black market products, taken without medical...