News and analysis

As countries around the world begin preparing their plans for rolling out a COVID vaccine, one group remains on the sidelines — children. With some candidates only recently receiving emergency approval for use in adults, they are still in the early stages of seeing how these jabs will work in children. But some paediatricians think it’s worth waiting.

These workout sequences save you time while burning fat and carbohydrates, here’s how.

The end of the year is expected to see a lot of people heading home for the holidays, along with a rise of COVID-19 cases. Here’s why the solution for curbing the spread of this coronavirus could lie in harm reduction policies.

The race for a COVID vaccine has four candidates nearing the finish line — with some getting ready to roll out before the end of the year. But what do the reported efficacy results actually mean and how much will doses cost? We break it down.

A new study shows that female rape survivors are 60% more likely to contract HIV within a year or two after their rape than women who have not been raped.

Four COVID jabs’ efficacy results have been released within less than a year after the trials had started. But this is far from the norm. Researchers have been working on HIV vaccines for over three decades — and we still don’t have one. Here’s why.

Mathematicians are exploring models to figure out how COVID vaccines should be distributed to have the biggest impact. Should they give...

It’s been almost 40 years since a new class of antibiotics was discovered. Do governments need to incentivise drug companies differently...

America’s president-elect, Joe Biden, has a herculean task ahead of him: He will have to repair the harm done by his predecessor’s perceived political interference with the registration of COVID-19 vaccines. That’s easier said than done. How well he confronts this battle will influence how willing his compatriots — and also some South Africans — are to take the shots. Here’s why.

Getting a COVID-19 vaccine into the country is one thing, but making sure the jab gets to people who need it – and is effective once they get it – is a feat for which South Africa is ill-equipped, experts say.

Autopsies offer detail that cannot be found in the living. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a resurgence in these procedures...

There’s more to life than just a happy ending, a new brain imaging experiment shows. It turns out the key to...

In the absence of action from the health department, South Africa’s community health workers are once again having to fight for...

Sanitiser stockouts left governments to turn to more unconventional suppliers at the beginning of the year. Here’s why a lack of...

Even if a jab is shown to work, there won’t be enough doses for everyone. Countries such as South Africa would need to make tough decisions about who it would give the vaccine to — and more importantly how to create a system to get it to them.

COVID-19 brought the public and private health sectors together. But while the estranged bedfellows were making amends in the Western Cape,...