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Hepatitis E in pig-derived food products in Cape Town

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) can be found in pork-containing meat products available for sale in Cape Town, found a study in the SA Medical...

Point-of-care technology for early infant HIV diagnosis

Point-of-care testing for early infant HIV diagnosis is highly effective in reducing turnaround time for HIV test results, enabling earlier antiretroviral treatment initiation in...

Age and education effects on cognitive functioning in Coloured women

THIS STUDY HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN BY THE AUTHORS AND THE PUBLISHER, Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition. CLICK HERE FOR AN OUTLINE OF THE CONTROVERSY. The original article...

Do we need youth-friendly TB clinics?

Tuberculosis treatment programmes in Cape Town, South Africa, do not currently distinguish between adolescent and adult TB patients, and in so doing, may miss...

Ground-breaking research facility samples TB from breathed air

Part of the research at the University of Cape Town's new new Aerobiology TB Research Facility involves measuring the amount of air individuals exchange, which may range...

Lactose-free/reduced-carb formula does not help severely malnourished children

Treating hospitalised, severely malnourished children with a lactose-free, reduced-carbohydrate milk formula does not improve clinical outcomes, according to a multi-centre, double-blind trial in Kenya...

Combining HIV and schistosomiasis programmes

Testing and treatment programmes for HIV and schistosomiasis (also known as snail fever or bilharzia) could be profitably combined in settings with a high...

85% of Cameroonian respondents eat bush meat

A French study found that some 85% of questionnaire respondents in Cameroon had eaten primate meat, with the exposure risk to zoonotic disease in...

Novel SA technique in hydrocephalus assessment

A novel SA technique not only improves the accuracy of ultrasound in assessing hydrocephalus, by analysing the dynamic properties of the back of the...

A silent crisis: Hearing outcomes in children with meningitis

Less than a quarter of children diagnosed with bacterial meningitis at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital over an 18-month period were referred...

High cancer risk in Gauteng from OCP residues in fish

Organochlorine pesticides (OCP) residues in catfish along the Klip River in Gauteng pose an extremely high risk to human health when consumed, with a...

Researchers give official Life Esidimeni death toll

A study has determined the official death toll of the Life Esidimeni scandal is 131. The mortality rate among 1,442 mentally ill patients transferred...

Candidate vaccine significantly reduces pulmonary TB in trial

A candidate tuberculosis vaccine significantly reduced the incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in HIV-negative adults who were already infected with latent TB at the time...

New drug a breakthrough in treatment of haemophilia

The HAVEN 3 study, led by a University of the Witwatersrand researcher, found that emicizumab prophylaxis (trade name: Hemlibra) administered subcutaneously once weekly or...

Higher levels of natural killer cells associated with latent TB

Higher levels of natural killer cells in blood are associated with tuberculosis (TB) latency, reports a University of Cape Town study in collaboration with...

Close to 50% of SA's injecting drug users living with hepatitis C

Close to half of injecting drug users surveyed in South Africa are living with the potentially deadly hepatitis C virus, a study has found....

Ethiopian trial finds trachoma not eliminated by mass antibiotic prophylaxis

Continuous mass distribution of azithromycin in northern Ethiopia, where the childhood eye infection trachoma is a major cause of blindness, is effective in preventing...

Study shows extent of PTSD problem among SA's sex workers

A University of the Witwatersrand study of sex workers in Soweto shows two-thirds of suffer depression, 6% showed symptoms for post-traumatic distress disorder (PTSD),...

Encouraging results from South African TB vaccination trial

An innovative clinical trial conducted by the University of Cape Town-based SA Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative and the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation provides encouraging new evidence that...

Striking rise in infective endocarditis caused by nyaope use

A study at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Johannesburg documents the common clinical and echocardiographic characteristics of patients with infective endocarditis related to a striking...

British colonial law linked to higher HIV rates among women in SSA

The likelihood that a woman in sub-Saharan Africa has HIV today is linked to whether her country was once colonised by Britain or a...

Loss of lay counsellors leads to sharp fall in HIV testing

The withdrawal of lay counsellors from primary health clinics in KwaZulu-Natal led to a sharp fall in the number of people taking an HIV...

SA med students becoming more open to legalising euthanasia

More than half of medical students at Stellenbosch University feel the practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) should be legalised in South Africa,...

Warning of birth defect risk to women receiving dolutegravir in early pregnancy

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a safety alert warning patients and providers about a potential risk for neural tube birth...

Warnings of significant contamination of hair clippers used for 'chiskop'

Two recent studies conducted by the University of Cape Town have found significant contamination of hair clippers with blood and blood-borne viruses, especially hepatitis...

MVA85A vaccine effective in infants borne to HIV-positive parents

The University of Cape Town (UCT) and international researchers are hopeful that infants born to HIV-positive parents could in future not be dependent on...

Rats detect TB in children better than basic microscopy test

Rats are able to detect whether a child has tuberculosis (TB) and are much more successful at doing this than a commonly used basic...

Cape Town Metro clinics ignoring guidelines on antibiotics

Clinics are ignoring guidelines on prescribing antibiotics more than half of the time‚ a study has found. And almost one in five people who...

Stellenbosch has role in developing simple blood test to predict TB development

Stellenbosch University (SU) researchers are part of an international consortium that developed a simple blood test that can predict the development of tuberculosis (TB)...

Largest ever study on impact of TB and HIV interventions on sub-Saharan African TB burden

The impact of a combined TB and HIV intervention in tackling tuberculosis when delivered to the entire population of 14 urban, high prevalence communities...

Promising family of silver-based anti-cancer drugs discovered

A new family of 'very promising' silver-based anti-cancer drugs has been discovered by researchers in South Africa. The most promising silver thiocyanate phosphine complex among...

SA clinical trial finds TB vaccine well tolerated

Researchers at the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) and Aeras...

Young rural SA women more vulnerable to STIs than young men

Young women in rural SA were more than twice as likely as young men to be infected with chlamydia and nearly twice as likely...

Innovative 'invisible ink' successfully detects TB

University of Witwatersrand scientists and international researchers have pioneered an innovative process to detect TB bacteria by adding a molecule to the bacteria’s own...

First evidence of what most attracts the mosquitos that carry dengue and chikungunya

The first evidence from a University of Nairobi study of how chemical compounds found in body odour can be used to develop effective mosquito...

Measles vaccine improves child survival beyond protecting against measles

In the largest study to date on children in a low/middle income country, researchers from the Navrongo Health Research Centre, Ghana, OPEN, Institute of...

Meta-analysis of STI prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa

Prevalence of curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs)– chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and trichomoniasis – among women aged 15 to 24 exceeds that of older women...

Encouraging results from SA TB vaccine trial

Scientists from the University of Cape Town-based South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) and the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation have announced that they will...

Despite HIV risk, withdrawing Depo-Provera could increase maternal mortality

Even if Depo-Provera and other contraceptive injections raise the risk of HIV infection, withdrawing them from use in African countries would greatly increase maternal...

Low-cost jaundice detector passes first trial in Africa

BiliSpec a low-cost, battery-powered reader designed to diagnose jaundice by immediately quantifying serum bilirubin levels from a small drop of whole blood, has successfully...