Juta MedicalBrief

South Africa has less than eight years before one of the most important sources of funding for its HIV and TB programmes falls away, so it's critical that the government accelerates its action plans, particularly when it comes to key populations, writes Ida Jooste for Bhekisisa. In allocation letters sent in March to the countries it funds, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria said its final grant to South Africa will be in the next funding cycle, grant cycle 9, which runs from April 2031 to March 2034. The fund gives countries grants for three years at a...

The South African Health Department has said there is no need for the public to panic after three passengers died from the rodent-borne hantavirus aboard a cruise ship, while another three have since been airlifted from the liner and one is critically ill in a local hospital, reports TimesLIVE. Authorities have confirmed the outbreak involves the Andes strain, which can be spread from person to people – as a new case was confirmed in a Swiss passenger who had disembarked from the ship before news of the outbreak. Three passengers were medically evacuated yesterday (Wednesday), one of whom is apparently the...

Contrary to the norm, the most recent statistics show that teenage pregnancies in the country are reversing their usual trend and actually dropping, leaving experts puzzled, reports Bhekisisa. When public health researcher Peter Barron and his team sat down to update their 2022 analysis, which had found birth rates among teenagers climbing year on year in every province, they expected a straightforward exercise. Instead, the researchers were left scratching their heads. The rates of births by girls aged 10 to 19 declined every year, in every province, reversing the worrying trend their 2022 work showed. Dramatically. The study, published in the South African Medical...

A Pietermaritzburg-born doctor and professional bodybuilder appeared in a Polokwane court this week on charges of assaulting his second wife – after being convicted of abusing his first wife four years ago, reports News24. Dr Aadil Khan was arrested on 27 March when his current wife opened a case of domestic violence. She said she was relieved when he was denied bail as she was terrified of him. Khan was serving an 18-month sentence of correctional supervision, including house arrest, after he entered into a plea agreement with the state for a 2025 conviction involving his first wife, Melissa Lea Symonds,...

The DA has called for intervention in the SA Military Health Service Regular Force Medical Continuation Fund (SAMHS) which faces imminent collapse, threatening the healthcare cover of around 36 000 military veterans and pensioners. While Defence & Military Veterans Minister Angie Motshekga told a parliamentary questioner that the SAMHS continues to deliver services, the DA alleges otherwise, reports DefenceWeb. The veterans’ medical needs are the responsibility of the Regular Force Medical Continuation Fund (RFMCF), which historically formed part of the broader conditions of military service, providing post-retirement medical support, primarily through SAMHS, to qualifying members. The fund is a medical pension type...

SAHPRA has clarified last week’s notification on phenylephrine contained in oral cold and flu treatments in which it asked for consumer input, saying its call for patients to report side effects was intended more broadly and not aimed solely at these products, reports Business Day. “Phenylephrine-containing products in cold and flu medicine used as oral tablets or syrups are not cause for concern for quality and safety,” said chief regulator officer Tammy Gopal, adding that SAHPRA’s concern at this point related to the efficacy of phenylephrine in these products. Its scrutiny of the compound comes in the wake of a 2024...

The launch of a ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary liver centre, pioneered by clinicians at the University of Cape Town, represents a new dawn for patients suffering from liver disease in South Africa, reports UCT News. Established jointly at Groote Schuur Hospital, UCT Private Academic Hospital in Cape Town and Netcare Greenacres Hospital in Gqeberha, the facility leverages various disciplines in medicine – including hepatobiliary surgery, hepatology, gastroenterology, oncology and interventional radiology – to bring patients integrated, state-of-the-art care in a single, collaborative framework. Pioneered by UCT’s Division of Radiology in partnership with the Division of General Surgery and the Division of Hepatology, the...

The scarcity of ambulances in rural areas continues to compromise patient care, particularly those with TB, reports IOL, with the Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP) urging improved policies and strategies to tackle the issue that it says is compounded by inaccessible roads, among other problems. The project’s latest policy brief on TB in rural regions revealed that while patients in the Eastern Cape face significant barriers to reaching clinics because of the bad roads, the problem is worsened by the scarcity of suitable ambulances. The Eastern Cape has a shortage of 32% of ambulances, while other provinces, like North West, face...

An investigation has been launched into major stock shortages at Uitenhage Hospital, with questions being asked about why the problem was not flagged earlier, reports The Herald. In response to a parliamentary question from EFF MP Noluvuyo Tafeni, who also asked who was responsible for ensuring essential items remained in stock, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said an inquiry would be initiated to determine why early warning systems failed to prevent the shortages. Motsoaledi said multiple levels of management are accountable for stock control, but that the CEO had been placed on precautionary transfer while the various allegations were being investigated, including...

The first and only stand-alone tertiary hospital in sub-Saharan Africa dedicated entirely to child healthcare, the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, will celebrate 70 years of caring by launching a R70m fundraising event, reports News24. Driven by the Children’s Hospital Trust, the event aims to secure the future of the next seven decades. The facility has led the way in paediatric healthcare in South Africa and beyond since 1956 through medical innovation, improving children’s health, and providing care for generations of youngsters and families. The hospital said the occasion was a moment to reflect on a remarkable legacy...

A video of mothers lugging buckets of water through an Eastern Cape Hospital ward has prompted an apology from the Department of Health after outraged reactions on social media, reports News24. The footage was from Settlers Hospital in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) during a power outage, where the women’s children were patients, but according to the department, patient care was not compromised because the facility had its own backup water supply. The hospital has reportedly been without municipal water for days, and NPO Grahamstown Deserves Better has demanded accountability and a full investigation, warning of “unacceptable risk” to patients. “Settlers Hospital cannot guarantee...

Popular toothpaste Sensodyne is no longer allowed to claim it is the “No. 1 dentist-recommended toothpaste”, unless it has a prominent qualifier – this after a legal tussle with US company Colgate-Palmolive in South Africa, reports Business Day. Last year, the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) dismissed complaints by Colgate against Sensodyne’s toothpaste range adverts. The brand is owned by British group Haleon. Although Colgate objected to a number of Sensodyne claims, including those about cavity protection, the ARB found these claims were adequately substantiated, so Colgate then turned to the ARB’s Advertising Appeals Committee to focus on one claim specifically: “No.1...

The tentative August 2025 opening date for the fourth SA Military Health Service (SAMHS) hospital in Gqeberha has come and gone, and although the new medical care facility was declared “fit for use” the previous April, it remains in a phased approach to opening, reports DefenceWeb. This was the official SAMHS line on when the still unnamed hospital (originally due to open in 2022) will be fully in service as well as bed and ward numbers, along with staffing levels and specific medical services available. In response to a DefenceWeb inquiry, the Department of Public Works & Infrastructure (DPWI) Eastern Cape...

US Health & Human Sciences Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s push to remake the US vaccination schedule is on hold after a federal judge’s decision last month, but he’s still wielding his power to affect which shots are received by children in poor countries, reports POLITICO. Kennedy says the children are getting obsolete shots with dangerous ingredients that America has long since phased out, and is stubbornly holding up $600m Congress appropriated for the vaccines to pressure Gavi, the international humanitarian group that distributes them. “Gavi has refused to provide the United States with the specific data, studies, or detailed accounting...

Late last year Zimbabwe rejected the United States’ “trade for aid” terms for a health assistance deal, and now Ghana has done the same, also turning down US terms for bilateral health assistance, particularly the requirement to share sensitive health data, reports Health Policy Watch. Zimbabwe’s refusal, notably, related to the demand to share pathogen data without any “corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations – such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments – that might result from that shared data”, according to government spokesperson Nick Mangwana. And in Zambia, the government had until 30 April to decide on whether to...

The KZN Department of Health has responded to a Durban mother who questioned why her daughter was discharged from Wentworth Hospital’s emergency unit with just Panado for her severe pain, reports IOL. “Shame on you, Wentworth Hospital,” she had posted on Facebook, saying her daughter was writhing in agony outside the facility. The department said that patient assessments and treatment decisions were based on clinical evaluation and protocols, and that the matter would be reviewed to establish the full facts. Spokesperson Agiza Hlongwane said if a patient was unhappy with the level of assistance they are receiving, “they don’t have to leave...

The growing burden of sickle cell disease in Nigeria – and across sub-Saharan Africa – has prompted calls by health professionals and researchers for urgent, co-ordinated action, reports Punch. Nigeria has one of the highest rates, globally, of the disease, with about 150 000 born annually with the condition, delegates heard last week at the Centre of Excellence for Sickle Cell Disease Research and Training (CESRTA) and the Patient-Centred Sickle Cell Disease Management in Sub-Saharan Africa Consortium (PACTS) meeting, held at the University of Abuja – now known as Yakubu Gowon University. The PACTS programme is a collaboration funded by the UK’s...

Extensively drug-resistant Shigella – the mostly sexually-transmitted bacterium that causes infectious diarrhoea – is on the rise in the United States, reports Healio. The latest data from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) found that among nearly 17 000 Shigella isolates submitted to a CDC surveillance network, the proportion of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) isolates rose from 0% in 2011 to 8.5% in 2023. Around one-third of patients with XDR Shigella ended up in hospital. XDR Shigella spreads easily from person-to-person through faecal-oral contact or sexual activity. The report cited prior studies that identify men who have sex with men...

A British pharmaceutical company had recalled more than 80 000 packs of a commonly used antidepressant after a patient discovered the wrong medicine inside their sealed packaging, reports The Independent. The patient, who had been prescribed sertraline 100mg film-coated tablets, found a strip of citalopram 40mg film-coated tablets – another antidepressant – inside the pack. UK-based pharmaceutical company Amarox has since initiated a “precautionary recall” of a specific batch of the sertraline, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said. Both medications are manufactured by the same company at the same facility. “The error appears to have occurred during secondary packaging of the blister strips into the...

Former Gqeberha endocrinologist Dr Gregory Hough’s case has been postponed to allow the court to conduct further consultations with the women he’s accused of assaulting, some more than 10 years ago, reports The Herald. This was disclosed by senior prosecutor Advocate Linda le Roux during Hough’s appearance in the Gqeberha Magistrate’s Court last Wednesday, when the matter was postponed to 10 June. He remains out on bail. Hough, who was a specialist endocrinologist, is accused of sexually assaulting five women at his rooms at Netcare Greenacres Hospital more than a decade ago. He handed himself over to police in November and...