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Friday, 15 August, 2025

FOCUS: NEUROLOGY

Is lithium the missing link in Alzheimer's puzzle?

Venilla Yoganathan - 0
Two key studies have unlocked the role lithium possibly plays in Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases, offering a route for potential new treatments and broader understanding of how the brain works, writes MedicalBrief. In the US, seven years of investigation by scientists at Harvard Medical School has revealed that the loss of the metal lithium plays a powerful role in Alzheimer’s disease, , reports The Washington Post. And researchers led by the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, have reached similar conclusions, linking...
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NEWS UPDATE

Calls for probe into cystic fibrosis drugmaker to be reopened

Health lobbyists are demanding that the Competition Commission reopen its investigation into the manufacturers of Trikafta, for the treatment of cystic fibrosis, which is expected to be added to the WHO’s Essential Medicines List but will be unaffordable for half of all patients in South Africa. Last week, the SA Cystic Fibrosis Association (SACFA) and the Health Justice Initiative (HJI), handed over information to the commission, demanding it reopen its investigation into the drug’s manufacturer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, for, among other things, abuse of dominance, excessive pricing of its product and anti-competitive conduct. The health activists say the company’s tactics continue to place its...

Arrests as anti-migrant thugs ratchet up their campaign

Police have made several arrests of militant anti-migrant group members recently, but seemingly with little effect as the organisations continue to terrorise foreigners seeking care at government clinics and hospitals in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Operation Dudula president Zandile Dabula previously said that the organisation’s members have not been preventing access to all foreign nationals, just those without documentation, and that no critical care has been interrupted. The aim was to ensure documented foreign nationals pay for their treatment, she added. After the organisation shut down Lilian Ngoyi Community Health Care Centre in Diekloof, Soweto, last week and insisted that immigration officers...

Life-changing surgery for KZN boy with rare tumours

A KZN boy has had his life transformed by a specialist medical team from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which recently performed complex surgery to remove disfiguring and painful tumours from his face and foot, reports News24. The multidisciplinary team, led by Professor Anil Madaree, Head of Craniofacial Surgery at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at UKZN, successfully operated on Alondwe Ngwenya (10) at Netcare uMhlanga Hospital in June. Made possible by the Netcare Foundation, the surgery treated Alondwe’s neurofibromatosis – a rare condition that had caused him years of pain and isolation, and hindered his mobility and hearing – and...

Healthcare staff under siege from crime

Public healthcare workers are living in fear as criminals wage a war of robbery and assault on them, with attacks escalating – and even demands for “protection fees” compounding their stresses, reports TimesLIVE. According to the Health Department, 420 staff were robbed, assaulted or asked to pay a protection fee between 2019 and November last year, most of them being in the Western Cape, followed by the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Last week, an Eastern Cape nurse and her colleague were held at gunpoint outside a school where they were conducting a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign, and robbed of their...

Safety alert for faulty defibrillation leads tied to injuries, deaths

Boston Scientific has issued a letter to customers warning that certain ENDOTAK RELIANCE defibrillation leads with expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) coated coils may impact shock efficacy and/or require early replacement, and have been linked to injuries and death. The manufacturer told healthcare providers that device leads coated with ePTFE are showing signs of calcification, resulting in a pattern of gradually rising low-voltage shock impedance (LVSI) measurements, reports Medpage Today. Calcification is therefore potentially making some defibrillation lead coils electrically insulated, impacting shock efficacy and/or requiring early replacement. The most common harm is early lead replacement, and the most serious harm is death or...

US health experts unite to clamour for Kennedy's removal

A report detailing major health challenges in the United States – and calling for the removal of Robert F Kennedy Jr from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – has been released by an organisation of about 300 American health professionals and scientists, reports The Guardian. The report from Defend Public Health is an attempt to get ahead of misinformation and lack of information from health officials, with its release slated to coincide with that of the anticipated second US report to “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA). The first MAHA report was released in May, and a second was expected this...

Patients say clinic nurses force them to have HIV tests

Residents in at least three provinces say they have been coerced into undergoing HIV testing at various government health facilities, and that in some of the clinics, an HIV test is a prerequisite for receiving any health services, writes Sisi Segalo for Health-e News. Patients in the Free State, North West and Gauteng have all said testing is done without counselling before or after, and while many of them are not opposed to actually being tested, they resent not being given more information about the process, as well as counselling, they complained. Several people Health-e News spoke to at Sandown Clinic...

Watchdog orders J&J to drop ‘number 1’ nasal spray claim

The Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) has ordered Johnson & Johnson to remove or amend claims from its commercial that its Sinutab product are the “Number 1 decongestant spray” in SA, reports News24. This after the board found that the claim – based on sales figures and internal analysis from 2023 – was unsupported and based solely on the sale of its 10ml spray product. The ruling was made after a complaint was laid by manufacturer Procter & Gamble, which argued that its Iliadin nasal spray had sold more products between October 2023 and September 2024, based on sales data. The company...

Doctor crowdfunds R2m after cancer diagnosis

A doctor from the Eastern Cape – who was diagnosed with not just a brain tumour but also skin cancer – raised an extraordinary R2m in just three days after a crowdfunding campaign, which drew more than 1 200 donors who wanted to help support his fight against the disease. Father-of-three Dr Andrew Wilkins (41), who works at Madwaleni District Hospital near Elliotdale, told News24 he was overwhelmed by the support. Just two months ago, he was working full-time, running 15km races, surfing and caring for his patients while he and his wife raised three young children – five-year-old twins and...

Mthatha EMS crew forced to sleep in Khayelitsha shack

Two Eastern Cape EMS drivers recently transporting a child from Mthatha had to spend two nights in an informal settlement in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, after the provincial Health Department failed to secure them accommodation. The department has acknowledged a breakdown in communication that caused the problem, and said administrative staff had since been “cautioned”, reports News24. The drivers had arrived in Cape Town on a Thursday and dropped the child off at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, but there was nowhere for them to stay. Khayelitsha resident Pholelwa Magazi, who met the men at a tavern, came to their rescue, let them...

Woman awakens from coma moments before organ donation surgery

The scarcity of available organs for transplant in the United States – and the increasing need for more – is putting a growing number of donors at risk, reports NKTV. Numerous cases have been reported of people waking up within minutes of having their organs harvested, most of them going on to survive, although some have not. A recent investigation is probing a 2022 case, when a homeless American woman, Danella Gallegos (38), fell into a coma after an unspecified medical emergency at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Doctors told her family she was unlikely to recover, leading them to agree...

Experts push for harm reduction policies

Harm reduction – in multiple forms, from safer smoking alternatives to sunscreens to wearing seatbelts – was high on the agenda at a recent Johannesburg women’s wellness event where medical practitioner and consultant Dr Esthras Moloko appealed to delegates to “live by example”, reports TimesLIVE. Speaking at The Wellness Collective, a gathering focused on shifting South Africa from selling harm to promoting wellness, he said that by “blending compassion with science, inclusion with transparency, urgency with innovation, we can unlock healthier futures for every South African woman and man and their families”. “From sunscreens to seat belts, innovations to reduce harm...

Donated generators ‘lying idle’ at Durban Hospital

Hundreds of low-voltage diesel generators donated by China are apparently being stored unused at Wentworth Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, pending distribution to provinces – but officials say they are unsuitable for use in local health facilities. IOL reports that they were part of a consignment – received by Electricity & Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa in November 2023 and August 2024 – that was shipped to Durban harbour. However, although they were meant to help alleviate the impacts of load shedding in the delivery of services in clinics, schools and courts, they don’t have a high enough voltage to power clinics, according to...

Fire-damaged Free State hospital wards back in service

The National District Hospital in the Free State re-opened wards and sections of the Bloemfontein facility that had been gutted by a fire in July 2024 – the cause of which is still unknown despite a year-long investigation, writes Molefi Sompane for Health-e News. Health MEC Viceroy Mahlasti said last week that for the past year, patients and staff had been diverted to surrounding hospitals, while some services, like eye-care and oncology, had temporarily been provided in a building adjacent to the main hospital. These services have now moved back to their previous premises. “We had to transfer staff to other facilities...

Mpox testing project launched in Africa as cases rise

With mpox infections continuing to rise on the continent, the Africa CDC and the European Commission have launched the Partnership to Accelerate Mpox Testing and Sequencing in Africa (PAMTA) initiative to boost diagnostics and outbreak response capabilities in mpox-affected countries in the region, reports CIDRAP. Gambia was announced this week as being the 25th and latest affected African nation, said the Africa CDC. PAMTA plans to bolster resilience against current and future outbreaks, accelerating testing, sequencing and capacity building, and boosting local manufacturing efforts for mpox and other priority pathogens through a €9.4m grant to Africa CDC and the African Society for Laboratory...

Rwanda rethinks malaria jabs amid surge in cases

Rwanda is confronting an unexpected resurgence in malaria infections and signs of treatment resistance that have forced alarmed officials to revisit vaccine intervention the country once declined – this after years of progress in slashing cases, reports Scidev.Net. Steady declines in malaria infections have been recorded for nearly a decade, with cases falling from almost 5m in 2016 to just 430 000 in 2023 – about a 90% reduction – according to figures from the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC). But these gains are now under threat, said Aimable Mbituyumuremyi, division manager for malaria and other parasitic diseases at the RBC, Rwanda’s health...

MEDICO-LEGAL

HPCSA blames Dr Death for case delay

Dr Wouter Basson is responsible for the delay in professional misconduct proceedings against him, according to the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA), which says a “recurring theme” from “Dr Death’s” attorneys was their wait for confirmation that the Department of Defence would resume paying his lawyers’ fees. In its heads of argument, the HPCSA said Basson was capable of paying the fees himself, in the interim, reports News24. “This delay could have been curtailed if Dr Basson… funded his own legal costs. He certainly would have been in a financial position to do so,” their papers read. The HPCSA is seeking...

Patients sue NHS trust after over-prescription of cancer drug for years

More than 20 patients in Britain who say their quality of life was wrecked when they were unnecessarily given a highly toxic cancer drug are suing the NHS trust involved, reports The Independent. Some people were prescribed temozolomide, which should normally be used for only six months, for more than a decade during treatment by the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust. Side effects from the over-prescribing included secondary cancers and crippling fatigue, they said. Earlier this year the Care Quality Commission was looking into at least 14 cases, but lawyers say more are emerging all the time. An investigation by legal firm...

Man alleges 'murder' of unborn son in unprecedented abortion case

In a legal first, a case in Texas seeks to establish “all current and future fathers of unborn children in the United States” as a protected class of plaintiffs, reports Fox News. The case, Rodriguez v Coeytaux, involves a man who has filed a landmark federal wrongful death lawsuit against a California abortion provider, alleging the physician “murdered” his unborn children by mailing abortion pills across State lines. It marks the first of its kind to test how far pro-life litigants can go to sidestep abortion shield laws using century-old federal statutes and Texas civil code. Filed on 20 July in the Southern District of...

UK surgeon struck off after hundreds of unnecessary ops

A British surgeon who performed unnecessary bowel operations, using artificial mesh, and leaving dozens of patients in agony, has been struck off the roll despite denying the allegations, reports the BBC. In two separate tribunals, Tony Dixon was found to have performed operations on five patients without obtaining or documenting informed consent and that one of these procedures was not clinically indicated: he also failed to provide post-operative care. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ordered that Dixon be removed from the medical register, its report saying he “demonstrated a persistent lack of insight into the seriousness of his actions, not only...

SOME RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS IN THE PAST WEEK

GENETICS

Scientists find link between genes and ME – Scottish study

A team of scientists has found the first robust evidence that people’s genes affect their chances of developing myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), the mysterious and debilitating...

NEUROLOGY

Epilepsy surgery benefits long-term survival – UK study

Findings of their recent study underscore the potential of epilepsy surgery to modify long-term health trajectories and support the value of early surgical referral and systematic follow-up in optimising...

Long delays in dementia diagnosis – global study

Recent analysis of data from 13 previously published studies of more than 30 000 people has highlighted a major gap that often keeps people from getting early treatment and...

NUTRITION

Which milk is safer? Norwegian data provide the answer

Research from Norway reveals that choosing low-fat milk over whole milk could lower your risk of dying from heart disease or any cause, reshaping decades of dietary advice, reports...

ONCOLOGY

Cancer survival rates rise in England, Wales – London study

British researchers have said that the chance of surviving cancer for 10 years after diagnosis has increased by more than 24% in England and Wales over nearly five decades,...

WOMEN’S HEALTH

Untapped potential of vaginal microbiome – UK review


The microscopic bacteria living in women’s bodies could be a powerful tool for personalised, non-invasive treatment and earlier diagnosis, according to a new review co-authored by Britain’s Medicines and...

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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