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Plural personalities: What life is like living with dissociative identity disorder. (David Brandon Geeting)

My many selves: How I learned to live with multiple personalities

Memories, behaviours, attitudes and even perceived age can all switch together as people transition from one self to another.
A pregnant woman sits on a hospital bed.

Headaches, heartaches & pregnancy: Could this stem preeclampsia’s deadly tide?

This silent killer stalks expecting mothers around the world and is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in South Africa. But still many women can’t name it — or identify its symptoms. But if knowledge is power, is it enough to stem this deadly tide? Ghana is hoping to find out.

Life on a hotter earth: Depression, drought & decolonising mental health

As the climate crisis wears on, it's taking a toll on our mental health and indigenous knowledge systems may hold the key to helping us weather the storm.

Cobras & cures: Why the world is running chronically low on snake antivenom

Millions will be bitten by venomous snakes each year and for many, antivenom will remain painfully out of reach. Here's why.
|Therapy dogs from Top Dogs are dressed up as role players in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court to showcase how court proceedings work to children that have to testify in court.|Therapy dogs from Top Dogs are dressed up as role players in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court to showcase how court proceedings work to children that have to testify in court.|Therapy dogs from Top Dogs are dressed up as role players in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court to showcase how court proceedings work to children that have to testify in court. In this photograph Flake is dressed up as the State Prosecutor.|Therapy dogs from Top Dogs are dressed up as role players in the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court to showcase how court proceedings work to children that have to testify in court. In this photograph Peanut is dressed as the court orderly and lies on the lap of one of the children present in court.|Therapy dog Napoleon leaves the courtroom after the workshop in court.|Four therapy dogs dressed as courtroom characters.

The magistrate’s tail: How these pets are helping child rape victims get justice

In court, comfort for the tiniest victims of sexual abuse can come from the unlikeliest of places.“All rise,” a voice declares as the...

Meet Zweli Mkhize, the man behind SA’s #COVID-19 response

Can the health minister fix our health system and what will it take? Here’s what Mkhize’s character, views and his past experience as a doctor tell us.
Man walking on a dirt road in Togo.

Doing the ‘tramadol dance’: What this latest music craze says about Africa’s pill addiction

Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt takes a look at the global sensation — the tramadol dance — that’s topping the charts in Africa’s effort to curb drug abuse.
Most medical aids won't cover a new

The WHO, the drug & women’s right to choose: The story behind dolutegravir

Take a look at the newest HIV treatment set to hit South Africa's shores in 2019.
A teenager receives a vaccination

How this country is beating anti-vaxxers at their own game

One in three French people think vaccines are unsafe. Here's how the country is fighting antivaxxers through social media.
Man in Ebola protection suit.

‘Most complex health crisis in history’: Congo struggles to contain Ebola

Political, security and cultural complications – not least a refusal to believe that Ebola exists – have thwarted efforts to overcome DRC’s deadly outbreak.
What happens when anesthesia works as well as it should?

This is what it’s like waking up during surgery

General anaesthetic is supposed to make surgery painless. Now there’s evidence that one person in 20 may be awake when doctors think they’re under.
Sold on the idea: Asiphe Ntshongontshi used the family calendar to keep track of when she took the HIV prevention pill. She lives in Masiphumelele outside Cape Town close to a youth centre and clinic that dish out the tablet.

One she called the ‘minister of love’. The other? He was the ‘minister of...

Since the country’s rollout, less than a quarter of people who’ve started taking the HIV prevention pill are young women — despite high HIV rates.
TB remains a leading cause of death in South Africa.

Anyone can catch this drug-resistant bug. Surviving treatment is another story.

For years, catching this drug-resistant bacteria meant painful treatment that risked your hearing and mental health. Now, that could be changing.
Tender delays have pushed a shortage of the popular birth control shot Nur-Isterate into its second year.

This popular birth control shot is out of stock for the second year running....

Women who have been forced to go without their usual birth control shot are now facing the consequences of months-long shortages.
Blood cancer patients such as Retha Wessels are forced to get a life-saving drug illegally to avoid paying thousands for it each month.

He would ransom the pills for something more precious than profit: His wife’s life

When a few months of treatment costs as much as a house, some patients are taking their lives and the law into their own hands to survive.

Bosasa, Gavin Watson & the human cost of corruption

Bosasa bribed its way into contracts. Meet the four-year-old who paid the price.