Features

Morphine was first introduced to Uganda 30 years ago, but as the burden of cancer increases, thousands of people still lack access to even basic treatment for pain relief.

When a primary school teacher in the Western Cape suspected that one of her pupils was being sexually abused, she did everything she could to help. Here’s what happened next.

South Africa plans to roll out treatment for opioid addiction to all government health facilities by 2028, according to a draft of the country’s sixth HIV action plan. Read one person’s story of recovery here.

In 2017, Lesotho became the first African country to legalise cannabis. Nearly six years later, the industry is yet to change the country’s fortunes.

In 2019, diseases linked to air pollution killed 1.1-million people in Africa. Could electric motorcycles save lives with cleaner air?

In the small rural town of Chivhu, Zimbabwe, 10-year-old Grace Zvarebwa is training for a pan-African schools chess tournament in Liberia. Chess is an activity normally reserved for the country’s elite schools, but the sport has transformed the lives of rural school girls like Zvarebwa.

Korogocho is one of Nairobi’s most dangerous slums, where rape and robbery are common. Beatrice Nyariara is helping women aged 55 to 90 to fight back.

A psychiatric facility in Freetown has stepped away from its colonial past and removed these ‘shackles’ from their patients.

Anne von Gottberg and Cheryl Cohen are two of South Africa’s foremost scientists. We’ve got them and their colleagues to thank for the country’s world class surveillance of SARS-CoV-2. But this powerful duo are also experts on how to bridge divides — and married.

Scores of women in Argentina could be facing life in prison for what health experts say are obstetric emergencies such as miscarriages.

Somalia is facing a humanitarian crisis. Many people have been displaced due to climate change-induced droughts, and conflict between the army and al-Shabaab has left many regions without food.

A combination of failures by the municipal, provincial and national government left a hospital in the south of Johannesburg without water or electricity for parts of November. Find out what’s behind the chaos.

South Africa’s medicines regulator will announce a decision on the approval of a two-monthly HIV prevention jab within days. If the shot is approved, the health department could start rolling it out on a large scale within nine months — but that depends on the injection’s price.

Rural hospitals and clinics struggle to attract or retain senior healthcare professionals. Health workers who grew up in rural towns can plug the gap as they are more likely to work at facilities in far-flung places than their urban counterparts.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation’s digital campaign Treasure Your Pleasure is using an evidence-based sex-positive approach to educate young Africans about safe sex.

The government is investing in monitoring lead levels in paint, but experts and industry groups say that there’s no plan for dealing with offenders.