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Snakebite: 'The world's biggest hidden health crisis'
A crisis in the production of antivenoms is killing tens of thousands of people a year and, reports The Daily Telegraph, scientists are hoping...
Motsoaledi era: HIV/Aids success but public healthcare failures
The Motsoaledi years can broadly be judged on two fronts, the response to the HIV epidemic and the functioning of the public healthcare system...
SA's new health minister is the 'master of survival'
Dr Aaron Motsoaledi leaves the national Health Department after 10 years, with the last few years marred by major failures in public health, while...
Mapping the burden of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa
HIV/Aids remains the most common cause of death in the 47 nations of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) but with striking geographic variations in prevalence, shows...
Crowdfunding treatment — when survival is a popularity contest
It's increasingly popular to try to fund expensive medical treatments — or alternative therapies — by appealing online for donations. It can be a...
‘Profound’ growth in South Africa’s heroin market fuels drug crisis
James Mashakeni, 22, began smoking nyaope, a heroin-based narcotic, after a blowout fight with his dad nine years ago, writes Krista Mahr for the...
Opioid addiction crisis lawsuits target billionaire family and Purdue Pharma
Five states have sued super-rich members of the family that controls Purdue Pharma. Together they are accused of encouraging an opioid addiction epidemic that...
Marijuana’s decriminalisation in America and South Africa – Implications
Every year on 20 April marijuana advocates from Johannesburg to California celebrate cannabis culture, writes The Conversation. The publication ran a serious of articles...
Doctors and nurses abandon Romania for better paid EU jobs
Despite doubling salaries, Romania has lost 43,000 doctors and more than a fifth of its population since joining the European Union in 2007, reports...
May 8: Heavenly promises but the devil is in the details
Health-e News unpacks the health care promises of the major parties in the run-up to May 8's general election.
The ANC’s much-contested National Health Insurance (NHI)...
Venezuela health system in a state of 'utter collapse’ — Human Rights Watch
The UN is being urged to declare a full-scale humanitarian emergency in Venezuela in the light of the “utter collapse” of its health system...
The health benefits of democracy — 170-country study
Life expectancy improved more quickly in countries that switched to democracy over the past 50 years and there were fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease,...
SA's liberal abortion laws thwarted by social stigma
The SA health service offers free, legal abortions. So why, asks Voice of America, are more than half of abortions in the country illegal,...
Mind the gap: National disparities in age-related health problems
The age-related health problems of a 76-year-old in Japan and a 46-year-olds in Papua New Guinea have the same level as an ‘average’ person...
SA's sugar tax pits jobs against lifestyle diseases
As part of the Health Department's strategy to reduce obesity, SA in 2018 became the first country in Africa to introduce a sugar tax....
C-sections carry much higher mortality risk in Africa
The death rate among women undergoing a caesarean to deliver a baby is about 50 times higher in Africa than in most wealthy nations,...
The rights of foreign nationals in accessing SA healthcare
Directives recently issued by the national Health Department and Gauteng Health requiring foreign nationals to pay in full for healthcare at public facilities weren’t only...
Tough cannabis policies do not deter young people – Study
There is no evidence that tough policies deter young people from using cannabis, writes Mattha Busby for The Guardian. Analysing data about cannabis use...
Smokers misunderstand risks of smokeless tobacco product snus
American smokers mistakenly think that using snus – a moist snuff smokeless tobacco product popular in Scandinavia but newer to the United States – is...
Studies underestimate effects of alcohol consumption on younger people
Studies of the health effects of alcohol consumption may underestimate the risks of imbibing, particularly for younger people, according to a US study. This...
Truth telling about tobacco and nicotine in an e-cigarette era
Debate among public health professionals over approaches to tobacco and nicotine regulation has intensified with the rise of vaping. Researchers at the Pacific Institute for...
How safe are e-cigarettes? The debate continues
A clinical review from the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland recently summarised the latest evidence concerning the use of e-cigarettes, writes Dr Catharine Paddock...
Comprehensive study debunks, again, the MMR/autism link
A massive 13-year followup study of more than 650,000 children strongly supports previous findings that MMR vaccination does not increase the risk for autism,...
Teens may smoke less pot in states with medical marijuana laws
When medical marijuana becomes legal in a state, teenagers there may be slightly less likely to use the drug, Reuters Health reports a US...
The Lancet Commission on Obesity recommendations 'deeply problematic'
The Lancet Commission on Obesity, three years in the making, has just been released. It is an infringement of personal freedoms and based on...
Ticking boxes instead of actually doing something to save SA's ailing health system
This is an illness we have as a country: we convene summits, appoint task teams, create war rooms, and hold press conferences, but very...
Number of suicide deaths increased since 1990
The total number of deaths from suicide increased by 6.7% globally between 1990 and 2016 to 817,000 deaths in 2016, finds a study. However,...
NHS research shows HPV screening practical and more efficacious than cytology
Screening for high risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) infection works well in practice and is more sensitive than cytology (smear) testing – offering greater protection...
Is marijuana as safe as we think?
Permitting pot is one thing, promoting its use is another, writes Malcolm Gladwell for The New Yorker. Especially since a cloud of mystery surrounds cannabis – including...
What a breakthrough e-cigarette study illustrates about addiction
The first large, systematic study of whether e-cigarettes help people to quit smoking was published on 30 January in the New England Journal of Medicine,...
Delay in release of private health sector report 'bad news'
The release of a final report about the state of competition in South Africa’s private health sector has been delayed again, writes Wezile Chitha,...
Fake news and celebrity fads 'put lives at risk’ — joint editorial
The editors of more than two dozen cardiology-related scientific journals worldwide have published a joint editorial to sound the alarm that medical misinformation is...
Constant cravings – Is addiction on the rise?
Addiction was once viewed as an unsavoury fringe disease, tethered to substances with killer withdrawal symptoms, such as alcohol and opium. But now the...
Little international agreement over burning issue of vaping
Despite much debate in the United Kingdom and United States there is little agreement over how safe e-cigarettes are, write University of Edinburgh public health Professor Linda...
Nigeria isn’t doing enough to reduce tobacco use. Here’s why
Tobacco remains the biggest public health threat, killing more than seven million people globally every year. The World Health Organization has recognised progress in Nigeria,...
Speed up public health decisions on scabies by skipping full-body exams
In public health settings, limiting examination for scabies to the exposed components of both limbs had high sensitivity compared to full body examination, found...
Cosatu angered by delays and Health Dept divisions over NHI
The slow pace at which the government is moving on the National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill has drawn the ire of Cosatu, which plans...
NHI plans are ‘an act of desperation’ — DA
Plans by the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, to push ahead with the National Health Insurance are ‘an act of desperation ... doomed...
Exit of more than 8,000 Cuban doctors puts Brazil in a 'state of panic'
A rupture between Havana and Brazil's new far-right president-elect has triggered the immediate withdrawal of all the more than 8,000 doctors that were part...
When common sense and sound judgment go up in smoke
Government’s proposed anti-tobacco bill lacks any scientific assessment as an underlying principle of legislation, argues Tim Cohen, senior editor of Business Day. In a...