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Every second year, South Africa releases a national antenatal HIV survey, which looks at the proportion of pregnant women who are HIV-positive and have syphilis. In the first of a three-part series, we help you make sense of the survey’s results and what it means for the country’s HIV outlook.

Implementation trials start early 2024 in South Africa to help researchers find out what will make people use a two-monthly anti-HIV jab. Linda-Gail Bekker of the University of Cape Town, heads up one of the studies and spoke to Mia Malan on Bhekisisa’s TV show, Health Beat.

In July, Rudo Mathivha handed in her notice at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, ending a rightly celebrated 25-year stint as head of the intensive care unit. It was after a truly terrible year. Her story underscores the extent to which quality healthcare for the country’s most vulnerable people remains at the mercy of the indifferent and the corrupt.

Mapeseka Mabena has spent a decade getting her HIV patients to start and stay on treatment. Taking ARVs every day can be taxing, but Mabena motivates people with a reminder that meds can help them have HIV-free children and stop them passing on the virus through sex. She explains how in this video.

Before the festive season kicks off, take a look at Bhekisisa’s most-read stories of 2023.

Researchers say transactional sex will become more common because of a rise in climate change-related droughts and floods. Droughts and floods cause financial hardship, and therefore increase the market for sex in exchange for rewards.

Budget cuts to the provincial departments will leave close to 200 health science graduates without spots for their community service. The knock-on effect will be that fewer people who use state hospitals will have access to health services like dentists and physiotherapists.

South Africa’s medicines regulator is helping to process pharmaceutical companies’ applications for medicines to be approved by the African Medicines Agency. But the country won’t have a say in the appointment of the agency’s head because it hasn’t yet ratified the treaty for its establishment.

Around 500 people in South Africa get infected with HIV each day. A number that Mbali Jonas from the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation wants to reduce to zero. They’re doing this by telling youth about medications that can stop HIV infection. We take you to their communities and show you how they work.

The establishment of the African Medicines Agency will significantly contribute to the improvement of healthcare delivery across the continent and better overall health of...

Too much greenhouse gases going into the air from burning coal, oil and gas make the atmosphere warmer than it should be. This causes global weather patterns to change, aka climate change. Watch this animation to learn more.

The climate crisis is bad for people’s mental health — and it’s taken increasingly seriously at this year’s conference of the parties, COP28. In this interview from Health Beat, Bhekisisa’s monthly TV show, South African climate justice activist, Kumi Naidoo, explains what climate anxiety is — and what we can do about it.

At the Hospital Association of South Africa (Hasa), we believe that there is an art to seeing beyond what is, to what could be....

Bhekisisa and Media Hack Collective's 2021 #SayHerName project, researched what gender-based violence stories make it onto the news.The data backed up what we...

Since fewer people are using condoms, we need more ways to prevent HIV. HIV prevention pills are free at government clinics, but the catch is that you have to take them every day. A two-monthly jab and monthly vaginal ring could change the game, but can the state afford them? Watch this Health Beat episode to find out.

Experts at COP28 have warned that the climate crisis threatens to put us back in the fight against HIV. Floods and droughts will make it harder to adhere to daily treatment and to access HIV prevention medication, and will increase the demand for transactional sex.