News and analysis

SARS-CoV-2 variants are the virus that causes COVID-19’s way of surviving and spreading. The fewer vaccinated people there are, the more chance the virus has to evolve. Here’s where variants come from and how to stop them.

South Africa’s medical regulatory body has authorised Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for children 12 and up. But it’s unlikely this age group will be included in the country’s national roll-out soon. Find out why.

South Africa’s national COVID vaccine roll-out is underway. But some people still have many understandable concerns about getting the jab. Our Mia Malan spoke to experts about how to comfort reluctant loved ones in the latest episode of Health Hub, a Bhekisisa partnership with Newzroom Afrika.

The health department is working to bring COVID-19 vaccines closer to where everyday people spend their time (malls, businesses, schools) in an effort to meet lagging immunisation targets. Bhekisisa spoke to the health department’s Nicholas Crisp on Health Hub on Newzroom Afrika.

Russia’s Sputnik V COVID vaccine has yet to be approved by any stringent regulators. Part of the problem: the manufacturer’s reluctance to share information about the jab. Here’s what it takes for a vaccine to make it through regulatory bodies and how Sputnik got around the process in some countries.

What goes into the scientific hamburger of a COVID vaccine? A lot of trust.

Russia’s COVID vaccine, Sputnik V, is plagued by a series of red flags and question marks surrounding its clinical trials and results. Here’s how the jab took a shortcut and created sceptics about its underlying science.

Checkpoints in the scientific system are put in place to ensure that research can be sped up in a safe way. But during the COVID pandemic, the accelerated timeline to push research out in an effort to help has exposed gaps in the process that allow bad science to slip through.

Nobody in South Africa has died after getting a COVID vaccine, shows a new report from South Africa’s medicine regulator the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. Find out how Sahpra links severe side-effects to the vaccines in this easy explainer.

We ask the infectious diseases specialist Anthony Fauci 18 questions about the COVID pandemic: from what works to counter vaccine hesitancy to whether life will even return to the normal we knew before COVID-19.

COVID variants are new versions of the virus that are smarter at surviving. But before we can understand what these changed forms mean for vaccines, we first need to go back to the basics. We take you through the evolution of the virus and what this means for your body’s defences.

Rich countries are already beginning to look at possibly rolling out booster shots of COVID vaccines. Causing the World Health Organisation to call for a ban on these programmes until September in order to give poorer countries a chance to catch up in their search for sufficient doses.

Why should you wait for two weeks after a flu jab before getting vaccinated for COVID, and is it safe to get a shot if you have a weak immune system? We break it down.

Vaccines help to reduce the spread of COVID, but they are not without shortcomings. Here’s what they can and can’t do.

Excluding refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented people in public health programmes is likely to have far-reaching implications for global COVID vaccination roll-outs.

Scientists know that people who have had COVID still benefit from getting vaccinated with at least one shot of vaccine. But can you get vaccinated while you have COVID?