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Weekly Roundup
Gauteng Health pays community service workers
The Gauteng Health Department is assuring the public that the services of community health workers are not going to be terminated. The Citizen reports...
Judgment reserved in HPCSA's appeal against Noakes verdict
Following the conclusion of an appeal by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) against the not guilty verdict in favour of Professor...
Health Department pursues a ban on alcohol advertising
The National Health Department is pursuing a ban on alcohol advertising in the controversial Liquor Amendment Bill now with the Cabinet. Business Day reports...
EC Health changes its approach to botched circumcisions
A change in approach by the Eastern Cape Health Department will see the victims of botched circumcisions performed at initiation schools soon offered surgery...
Budget doesn’t address SA's crumbling health system — activists
The budget tabled in Parliament last week, does not address a crumbling health system, some civic organisations have warned. Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba announced...
CDC votes in favour of LAIV flu vaccine use
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory committee on immunisation practices (ACIP) has voted in favour of renewing the recommendation for...
Japanese Health Ministry approves new flu killing drug
Japan's Health Ministry has approved a new drug that reportedly can kill influenza types A and B in as little as 1 day among...
PrEP Summit: It's time to stop accepting the status quo
The biggest barrier to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) becoming more available and more widely used is not cost so much as widespread acceptance of...
430 EC school children to hospital after food poisoning
A food poisoning outbreak at an Eastern Cape school has seen 430 pupils rushed to hospital. The Times reports that last week, an additional...
Authorities scramble to contain West African Lassa fever outbreak
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports it is teaming up with national and international health agencies to tackle what appears to be the largest...
Rural communities left by the wayside in community service allocations
Discrimination towards rural communities in health service delivery persists. This is one of the key findings from the Annual CSO Allocation Update ‘ACUTE’, a...
SAMA reacts to alleged rape at Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital
The South African Medical Association (SAMA) has expressed shock at the alleged rape of a patient by a doctor at the Dr Yusuf Dadoo...
EC hospital clerk arrested for allegedly stealing ARVs
An Eastern Cape hospital clerk has been arrested after being found in possession of stolen antiretrovirals (ARVs), reports News24 report. Eastern Cape Health Department...
Final countdown to 'pharmaceutical industry's Y2K'
The private healthcare industry is gearing up for a coding structure change that is to come into effect from 1 March 2018, whereby the...
Latest accreditations from Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa
The healthcare facilities listed in the table below have been awarded accreditation by The Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa (COHSASA), a...
NGO fingered as Durban beach medical waste culprit
An NGO called TB HIV Care, working with drug addicts, has been identified as the main source of the multiple used needles and drug...
Gauteng Health suspends doctor accused of sexual assault
Gauteng MEC for Health, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa has reacted with shock to an alleged sexual assault against a patient by a sessional doctor based...
FDA approves AstraZeneca's immunotherapy drug for lung cancer
AstraZeneca’s immunotherapy drug Imfinzi has won crucial approval from US regulators for use in lung cancer, opening up a multibillion-dollar market for a medicine...
SA regulator prioritises registration of generic medicines
Speeding up the registration of generic medicines was the top priority for the freshly minted South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra). Business Day...
Malawi struggling to contain cholera outbreak
A cholera outbreak in Malawi described as "very difficult to contain" has claimed nine lives and affected a total of 541 people nationwide, health...
Ramaphosa reaffirms commitment to NHI
The long-awaited National Health Insurance (NHI) Bill is before a cabinet subcommittee, a vital step before it can be signed off by the full...
High-level WHO commission to fight NCDs
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced a new high-level commission, comprised of heads of state and ministers, leaders in health and development and...
Eastern Cape paramedics robbed while attending to patient
Two paramedics had their belongings stolen while attending to a patient in Port Elizabeth, an emergency services spokesperson is quoted in a News24 report...
4 bogus doctors arrested in Mahikeng
Four bogus doctors have been arrested in Mahikeng after they were found offering abortion services yet they could not produce proof that they were...
UK denies severe epileptic a medical cannabis licence
A six-year-old boy in the UK, whose rare form of epilepsy dramatically improved after using cannabis, has been denied a request for a medical...
Manual capturing of patient data in Eastern Cape criticised
The manual capturing of patient data in public hospitals has once again come under fire, after an East London man accused Cecilia Makiwane Hospital...
US flu outbreaks worsens and is likely to linger – CDC
One of the worst flu outbreaks in the US in nearly a decade worsened last week and will likely linger for several weeks, causing...
SA-born doctor and billionaire buys Los Angeles Times
South African-born media entrepreneur, doctor and billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong has signed, what is reportedly, a close to $500m (R6bn) deal with Tronc Inc to...
Police in Pakistan arrest spinal fluid thieves
Police in Pakistan have arrested four suspected members of a gang accused of tapping a 17-year-old girl’s spinal fluid without her knowledge and selling...
200 evacuated patients return to Cape Town hospital after fire
More than 200 patients evacuated from a Cape Town hospital after a fire broke out on Saturday have been given the green light to...
FDA approves new single tablet ARV from Gilead but ViiV Healthcare sues
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Biktarvy, Gilead Sciences' new single tablet antiretroviral regimen containing the HIV integrase inhibitor bictegravir, which...
China joins SA's MRC to establish genomic sequencing facility
The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) are cementing their partnership to establish the African continent’s first genomic...
SA has higher suicide mortality that most of Africa – IRR
The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (Sadag) is highlighting Teen Suicide Prevention Week (11-18 February) to help parents, teachers and loved ones with...
UK introduces HPV vaccine programme for gay and bisexual men
The UK has finally taken a step forward to better protecting the nation’s health through the introduction of a potentially life-saving Human Papilloma Virus...
Over 5m treated by Gauteng Health in 2017
A total of over 5m patients visited various Gauteng health facilities from the first quarter of the 2017/18 financial year to the third quarter...
Passage of Malawi HIV and AIDS Act welcomed
Activists and civil society organisations from Malawi and across southern Africa applaud the government of Malawi for showing leadership in its HIV response and...
Celebrities join the fight against malaria
Malaria is preventable and costs less than a cup of tea to treat. Yet South Africa continues to battle with a high incidence of...
Focus on blessers driving HIV — Right to Care
Right to Care, an HIV/Aids not-for-profit organisation has, during reproductive health month, called on South African healthcare workers to actively implement and support strategies...
Fake doctor could have infected 33 with HIV in India
Indian officials are investigating claims that a fake doctor in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has infected at least 33 people with HIV...
The 2017/17 District Health Barometer: Taking the pulse of SA healthcare:
Less than 7% of all hospital births were to teen mothers in 2016/17, according to the District Health Barometer, and the cure rate for...