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New NICD chief hits the ground running
In his first month as new executive director of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases – he started on 1 May – Professor Nazir...
Indigenous shrub shows promise for cancer cure
A South African plant may hold the secret to treating cancers that no longer respond to conventional chemotherapy, suggest North-West University researchers, who are...
Life Healthcare boss flags perils of cost-over-quality options
Occupational health standards are waning due to “inexperienced” new players, Life Healthcare CEO Peter Wharton-Hood told Business Day last week, warning that companies are...
Pharmacy council tackles pharmacist shortage
The South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) has started a process to review the Pharmacy Human Resources Plan for South Africa and tackle shortcomings, including...
HPCSA probes Wits medical programme
Wits University has defended a specialist training programme after a complaint from a trainee doctor, saying it meets national accreditation requirements but conceding that...
Call for justice after forced sterilisations
Government has been slammed for its prevarication and failure to assist the HIV-positive victims of forced and coerced sterilisation, reports The Citizen.
Local NGO Her...
South Africa forges ahead with tech-driven strategy to fight diseases
A new era of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technological and breakthrough innovations will help the country fight HIV, TB and cervical cancer, said...
Medical school bottleneck pushes students overseas
The competition to gain medical school acceptance in South Africa is so fierce that even top-performing matriculants won’t necessarily get in and are being...
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...
Biovac clinches R5.3bn state vaccine contract
The Biovac Institute has retained a critical three-year contract to supply South Africa with Hexaxim, the six-in-one shot provided to babies and toddlers in...
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...
The woman behind the roll-out of LEN in South Africa
At 18, Pietermaritzburg-born Hasina Subedar was attacked by a man who tried to kill her, losing two fingers and very nearly her life. Afterwards,...
Health data warning for SA employers
South African employers have been warned to tighten up their management of staff health and medical records, in the light of new Protection of...
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...
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...
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...
SA surgeon performs Africa’s first lymphatic bypass for Alzheimer’s
A Pretoria surgeon who this month carried out the continent’s first experimental lymphovenous bypass on an Alzheimer’s patient said there had been early signs...
Police boss suspended over controversial health tender
South African police chief General Fannie Masemola, who has denied any role in the controversial R360m health tender awarded to Vusi “Cat” Matlala’s company...
US cuts threaten SA’s LEN rollout – global report
The global Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has warned that South Africa’s planned rollout of HIV prevention shot lenacapavir (LEN) is being jeopardised by...
SA teen’s leg saved in pioneering surgery with liquid nitrogen
In a South African first, a Centurion surgeon has performed a hip and limb salvage procedure using a liquid nitrogen dipping technique, saving the...
Civil society unites to demand action on national diabetes crisis
Enough is enough, say 24 South African civil society organisations that have united to demand urgent, co-ordinated action on a disease that is now...
Mining giant and nuclear agency in cancer medicine quest
In an innovative partnership, the state-owned South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) has joined forces with Sibanye-Stillwater, the multinational mining and metals processing group, in...
Ballooning malpractice claims needs alternative approach
Escalating medical malpractice claims against the state – nearly R2bn in 2020/21 – risk collapsing the struggling public healthcare system, and alternatives to traditional...
Data investment key to effective delivery of NHI
Investing in data is arguably the most cost-effective investment South Africa can make to ensure that the NHI delivers equitable, efficient and sustainable healthcare,...
No cardiologists at Livingstone after contracts blunder
For nine critical days – from 1-9 April – Livingstone Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay had no cardiologists on duty due to an administrative blunder,...
DignitySA launches legal challenge for assisted dying
The non-profit organisation DignitySA filed an application in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) last week seeking to have the laws that criminalise medically assisted...
Dental accreditation stand-off impacts student training and graduates
Ongoing problems relating to the accreditation of dental students at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) remain unresolved, with the South African Dental...
Transgender patients in SA face 10-year state surgery clinic backlog
South Africa’s only state gender-affirming clinic provides surgery to just four patients a year, while receiving up to 10 new referrals a month –...
Activists push for menstrual Bill for free sanitary products
Civil society and social justice advocates are demanding that Parliament treat menstrual hygiene as a fundamental human right through the proposed Menstrual Health Rights...
South Africa’s smallest surviving baby beats all odds
The parents of a baby born in 2002 – weighing just 410g – were told by doctors it would be best to abort because...
Early days, but South Africans warm to GLP-1 drugs
South Africans are taking to GLP-1 weight loss drugs like ducks to water, with a recent study revealing that one in 20 people is...
Choice of new Health boss will test Ramaphosa’s commitment
When push comes to shove, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s talk of building a more capable state hasn’t always been backed up by the appointment of...
How the SAMRC weathered the funding storm
Cuts in United States funding for global health research have dealt a heavy blow to South Africa’s health research ecosystem, which has historically been...
Fed-up SA drugmakers want nominal medicine price rise justified
The national Department of Health has been asked to explain how it devised this year’s minimal 1.47% increase for private sector medicine sales, with...
Crucial that autism support reaches rural classrooms in SA
Children with autism do not struggle because they lack potential; they struggle when the world around them is not ready to understand how they communicate, play,...
Only 3% of South Africans using condoms as STIs rise
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are on the rise in South Africa, and while exact numbers are difficult to pinpoint, regional data paint a worrying...
Court allows amputation of child’s feet despite parental objection
A six-year-old who developed gangrene in both feet will undergo lower limb amputation after the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital obtained permission from...
Landmark South African study shows efficacy of HPV vaccination
A national HPV vaccination programme can be extremely effective in a high HIV-prevalence setting, a Wits-led research published in The Lancet Global Health shows...
Tackling the threat of asymptomatic TB in South Africa
Tuberculosis (TB) continues to spread in South Africa at alarming rates, possibly because some people may have the disease without TB symptoms and may...
Lessons learnt in the anti-HIV drug race as CAB-LA falls behind LEN
The two-monthly HIV prevention injection, cabotegravir (CAB-LA), was approved more than three years ago but never reached government clinics. Now, as the new and...