Talking Points
Zimbabwe plays political roulette with vaccines
July 28th, 2021 Despite a failing COVID-19 programme forcing the Zimbabwean government to allow private hospitals and clinics in infection hotspots to vaccinate, it insists the country will not accept Western vaccines, writes MedicalBrief. Thandeikile Moyo...
The long and painful road to the Life Esidimeni inquest
July 21st, 2021 On Monday an inquest began into the deaths of 144 mental health patients after they were discharged from Life Esidimeni into communities more than five years ago. Julia Chaskalson, Tendai Mafuma and Mbali Baduza of SECTION27 write in Spotlight that...
Asia’s COVID tsunami threatens to engulf the Olympic Games
July 21st, 2021 Once envied for their ability to contain the spread of COVID-19, many Asian countries are now battling new strains of the coronavirus and case numbers are rising, reports MedicalBrief. On the eve of the Olympic Games, Tokyo is in a state of...
The long, slow collapse of South Africa’s top hospitals
July 14th, 2021 Professor Daynia Ballot, head of Clinical Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand, has three decades of experience working in hospitals in Gauteng. Writing in The Conversation, she charts the slow collapse of hospitals during this time for...
Ivermectin is not a ‘miracle drug’ against COVID. Vaccines are
July 7th, 2021 Ivermectin may well prove to be useful in the battle against COVID-19 but it’s no “miracle drug”, write Claire Berlinski and Yuri Deigin in Quillette. We already have those. They’re called vaccines. Berlinski and Deigin write: Bret...
Fourfold more US soldiers commit suicide than die in combat
June 30th, 2021 Since 9/11, four times as many United States service members and veterans have died by suicide than have been killed in combat, reports NBC News. The research, compiled by the Costs of War Project at Brown University, found an estimated 30,177...
Benefits of mix-and-match approach to COVID-19 vaccines
June 30th, 2021 There are a number of potential advantages to a mix-and-match approach to vaccination against COVID-19, writes Maureen Ferran, Associate Professor of Biology at Rochester Institute of Technology, in The Conversation. Ferran writes: While...
Obesity paradox gets new support – Ventilator-associated pneumonia study
June 23rd, 2021 Against expectations, French researchers have found obese hospitalised patients were at no greater risk for ventilator-associated pneumonia than those of normal weight, writes John Gever for MedPage Today. The case supports the ‘obesity...
COVID jabs for billions of humans will earn their makers billions of dollars
June 23rd, 2021 Drug-makers led by United States firms Pfizer and Moderna stand to make tens of billions of dollars from their COVID-19 vaccines this year and next, given G7 governments’ pledge to vaccinate the entire world by the end of 2022, writes Julia...
COVID-19 in children: No room for complacency
June 16th, 2021 The most probable outcome of COVID-19 in children is, a complete and uncomplicated recovery. But the calculus of risk changes drastically when considered from a public health lens, especially with considerations unique to children. Edward...
Health tourism by Africa's leaders costs their countries dearly
June 2nd, 2021 Many of Africa's leaders have neglected the health care needs of their people, while selfishly finding treatment for themselves and their families abroad, writes Olusegun Akinfenwa in Immigration News. Akinfenwa writes: The right to health is...
HPCSA''s presentation on medical schemes’ role in NHI was 'incoherent'
May 26th, 2021 The presentation by the Health Professions Council of SA’s Professor Mbulaheni Nemutandani before last week's Health Portfolio Committee, in which the HPCSA called for the confiscation of R90bn in medical scheme assets, was so astounding that it...
The WHO and tobacco policy – A seven-point reform agenda
May 26th, 2021 The tobacco policies and actions of the World Health Organization are in urgent need of reform, if the United Nations’ global health agency is to help reduce tobacco related deaths, argues British tobacco harm reduction consultant Clive Bates in...
What really happened in the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital fire
May 19th, 2021 When the Charlotte Maxeke fire caused the evacuation of 700 patients and the destruction of an estimated R40m in hospital supplies, Gauteng Health denied reports that the hospital did not meet fire regulations. A Spotlight investigation tells a...
Keep a particularly hot spot in Hell for health tenderpreneurs
May 19th, 2021 State looting has been disastrous for South Africa in many ways, both practical and philosophical, writes William Saunderson-Meyer in the Jaundiced Eye column. But there should be a particularly hot spot in Hell for those who plunder the funds meant...