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Talking Points
'Sanitisation theatre': Not only pointless but gives a false sense of security
People are engaged in a frenzy of disinfecting anything and everything they touch, despite science telling us that surface cleaning to prevent COVID-19 is...
Only 10% of medical treatments are backed by high quality evidence
Only one in ten medical treatments are supported by high-quality evidence, the latest research shows, writes Jeremy Howick, director of the Oxford Empathy Programme, University...
Former Australian PM: Allow elderly COVID-19 patients to die
Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister called for an end to "virus hysteria" in a speech to a UK policy think-tank, saying that some...
Peru: Brutal lockdown but world's highest excess deaths
Peru remains in the grips of what may be the most intense COVID-19 outbreak in the world. Officially, there have been more than 28,000...
How the world might come to terms with COVID-19
COVID-19 is not going away soon, but a STAT News analysis suggests four possible scenarios on how the world might adapt to it.
As the...
Fact check: US claims that COVID-19 is lower risk for kids than flu
Claims by a US state governor that in terms of risk to school kids, the coronavirus is lower risk than seasonal influenza are adjudged...
Yale professor criticised by peers over advocacy of hydroxychloroquine
A Yale epidemiologist has been caught in a furore over his "ardent advocacy" for the use of hydroxychloroquine, in combination with the azithromycin, to treat...
Remdesivir: Cheap to make and highly effective but still not available in SA
Remdesivir has been shown to slash COVID-19 recovery times by more than a quarter and is cheap to make, writes Bhekisisa. But will it...
COVID-19 exposes Zimbabwe's heart-rending health crisis
Years of neglect and doctors' and nurses' strikes have pushed the Zimbabwean health system to the brink. Munyaradzi Makoni writes in The Lancet that...
Air travel: Calculating the risk of catching COVID-19 on a plane
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis tries to quantify the risk of catching COVID-19 from flying.
If you decide to fly, the odds that you will...
Many doctors have inept colleagues they wouldn't allow to treat their own families
Every year medical schools graduate as doctors to treat the wider public, one or two students whom they know, in their hearts, they wouldn't...
New UK guidance: Acupuncture rather than drugs for chronic pain
There have been some raised eyebrows at the UK medical guidelines body's draft guidelines on the management of chronic pain punting acupuncture, despite what the...
For seniors, life will never be the same again
Because of modern medicine, baby boomers were set to be the longest living generation ever, writes Bruce Horovitz for Kaiser Health News. Then came...
Africa has yet to experience worst of pandemic — Report
COVID-19 mortality in Africa has been significantly lower than elsewhere, but the worst is yet to come and will set the continent back several...
ConCourt set aside gynaecologist's conviction and sentence on irregularities only
The Constitutional Court's decision last week to set aside the conviction and sentence of Dr Danie van der Walt, an obstetrician and gynaecologist jailed...
Countries led by women coped better with COVID-19 pandemic
A 35-nation study found that countries headed by women leaders had six-fold fewer deaths from COVID-19 compared to those with male leadership.
A thought-provoking study...
US may pay heavy price for being 'an accidental Sweden'
In early summer, parts of the United States began following a very similar path to that taken by Sweden in dealing with COVID-19, writes...
SA's lessons from Aids activism can foster COVID-19 behavioural change
The struggle for AIDS treatment in South Africa laid the foundation for relatively widespread citizen trust in science and expertise. We should build on...
Maybe Sweden was right with its 'mad experiment'
It is possible that Sweden was right all along with what critics described as a "mad experiment" that would lead to catastrophe, writes Christopher...
EC controversy over motorbike ambulances and clinics
Are they "glorified wheelbarrows" or an "extremely innovative" solution to providing health services in the remotest parts of the Eastern Cape?
Controversy has been swirling...
“Dismissive” GPs warned to wake up or lose women patients
Lady Julia Cumberlege, chair of a damning inquiry into a series of British medical scandals around female health matters, urged women to dump their...
SA traditional medicine researchers examine Madagascar's 'cure' for COVID-19
South Africa's Higher Education, Science and Innovation Department has reassigned R15m from existing indigenous knowledge projects to support COVID-19 interventions, including the herb touted by...
India's healthcare system on brink of collapse
Indian public hospitals were already severely short of 600,000 doctors and 2m nurses, compounded by over half of the 1.2m registered doctors being quacks...
Anti-tobacco activists now thwart vaping 'health revolution'
Many of the activists who fought against the deceptions of Big Tobacco, are the same ones who have thwarted the nascent health revolution of...
UK health experts assess the wisdom of 15-weeks' hard lockdown
British health experts assess whether the 15-weeks of lockdown hardship was worth it and, in retrospect, what should have been done.
The coronavirus pandemic has...
In finite health systems, it's all about setting priorities
No health system can afford everything that may be demanded of it, making priority-setting arguably the most significant and challenging health policy issue, writes Prof...
COVID must frame new conversation on SA tobacco regulation
The murky political history of the cigarette offers a vantage point to locate current debates on the cigarette sale ban in South Africa under...
COVID-19 drives a new African brain drain in medicine
Western countries are luring African medical professionals and healthcare workers to migrate as they seek to bridge the gap in medical personnel created by...
Rather ban alcohol than cigarettes — MRC’s Madhi
From a scientific perspective, there wasn't much merit in preventing the sale of cigarettes – there was more harm in allowing people to buy...
SA's lockdown alcohol ban assessed
The two-month ban on the sale of liquor brought SA’s alcohol sector to its knees, writes Katharine Child in the Financial Mail. But some...
Pakistan black market in blood plasma for COVID-19
As coronavirus chaos has enveloped Pakistan, with hospitals overflowing, doctors dying and infections escalating at an unmanageable rate, The Guardian reports that a dangerous...
UK's new rules: No communal dancing nor screaming on rollercoasters
No "communal dancing", singing or laughing. No screaming on rollercoasters or making a cuppa for the plumber. The UK's new post-lockdown rules change daily...
COVID-19 vaccine trials must overcome 'deep mistrust' to include black people
Calethia Hodges has an arduous task: persuade black people who have a deep mistrust of experimental drugs and medical institutions to participate in clinical...
Balancing PPE-use obligations and workers' religious objections
COVID-19 has brought to the fore the rights of an employer to insist on the wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE) despite religious objections,...
Medical scheme patients and the scramble for COVID beds
When COVID-19 beds are in short supply, will medical members be able to jump the queue? Tamar Kahn addresses the “uncomfortable question” in a Business...
COVID-19 and vitamin D: SA experts say evidence is scant
Some Northern hemisphere studies have suggested there may be a link between people’s vitamin D levels and COVID-19 outcomes, but, Spotlight reports, leading local...
UK response to coronavirus a great policy failure – The Lancet editor
Richard Horton, editor of the internationally respected journal The Lancet, does not hold back in his criticism of the United Kingdom’s response to the pandemic...
WHO retracts yet another 'misunderstood' statement
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is once again walking back one of its controversial statements, this time surrounding asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus,...
Govt must stop the fake news and let smokers decide…
In its delayed High Court affidavit the government claims medical evidence vindicates its lockdown ban on tobacco, despite “bizarrely strong” evidence in favour of...
Medical experts demand official inquiry into UK's 'dire' response to pandemic
In an open letter, 27 leading medical figures in Britain have warned of a second wave of coronavirus that will kill many more, “unless...