Articles

The two-monthly HIV prevention injection, CAB-LA, will be made in South Africa, at the Indian drug company Cipla’s Benoni and Durban plants. But a start date for production hasn’t yet been announced.

Black skin has a natural sun protection barrier equal to sunscreen of 13.4 because it contains more melanin. This extract from the book “Black Skin” unpacks the factors that make dark skin unique.

By 9 September, South Africa had 25 laboratory-confirmed mpox cases in three provinces (Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape), with three people dying from the virus.

The signing of the National Health Insurance Bill on Wednesday doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it will become law, especially if the ANC loses power. A law expert says a new government may decide not to implement it and repeal the new NHI Act if they don’t agree with the law, but to do that they would need the majority of votes in the National Assembly.

With a black beret “à la the EFF” and fire-engine red scrubs, Ebrahim Variava is not scared to speak out against the ills of a broken public health system — something that got him suspended from his post as head of internal medicine at the Tshepong Hospital in Klerksdorp in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Meet the doctor for whom patients are always the priority.

In 2022, after a decade of service, Ben Gaunt, who led a team who transformed Zithulele Hospital in the Eastern Cape from a struggling public health facility into a poster child of excellence, left the facility. The drama, which followed the appointment of a controversial CEO, was well publicised. We spoke to Gaunt one year later.

South Africa’s Competition Commission will investigate the American drugmaker Johnson & Johnson for the high price it has been charging the country for the tuberculosis medicine bedaquiline, as well as for extending the tablets’ 20-year patent to block cheaper generics from entering the country.

The products themselves could be dangerous and are likely to encourage high-risk sexual behaviour.

The health department says ViiV Healthcare’s non-profit price for their anti-HIV jab, CAB-LA, is four times what it can pay. In 2022, just over 164 200 people in South Africa became newly infected with HIV. Can we afford to go without the shot?

The bizarre case from Durban is at least the second such case nationally in the last three years.

The world is far behind its TB targets. Hoping to reduce TB deaths by 75% by 2025, world leaders have only managed to bring it down by 5.6% so far. Climate change, however, can derail these targets even more. The changing climate increases poverty, overcrowding, and malnutrition, the primary drivers of TB.

By 2025, South Africa wants 95% of people with HIV who are on treatment to have infection levels so low that they can’t transmit the virus to someone else. But this can only happen if they stick to taking their medication — which is where we’re falling down at the moment. A recent court ruling that allows people to get their medicines from private pharmacies may help.

During this initiation season, we look back at what happened in 2013 when bungled initiations cost boys their penises.

South Africa has close to 700 medical doctors who haven’t been able to find a job in the public sector since qualifying. The shrinking health budget, coupled with rising salaries and high medical negligence claims, has meant that the department can’t afford to employ these professionals.

In 1969, Esther Mwaikambo became Tanzania’s first female doctor. Today, she is arguably also the country’s most famous. She tells Sean Christie how public healthcare in Africa has changed — and what she wishes for the future.

Pooling funds to cover people’s medical bills makes sense — but only if the funds are managed well. Here’s what actuaries and economists look at when calculating your monthly premium — and what it could mean for the proposed National Health Insurance plan.