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Wednesday, 19 November, 2025

FOCUS: IMMUNOLOGY

Strong evidence that Epstein-Barr could be the culprit behind lupus

Venilla Yoganathan - 0
Scientists involved in a new study are convinced that the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which has previously been linked to lupus, applies to 100% of all lupus cases. The findings could trigger new treatment for lupus and speed up a vaccine for EBV, which has also been linked to other autoimmune diseases, notes MedicalBrief. The common childhood virus appears to be the trigger for the autoimmune disease, according to the US scientists, whose study suggests that EBV, which for most people...
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NEWS UPDATE

HIV drugs roll-out under threat in court tender row

The National Department of Health has come under legal fire from the SA subsidiary of Indian generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Hetero, which alleges that the department’s latest HIV drugs tender unlawfully excluded it from the key contracts to supply the daily three-in-one pill used by most patients. Business Day reports that Hetero SA has now launched an urgent High Court application to suspend implementation of these contracts and interdict the department from ordering supplies from any of the successful bidders, pending the outcome of its application to have the contracts reviewed and set aside, and have the tender re-evaluated. In question are...

Push to declare diabetes a public health emergency

Civil society organisations are intensifying calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare diabetes a public health emergency, citing the need for urgent government intervention and resources to prevent the growing number of deaths caused by the disease, writes Marcia Moyana for Health-e News. At the Diabetes Summit in Gauteng last week, nearly 350 stakeholders – academics, civil society organisations, industry representatives, and government officials – demanded immediate action on what they describe as a spiralling health crisis. According to summit convenor and Diabetes Alliance chair Dr Patrick Ngassa Piotie,  the disease, a leading cause of death in the country, adds a...

US seeks Africa data access in new aid agreements

The US Government is planning to secure memorandums of understanding (MOU) with African countries that offer limited health aid for five years in exchange for 25 years’ access to countries’ data about “pathogens with epidemic potential”. But some commentators have described the terms of the bilateral MOUs as “extractive” as they fail to offer African countries access to the health products that might be developed from the pathogen material they share, writes Kerry Cullinan for Health Policy Watch. Spearheading the process is Brad Smith, formerly one of the leaders of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and currently a global...

Budget shortfall may affect KZN medicine supply – DA

The DA has warned that the continual financial slide of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health is likely to increase the risk of medicine shortages in health facilities – this after the department shifted funds from its crucial medicines and medical supplies budget, reports The Witness. South African Medical Association (SAMA) vice-chairperson Dr Nikiwe Bikitsha, meanwhile, has also urged Treasury to intervene more directly in the department’s financial woes, warning of a potential collapse of services if immediate steps are not taken to stabilise the situation. According to the department’s financial performance report ending September 2025, which was submitted to the provincial...

Gauteng Health HoD suspension ruled valid

The Labour Court has found that the suspension of Gauteng Health HoD Lesiba Arnold Malotana – who had then accused Premier Panyaza Lesufi of acting outside his contractual obligations – was valid, report News24. Malotana was suspended on 13 October after Lesufi said suspicious financial activities were uncovered during a lifestyle audit by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), during which it found more than R1.6m in cash deposits from commercial activities could be traced across various bank accounts that did not reconcile with his salary. Its interim report also raised concerns about R300 000 paid into Malotana’s account, which was allegedly a...

Court clarifies law on disclosing someone’s HIV status

Disclosing someone’s HIV status publicly constitutes either defamation or breach of privacy, with a Bloemfontein court recently declaring they are independent and distinct actions that must be pleaded separately, reports IOL. The decision came under the spotlight after a member of the Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa), during a public meeting, mentioned that one of its members was HIV-positive. The woman, only identified as K, was emotionally traumatised and instituted a damages claim against the union and the member who had divulged her status, claiming his disclosure was defamatory. The High Court had earlier ruled in her favour and ordered Numsa...

Parliament flags dire state of Northern Cape facilities

Chronic conditions in Northern Cape health clinics and hospitals were exposed and highlighted during a three-day parliamentary oversight visit – from crumbling infrastructure and medicine shortages to severe understaffing – and described as “unacceptable”, prompting urgent calls for intervention. The Star reports that the Select Committee on Social Services had inspected health facilities across Kimberley, Kuruman, Danielskuil and Delportshoop, and said immediate corrective action was vital. The delegation visited Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital, Beaconsfield Clinic, Kuruman Hospital, Tshwaragano District Hospital, Wrenchville Clinic and the Delportshoop and Danielskuil clinics. The only facility that escaped criticism was the new Northern Cape Mental Health...

Man dies from meat allergy triggered by tick bites

Last year, a previously healthy 47-year-old father collapsed and died in the bathroom of his home, with an autopsy providing no answers. CNN reports that everything looked normal, and his death was ruled sudden and unexplained. His widow asked a paediatrician friend to read the autopsy report, and on a hunch, the doctor, Dr Erin McFeely, contacted Dr Thomas Platts-Mills, an allergist and immunologist at the University of Virginia who had discovered almost two decades earlier that tick bites could cause people to develop an allergy to red meat. The allergy is unusual because the reaction doesn’t happen right away. People...

US-bought birth control for sub-Saharan Africa rots in Belgium

There’s a new twist in the saga of the American-purchased contraceptives intended for sub-Saharan Africa and stuck in Belgium since the Trump administration scaled back foreign aid earlier this year, NPR reports. This week, questions were raised about whether the stockpile, originally valued at $9.7m, might be bigger than previously thought. And an official in the know said that some of those products have gone bad. Authorities in the Flanders region of Belgium confirmed that apart from the four truckloads of unexpired birth control sitting in a warehouse in the city of Geel, another 20 truckloads of supplies ended up in the...

WHO to shed 2 000 jobs

The shock withdrawal of US funding – its main donor – will see the World Health Organisation slashing its staff numbers by nearly a quarter, or more than 2 000 jobs, by the middle of next year, reports The Guardian. Washington has been by far the UN health agency’s biggest financial backer, contributing about 18% of its overall funding. The Geneva-based WHO projects that its workforce will shrink by 2 371 posts by June 2026 – from 9 401 in January 2025 – due to job cuts as well as retirements and departures, according to a presentation to be shown to its member...

Woman born without most of her brain turns 20

Doctors told her parents she wasn’t expected to survive past the age of four, but a Nebraska, USA, woman born without cerebral hemispheres celebrated her 20th birthday last week, reports Medpage Today. Alex Simpson was diagnosed with hydranencephaly, a rare congenital malformation, when she was two-months-old. “Technically, she has about half the size of my pinky finger of her cerebellum in the back part of her brain, but that’s all that’s there,” her father, Shawn Simpson, told KETV in Omaha. While babies born with hydranencephaly may seem normal at birth, with a typical head size and reflexes, signs of irritability, increased muscle...

TB rates fall for the first time since Covid – WHO report

Global tuberculosis rates fell about 2% in 2024 from the previous year, shows a World Health Organisation report, after rising for three consecutive years due to Covid-related disruptions to diagnosis and treatment of the infectious disease. Most indicators of the disease burden were moving in the right direction after setbacks during the pandemic, but progress still fell short of 2030 targets, the agency said. “Funding cuts to international aid in many low and middle income countries threaten to reverse the hard won gains," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Reuters reports that WHO had adopted the “End TB Strategy” in 2014 and...

Beware fake weight-loss products – SAHPRA warning

The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has issued a warning regarding GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) products being promoted and sold on social media platforms for weight loss, and which claim to be affiliated with or authorised by SAHPRA and major retail pharmacies. SAHPRA has said the products, which it has not approved, are being shipped from China via post offices, not from a warehouse in Johannesburg or Cape Town, as stated in the advertisements. Neither are the products identical to the advertised items. The regulator said the drugs may contain dangerous/harmful ingredients and that a list of medicines registered in...

Suppliers linked to Tembisa scandal still not blacklisted

Incredibly, none of the 207 suppliers implicated in the Tembisa Hospital looting sprees has yet been blacklisted, although the National Department of Health has apparently now set its sights on the companies linked to the looting of R2bn in public funds, reports the Sunday Tribune. It has asked the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to start the process of blacklisting them from trading with the state – this after ActionSA laid a complaint with the Public Protector about the delay in the blacklisting. The SIU’S interim report recently revealed the extent of the corruption, fraud, and maladministration involving three major syndicates and...

US mulls plans to reject obese visitors’ visas

Overweight people applying for visas to America will need to rethink their plans in future, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has instructed diplomats to consider obesity as among the reasons to reject foreigners seeking visas to the country, reports POLITICO. Rubio’s guidance is a relatively strict interpretation of the federal government’s “public charge” rule. That rule bars prospective immigrants from entering the country if they are deemed likely to later require public assistance, like Supplemental Security Income and funding from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programme. “Self-sufficiency has been a longstanding principle of US immigration policy, and the...

MEDICO-LEGAL

Disgraced doctor seeks reinstatement after disbarring

Former Gqeberha endocrinologist Dr Gregory Hough, disbarred by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) after being found guilty of sexual misconduct involving former patients, is fighting to be readmitted to the medical profession, reports IOL. Hough was charged with seven counts of unprofessional conduct, all tied to incidents that occurred in 2013 and 2014, is now challenging both his convictions and the sanction. The complaints were laid in 2020 and related to allegations of various forms of sexual assault against three female patients. He was found guilty in June this year on two of the charges and acquitted on...

Beauty therapist gets 15 years for second fatal butt silicone jab

A year after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter for performing a fatal butt lift on Durban’s Karissa Rajpaul, a Californian “beauty therapist” has now been found guilty of second degree murder, and sentenced to 15 years behind bars after a US patient died from a deadly silicone injection. News24 reports that in this latest case, the patient, Cindyana Santangelo (58), was supposed to be having a relatively simple procedure – the administering of silicone oil injections into her buttocks to remove lumps caused by hormone treatment. But according her husband Frank, he could see something was very wrong as he watched...

Helen Joseph nurse accused of assaulting hospital visitors

A nurse at Helen Joseph Hospital has been accused of manhandling, punching, and injuring a family who were visiting a patient and who have since opened a case of assault – as has the nurse, reports News24. Noorene Sallie, her mother (77) and her aunt (75) had gone for a routine visit to their hospitalised cousin, but had become unwittingly embroiled in a distressing incident. “This was a shocking and violent experience involving elderly women being assaulted by hospital staff, negligent medical care, and a culture of intimidation and cover-up among staff,” Sallie told News24. Gauteng police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Mavela Masondo confirmed...

Tylenol lawsuits may be revived

US pharmaceutical company Kenvue could face the revival of more than 500 private lawsuits alleging its Tylenol painkiller causes autism, after an appeals court panel on Monday questioned whether they were dismissed because a trial judge improperly excluded evidence, reports Reuters. District Judge Denise Cote dismissed the lawsuits last December after criticising the methodology of expert witnesses offered by parents who said using Tylenol or its active ingredient – acetaminophen – during pregnancy caused their children to develop autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Two judges of the three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan suggested during...

SOME RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IN THE PAST WEEK

GERIATRICS

Secret to delaying chronic illness in old age – Swedish study

A team of scientists who followed more than 2 400 people for 15 years may have uncovered the secret to healthy ageing, reports The Independent – and it doesn’t...

OBSTETRICS

General anaesthesia safe option for C-sections – US review

Regional anaesthesia, typically with a spinal or epidural block, has long been favoured for Caesarean births, due partly to concerns about the effects general anaesthesia may have on newborns...

NEUROLOGY

Music may reduce dementia risk – Australian study

Regularly listening to music may be linked to a lower risk of developing dementia, according to a recent study, with the researchers suggesting that this could slash your chances by...

NUTRITION

Ultra-processed food harms every major organ – Lancet review

The world’s largest scientific review has warned that consumption of UPFs poses a seismic threat to global health and well-being, the scientists noting that in the UK and US,...

ONCOLOGY

Why colorectal cancers are rising in young people – US nurses’ study

The sharp climb of colon and rectal cancers in young people has overlapped with the consumption of ultra-processed foods in the United States – where the fare now comprises...

PAEDIATRICS

High BP in children climbing

The global prevalence of childhood hypertension has escalated in recent years, but with considerable variation by diagnostic approach, an updated systematic review and meta-analysis has showed. With in-office blood pressure...

ABOUT US

MedicalBrief is Africa’s authoritative weekly digest of medical matters, both on the continent and around the world. It brings you a succinct summary of the latest developments, both in news and research, with links to the original material. Contact us: info@medicalbrief.co.za

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