Articles

What should journalists do when presidents say the wrong thing — report the story or bury it? A medical doctor, editor, Rhodes Scholar and New York City’s health commissioner during COVID take a deep dive.

To help keep kids safe from drug overdoses, lawmakers in the US state of Colorado say schools can have an anti-overdose medicine in their emergency kit — and are making it available cheaply or even for free. But not all schools are signing up. Here’s why.

Left untreated, an HIV infection can cause inflammation in someone’s brain and lead to mental health problems. But antiretrovirals can stop it from happening. Mia Malan finds out how it works in this Health Beat interview.

Nepalese men who go abroad for better jobs, often find that they struggle to build a family when they get back home. Fertility experts weigh in on the link between migration labour and infertility.

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.

South Africa’s HIV plan says nurses, not just doctors, should be able to prescribe antidepressants. HIV-positive people struggle with their mental health more than those without the virus. But is this plan enough to help them stick to their daily pill regimens? This activist says no. Watch her story to find out why.

A dying baby’s kidneys could save an adult’s life. But it’s a tough decision — and one few grieving parents are willing to make. Would you?

Last week, at the United Nations General Assembly, African leaders warned that the world faces a “malaria emergency” because mosquitoes are getting smarter, drugs are getting weaker, funds are getting less and the climate is changing.

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 the past five years, none of the targets political leaders adopted after the previous round of high-level discussions on the fight against tuberculosis (TB) at the United Nations General Assembly have been met. Today, talks will focus on how to get us back on track to end the disease by 2030.

The third day of high-level meetings at the 78th United Nations General Assembly is dedicated to talks on universal health coverage. In South Africa, this means talking about the proposed National Health Insurance fund — something that’s getting people hot under the collar. We’ve put together a one-stop page with information to support constructive debate.

We will see more pandemics like COVID in the future — which is why political leaders are convening in New York today at the United Nations first ever high-level meeting on pandemic preparedness. Being able to make vaccines locally can stop Africa having to be at the back of the queue waiting for medicines the next time round. Here’s how.

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.

Up to one in five people can get long COVID — a condition in which someone keeps on feeling ill for months after their initial symptoms have cleared up. A drug called Paxlovid can lower the chance of developing the long-haul version of COVID. But at what cost?

In rural India, people with TB got healthy food parcels and vitamin pills. Their chance of dying from the disease dropped by 60% and passing on the infection to someone in their family fell by 40%.

Our burning fossil fuels makes the Earth warmer, causing weather patterns to change. In areas with lots of air pollution, this can make it even harder for people with lung diseases to breathe. And those who have least, will be affected most.