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Talking Points
Venomics: Developing new medicines out of ancient animal poisons
Efforts to tease apart the vast swarm of proteins in venom – a field called venomics – have burgeoned in recent years, leading to...
‘Rage and grief’ as children die of malnutrition, while govt punts NHI that’s likely to fail
It is “completely unacceptable” that the government is busy with the parliamentary processes around National Health Insurance, while children are dying and being hospitalised...
‘Bed blockers’ take up more space than COVID patients in England
The CEO of NHS Providers has revealed that some 20,000 'bed blockers' – medically fit patients ready to be discharged, but with nowhere to...
Too posh to push: Time to end damaging anti-Caesarean stigmas
Caesarean sections are not simply “failures” of vaginal births or a choice made out of cowardice, writes Kate Townshend in The Independent. Women’s reasons...
Why did it take 2 years for WHO to admit that COVID is airborne?
Initially, the World Health Organization stated that SARS-CoV-2 was not transmitted through the air. It took two years to correct its mistake and in...
Abuse of women by healthcare professions demands urgent intervention
For many, pregnancy is known to be an honoured, celebrated and hopeful time in a woman and familyʼs life. For example, for centuries, African...
HASA chief: Medical omissions from Critical Skills List ’incomprehensible’
Omitting medical professionals, including nurses, from the recently released National Critical Skills List is a huge mistake, and is needed to overcome a future...
South Korea’s lesson to the world on how to live with COVID
Despite an astonishing recent spike in infections of the Omicron variant, South Korea, once the flag-bearer for aggressive suppression of COVID-19, is easing restrictions,...
Natural birth obsession is a ‘tragedy’ for many mothers and their babies
While the majority of women in the UK say their births were positive experiences, too many have anguished memories of not being listened to...
The real State of Disaster is SA’s new COVID regulations – Scientists’ Collective
South Africa’s latest draft regulations on COVID-19 are “ill-conceived and misdirected” and “appear oblivious to the new realities of COVID-19, two years into a...
10th World Happiness Report – Global sadness and benevolence both increase
Global benevolence has increased, Finland is the happiest country in the world (and Afghanistan the least happy), while sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America are...
How death is handled in SA’s health facilities
There is nothing humans can do about the fact that everyone dies eventually, but there may be room to do better when it comes...
Global forum condemns attempt to gag SA scientists over Ukraine invasion
The South African government’s instruction to scientists at public entities not to comment on the Russia-Ukraine war has caused national and international concern, including...
Madhi: Dump global plan to vaccinate 70% against COVID
When it comes to vaccinating people in middle- and lower-income countries against COVID-19, it’s time for a serious re-think, Prof Shabir Madhi, Dean of...
Dysfunctional provincial health departments make a mockery of the ‘capable state’
One of the great paradoxes in healthcare in South Africa is that, while we have many impressive healthcare experts in the country, most of...
Why Omicron doesnʼt need its own custom COVID vaccine
In South Africa, where as many as 70% to 80% of the population has been infected, and 40% vaccinated, it’s possible many people now...
Crisp: DoH wants ‘less passivity’ from govt departments over vaccinations
While the national Department of Health had not “de-prioritised” the vaccination program, some government departments were “more passive than we’d like”, acting Director-General Nicholas...
Medical school admissions: ‘SAMA slaps on a bandage while avoiding the wound’
The fall-out from comments on CapeTalk by former SA Medical Association chair Dr Angelique Coetzee about medical school entrance requirements has confounded many, writes...
NYT article on prenatal DNA testing full of ‘blunders and inaccuracies’
An article in The New York Times that focused on the supposedly flawed nature of prenatal DNA testing was full of inaccuracies, writes Ellen...
Tembisa 10: Evidence remains absent, questions unanswered
Last year South Africans briefly celebrated a Guinness World Record birth, when 10 babies were supposedly born to Gosiame Sithole at Tembisa Hospital. Journalist...
Antarctic find fuels theory of accidental COVID leak from research lab
The controversial theory that COVID-19 accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory was given fresh momentum after scientists studying soil samples in Antarctica stumbled upon...
Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine: Did nationalism cost the lives of hundreds of thousands?
Sidelined in the European Union, never approved in the United States, dumped by South Africa, and now barely used in the United Kingdom, the...
Super poo: The emerging science of stool transplants and designer gut bacteria
As more people turn to faecal transplants for their health benefits, researchers are harnessing the power of high-quality poo in new treatments that can...
South African government’s new pragmatism over COVID restrictions
The South African government’s recent easing of its COVID regulations mark a significant departure in the way forward, a pragmatic approach that balances the...
International sport and COVID restrictions: The Novak Djokovic saga
The saga around tennis ace Novak Djokovic attempts to defend his title in the Australian Open highlights the thorny issue of reconciling strict national...
Science under attack in UK for ‘apocalyptic’ COVID-19 claims
Top scientists have come under attack in the United Kingdom for “apocalyptic” COVID-19 claims and “dodgy data” that The Telegraph says have undermined faith...
South Africa’s fixation on Western science worsened its COVID crisis
Now, and in the past, “following the science” on COVID-19 has landed South Africa in trouble. This is not an indictment of science, but...
Lessels says KZN sequencing team was in a Catch-22 situation
Dr Richard Lessels, of the now-globally famous KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform (KRISP), whose genome sequencing team alerted the world to the now-rampant...
Africa now has the shots but is struggling to administer them
After initially struggling to get vaccine supplies because of hoarding by the developed nations, the problem for Africa is now one of logistics and...
China cements medical partnerships, donates a billion vaccines
President Xi Jinping has announced that China will provide one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa. Only 7% – about 96 million – of...
Vaccine rollout: SA government has made three mistakes
The South African government has made three critical mistakes in its rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, write University of Cape Town’s Prof Nicoli Nattrass and...
Omicron: Some simple steps to deal with the new variant
Rather than outrage over travel bans, the South African government should concentrate on executing a short list of Do’s and Don’ts to deal with...
DoH’s ‘reckless’ failure to place junior doctors aggravates medical emigration
The Junior Doctors Association of SA says that foreign medical recruiters are actively recruiting South African doctors for Ireland, Canada and Australia, and the...
COVID head-scratcher: Why are head lice thriving despite physical distancing?
In theory, lice are harder to spread than the SARS-CoV-2 virus because proximity alone isnʼt enough, writes Kaiser Health News. Yet, in the US,...
From Sydney to Vienna: Restricting the unvaccinated underclass
Across the world a new crackdown is gaining pace, write The Telegraph and The New York Times. It's not about mask wearing or universal restrictions...
Spotlight investigation: Gqeberha patients must endure soiled linen
While the provision of clean linen is a widespread problem in Nelson Mandela Bay hospitals, at Livingstone Hospital it’s reached “nightmare” proportions, with patients...
Religion squeezes out medicine as Taliban take control of Afghan hospitals
In the face of medical staff work unpaid, as well as critical shortages of medicine, fuel and food, the Taliban-appointed supervisor of small district...
16 years and R2.1bn later, Kimberley Mental Health Hospital remains barely used
After 16-years under construction and R2.bn in costs, the Kimberley Mental Health Hospital, described by the Northern Cape premier as “a monument to corruption”...
100% COVID vaccination rate is possible without coercion or incentives
The Indian district of Raigarh (population 1.6m) has achieved 100% first-dose vaccination of all eligible citizens, without financial incentives or a governmental mandate, writes...
As COVAX disappoints, developing countries turn to home-grown jabs
Low- and middle-income countries are turning to home-grown vaccinations against COVID-19 as the UN-backed COVAX facility fails to deliver, reports SciDev.Net.
From Egypt to Brazil,...