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Weekly Roundup
Call by SANDF and Mediclinic for health- and non-health care volunteers
A nationwide call is being made for health and non-health-care professionals to volunteer their services in the fight against COVID-19. According to a Cape...
UK intends to up COVID-19 testing to 100,000 per day by end April
The UK will test 100,000 people per day for coronavirus by the end of this month, CNN reports UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced....
Spain's COVID-19 numbers possibly worse than reported
With funeral services overwhelmed by Spain’s coronavirus crisis, army vehicles transport the dead from hospitals in Madrid to three emergency morgues around the capital...
Medicines regulator warns against unapproved COVID-19 blood tests
South Africa’s medicines regulator has warned the public not to use rapid blood tests for COVID-19, saying they are potentially inaccurate and may fail...
Financial sector regulator rebukes insurers over 'essential services' nurses
Since life insurers operate within the financial sector, they are considered an essential service during the 21-day lockdown. This means South Africans can still...
Botswana declares state of emergency after COVID-19 cases confirmed
Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi declared a state of emergency from midnight on 2 April until further notice after the country reported its first three...
Provinces hoping to give chronic patients 3-4 months' supply of medicines
Four provinces – Gauteng, the North West, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal – have made positive moves to announce that patients on chronic medicines...
Health Dept's massive screening and mobile-clinic drive
Ten thousand field workers being deployed on a “huge scale” to screen people and families for COVID-19 symptoms will be accompanied by police and...
Some private hospitals allowing elective surgery
While hospitals across the world have banned all non-urgent, elective surgeries in the face of the coronavirus crisis – two of South Africa’s largest...
India: Doctors and frontline healthcare workers targeted as panic spreads
As the global coronavirus pandemic worsens by the day, fear is swelling in India – and frontline medical workers are bearing the brunt of...
67 heart deaths at UK hospital linked to 'significant shortcomings’ — report
The deaths of 67 heart-surgery patients in the UK have been linked to a hospital's “significant shortcomings”. The Daily Telegraph reports that the recently...
Netcare CEO warns that three-week lockdown may not be enough
Private hospital group Netcare says the three-week lockdown initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa might not be long enough to achieve the government’s aim of...
Gauteng Health cancels all elective surgeries
All elective surgeries have been cancelled and separate areas for patients with flu-like symptoms are to be identified at Gauteng Health facilities. The Times...
Medical schemes and hospital groups outline their COVID-19 policies
As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rises every day in South Africa, and the likelihood of more internal transmissions escalates, many people are...
EC Health destroying tonnes of expired medicines
Eastern Cape Health is destroying tonnes of expired medicines and other medical supplies piled up in clinics and depots after they were not distributed...
Safety concerns hamper the UK's NHS recruitment drive to deal with COVID-19
A massive UK National Health Service recruitment drive to help contain the COVID-19 pandemic risks being undermined by the prospect of doctors quitting over...
Wits launches SA COVID-19 Dashboard
The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has launched a website that presents the latest statistics on the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)...
Financial impact of COVID-19 will be felt by SA's private hospital groups in 6 months
South Africa's private hospital groups have had to act fast to deal with the coronavirus outbreak and its impact will likely show up on...
Denosa threatens to go to CCMA over state's failure to increase nursing salaries
The Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) has threatened to take the government to the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) if it...
IBM opens high-powered computer network to researchers worldwide to fight COVID-19
IBM says it is working closely with governments across the globe to put its technology and expertise to work, in efforts to help scientific...
Businessmen selling potential COVID-19 treatment marooned in SA
An antiviral pill, which has been found "to shorten COVID-19 infections by up to a week", is being sold to governments around the world...
Hawks uncover R113m fraud at National Health Laboratory Service
Fraud and theft to the tune of millions from the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) in Gauteng have been uncovered in a Hawks investigation...
Free State premier unhappy with slow pace of clinic and hospital renovations
Free State premier says that the province was “disappointed” with the slow pace of construction work on three hospitals and five clinics, reports Health-e...
Union complaint about the handling of possibly contaminated linen
Six bags of soiled and possibly coronavirus-contaminated linen at Durban’s Addington Hospital became the subject of concern when staff were allegedly instructed to handle...
Africa's first 'stigma free' Queer Wellness Centre opens in Johannesburg
LGBTI+ South Africans said the continent's first Queer Wellness Centre, which opened last week, would spare gay and transgender people the shame, rejection and...
Public comment invited: SABS' releases draft ethics guideline for traditional healers
A technical committee of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) has entered the public-inquiry phase of drafting an ethics guideline for traditional healers...
Continual testing for South Africans returning from Wuhan
The process to repatriate 122 South Africans living in Wuhan, China – the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak – was triggered on Tuesday night,...
KZN Health responds to media reports that patients with organ failure 'being turned away'
Due to the complex nature of certain ailments, clinicians often had to make difficult, but important, decisions that might be difficult for patients and...
Optimism that the DRC is winning battle against Ebola
After years of battling one of the most deadly Ebola virus outbreaks in the world in the Democratic Republic of Congo, second only to...
Doctor who saw SA's first confirmed coronavirus patient back at work
The doctor of a private practice in Hilton, in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, who saw South Africa's first confirmed coronavirus patient says she is as...
Charlotte Maxeke's 2 new accelerators will cut cancer treatment waiting times
Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH) procured two linear accelerator machines which will decrease the waiting time for cancer patients, the Gauteng Health is...
KZN Health to discipline National Health Lab employee for panic-inducing COVID-19 message
KwaZulu-Natal Health will discipline an employee of the National Health Laboratory Service for creating and distributing misleading information about the COVID-19. Polity reports that...
SIU gets National Health Lab official's pension pay-out halted
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has obtained a court order halting the pension pay-out of a former head of the National Health Laboratory Service...
Fake COVID-19 vaccine sellers arrested in Uganda
Police in Mayuge district of Uganda have arrested a father and daughter for selling fake drugs, which they claimed were vaccines for the coronavirus....
StatsSA report shows high percentage of unwanted pregnancies in older women
A higher percentage of older women in South Africa had babies when they hadn't planned to. News24 reports that this is according to the...
SA's obesity epidemic puts a strain on stretched health budget — World Obesity Fund report
South Africa’s obesity epidemic shows no sign of slowing and is likely to affect almost half the country’s women and almost a quarter of...
6 new Gauteng hospitals likely to be at double the cost and building time — DA
The announcement of six new Gauteng hospitals to be built in the next decade at a cost of about R9bn has been welcomed by...
Limpopo Health MEC lambastes hijacking of ambulance for spare parts
Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba has lambasted criminals who hijacked an ambulance, allegedly for parts, and robbed the crew of their cellphones in...
Public Health Institute Bill sent to Ramaphosa for signature
The 2017 National Public Health Institute of South Africa’s “D” version has been sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa for signature, reports Pam Saxby for...
13 Canadian healthcare workers held in Ethiopia for 'improperly practising medicine'
Authorities in Ethiopia have detained 13 Canadian healthcare workers and volunteers, alleging the group were improperly practising medicine in the country. The Guardian reports...