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Bridging the gap: Pupils at the Emerald Hill School for the Deaf learning sign language. The majority of deaf people in Zimbabwe reportedly cannot read or write.

Hospitals introduce sign language to bridge gap between the deaf and care

Some hospitals are introducing sign language to help deaf patients.
South Africa’s rolled out the world’s first pill-popping ATMs. Now what?

How to get South Africans to buy into the next big thing in medicine

These ATMs can decrease the number of patients in clinics but health workers are not helping to achieve that goal.
Apple of their eye: Sihle and his parents Jam-Jam Batiya and Beauty Mbalela.

The boy who lifts Hobeni’s spirits

Sihle Batiya's luckier than most – but the odds are stacked against kids with Down's syndrome in the Eastern Cape.

Breathing in a deadly dust: How a drop of blood can help

A new tool may help to keep workers who breathe in silica dust safe from silicosis — at less than R50 a prick.
Tens of thousands of men crisscross Zimbabwe as long-haul truck drivers and the risks they face aren't just on the road.

Go inside the trucker craze fuelling a blackmarket in dangerous ‘sex enhancers’

The products themselves could be dangerous and are likely to encourage high-risk sexual behaviour.
Yahya Jammeh peddled fake HIV ‘cures’ complete with alleged human rights abuses. But he also banned female genital cutting

This former dictator invented a fake HIV cure, but banned female genital cutting

Having banned female genital cutting, his ousting was good for democracy, but but bad for women's bodies.
Down and out: Santie Coetzee* didn’t visit the clinic when she was

Fetal illness is scarring the Karoo

The effects of alcoholism on pregnancy are keenly felt beyond just the Western Cape’s winelands.
The Lagos state government has initiated a vaccine campaign for children in rural villages.

‘There is hope this evil illness will not befall us again’

The residents of a Nigerian village had no health services, save for traditional methods, to treat those with a fever and a rash.
Ursula Kekana is slowly overcoming her anxiety caused by her heavy menstrual cycle.

#FreeToBleed: ‘A pool of blood gushed down my thighs. My white socks were red.’

Shame doesn't start when menstruation begins. It is built in slow steps.
Patients' removal from the hospital was opposed at every step by activists and families

It’s a nightmare when mental health medicine runs out

Mental health patients in Johannesburg's East Rand are hard hit by the unavailability of medication.
Stereotyping prevents men who sleep with other men from accessing proper treatment and prevention of HIV infection.

Double stigma leaves gay men with little hope

Stereotyping prevents men who sleep with other men from accessing proper treatment and prevention of HIV infection.
A freak wave that hit Durban's beaches in January is still wreaking havoc in the coastal city

‘No home, no money, no medicine – but who cares? I don’t exist’

Introduce harm-reduction and HIV programmes – especially for heroin users – before it's too late.
Virginia Human

Cuffed for no crime, kicked to the kerb

Instead of the care she sought, a vulnerable patient found further distress in a PE hospital.
Scans have been used to compare brain activity between people who took psilocybin

Therapists test psychedelic chaos to cure depression and addiction

Psychiatrists have since turned to antidepressants, mood stabilisers and antipsychotics that aren’t curative.
People living with HIV are mostly scrupulous about getting check-ups.

Harsh price of HIV-linked longevity

HIV+ people on ARVs are now living longer lifespans. But the virus's associated diseases could put an unbearable strain on the health system.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the primary donor of this revolutionary initiative in global health data dissemination.

Aids most prevalent cause of early deaths in SA

Aids kills more people prematurely in SA than another other disease – in sharp contrast to two decades ago, which set them at just 12%.