Juta MedicalBrief

South Africa launched the revolutionary anti-HIV Lencapavir with much fanfare last week, with the Health Department announcing plans to expedite the manufacture of the injectable locally, saying that it would soon be available “here at home”. At the high-profile launch in Secunda, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said South Africa would soon have the capability to manufacture a generic of LEN, reports SANews.gov. In the meantime, however, the six-monthly jab will be freely available at 360 government clinics in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and North West, while the Free State, Northern Cape and Limpopo will be supplied next...

Bonitas members have complained about unresolved queries and hospital authorisations after the administrative switchover of Bonitas medical scheme members to Momentum last week. But Bonitas has blamed Medscheme’s backlog for the issues – which the latter has roundly rejected, reports News24. Bonitas, which has 750 000 beneficiaries, had attributed members’ woes to previous administrator Medscheme, which in turn has pointed the finger at the new service providers, Momentum Health and Private Health Administrators (PHA). Medscheme and Bonitas are already clashing swords, as Medscheme took Bonitas to court last year over its planned change in administrators, alleging tender irregularities. Business Day reports that...

The March and March vigilante group has denied any knowledge of a mother and her critically ill four-month-old baby being barred by its members from seeking help at Addington Gateway Clinic in Durban last week. Health-e News reporterPhumzile Mkhongo tried in vain to alert authorities to the predicament and find help, and eventually accompanied the mother and baby herself in an Uber to a hospital 20km away. The visibly distressed mother, with her crying baby, had sought help from Mkhongo, who was nearby, claiming she was being prohibited from entering the clinic by a group clad in March and March regalia. She...

Global health leaders, including a number of leading South African health professionals, have signed an open letter to governments in which they urge “an end to the cycle of panic and neglect” in response to disease outbreaks like Ebola, which they have labelled as a “preventable disaster”, writes Kerry Cullinan for Health Policy Watch. Thus far, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda have recorded 608 confirmed cases and 102 deaths linked to the fast-moving spread of the Bundibugyo virus, and the letter’s authors called for governments to “make decisions that will prevent and stop infectious disease outbreaks” like...

The Health Department’s growing dependence on medicines from outside South Africa is jeopardising local jobs and the country’s security of supply, say pharmaceutical companies – as the department disputes allegations that local manufacturing is not being considered in public procurement. Business Day reports that over the past 10 years, importers have gained a growing share of two of the department’s biggest tenders at the expense of local drug makers, according to analysis by Pharmaceuticals Made in SA (Pharmisa), which shows that in 2008, local companies won more than 70% of the huge Aids drug tender by value, but in 2025,...

A new analysis from AlexForbes Health, using Council for Medical Schemes data on the country’s 10 biggest open schemes and the 10 largest restricted schemes, highlights rising pressure on the industry, reports Business Day. It said increasing healthcare costs, the ageing membership base and higher claims utilisation, are all contributing to the squeeze. Paresh Prema, AlexForbes Health Head of Technical and Actuarial Consulting, said the strain was apparent in the overall risk claims ratio, which rose from 95.8% in 2023 to 96.2% in 2024. Open schemes recorded a ratio of 91.9%, while the claims ratio for restricted schemes reached 101.3%, indicating they...

The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has granted a medical device manufacturing licence to the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Biomedical Engineering Research Centre (BMERC), signalling a giant stride for local healthcare development, reports IOL. Professor Sudesh Sivarasu, director of BMERC, said this authorises the centre to manufacture, distribute and wholesale medical devices, facilitating the transition of innovative UCT-developed technologies from research lab benches to clinical applications across South Africa. “In practical terms, it means the devices we design and develop here, for African patients in an African context, can now be produced and brought to market with the...

Professor Shabir Madhi, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, has been named the recipient of the 2026 National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement – one of the world’s leading honours in infectious diseases and vaccinology. The award recognises Madhi’s decades-long contribution to vaccine research, public health, and disease prevention, his research having played a pivotal role in shaping global vaccination policies and improving child survival rates worldwide. As Professor of Vaccinology and Director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA)...

Japanese drugmaker Kissei Pharmaceutical has been ordered by the country’s Health Ministry to add a warning to the package insert of Tavneos (avacopan), a medication for vasculitis, or blood vessel inflammation, after the deaths of 20 patients, reports The Japan Times. It has also warned against newly administering the drug to patients. The medication had been flagged by the Food & Drug Administration in March, which wanted it pulled from the market – but the drug company refused to withdraw the treatment. Kissei was instructed to stipulate that patients have died from liver dysfunction after the use of the drug: it was...

A doctor in Burgersfort, Limpopo, is transforming needy patients’ lives by funding their surgeries through the sales of a popular township sandwich, called a kota, reports News24. Dr Ephraim Kgoete has already helped seven underprivileged patients pay for minor operations, and aims to expand the programme through partnerships, sponsorships and government support. Known as “Dr Ya Batho”, a Setswana name loosely translating to “the doctor of the people”, Kgoete (34) runs a mobile practice called Khayalami Medical Solutions where he offers services. A kota is a popular township sandwich made from a quarter loaf of bread that is hollowed out and stuffed...

A group of doctors has resorted to funding a private security company in the bustling suburb of Mayfair, Johannesburg, to make the area safer for the staff and patients at a busy hospital, as well as for visitors and local residents, according to a report in Daily Maverick. Apart from the constant traffic chaos at a nearby intersection between Brixton Cemetery and an open piece of land, crime has become a major problem, making this particular area dangerous, especially at night, they said. Doctors from the local Netcare Garden City Hospital have had their car windows smashed by people living on the...

A Cape Town father and daughter recently joined a team of volunteers who helped deliver life-changing corrective surgery to children born with cleft palates during an Operation Smile South Africa programme in Johannesburg, reports IOL. Dr Neville Botha and his 23-year-old daughter Bianca Botha (23) teamed up with 50 volunteers at Gauteng’s Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital – which regularly partners with the campaign – where 40 children underwent the surgery between 29 May and 31 May. This year is marked by the United Nations as International Year of Volunteers, recognising the important role volunteers play in communities worldwide, and Botha, an...

Two scientists at an American government lab were charged with smuggling vials of deactivated mpox virus into the country from Africa and lying about it during interviews with investigators at the airport, reports CNN. Vincent Munster, chief of the virus ecology section at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, and colleague Claude Kwe, were stopped at Detroit Airport in January after a flight from Paris and nine days in the Republic of Congo. Mpox has been linked to more than 2 000 deaths in the DRC, although a two-year outbreak was declared over in April. The FBI, in a court filing, said that...

The National Department of Health, which is to submit 11 funding bids to the Budget Facility for Infrastructure (BIF) for projects linked to various hospitals and clinics, has listed the facilities that are expected to be affected, reports IOL. At the tabling of the R64.8bn national budget for 2026 in the National Council of Provinces last month, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said the National Treasury had announced four bid windows this financial year for departments to bid for any infrastructure more than R1bn. Included in the BIF project applications are Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital, Soshanguve District Hospital, Diepsloot District Hospital, Thabang...

A critical shortage of medicines is pulverising Namibia’s public health sector – the first time this has happened in the country’s 36 years of independence, and resulting from the government’s decision to halt procurement after it uncovered fraud in the supply chain, reports News24. The Ministry said that staff and people doing business with it have been linked to the fraud, with Executive Director Penda Ithindi adding that the manipulation of stock data and theft and diversion of supplies resulted in the deliberate creation of artificial shortages, apparently to generate public panic and trigger emergency procurement processes. “The Ministry has launched...

A Tennessee nurse practitioner has been convicted in the US for prescribing nearly 1m opioid pills to almost 1 000 patients over about a year and a half, including to patients whom she allegedly knew were selling opioids on the street. Heather Marks (43) was an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner who was licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to distribute controlled substances to patients seeking pain treatment at a local, rural pain clinic. However, court papers show that between September 2016 and May 2018, Marks and others over-prescribed highly addictive opioids, including oxycodone and oxymorphone, to patients, while Marks herself...