News and analysis

The small study looking to repurpose an old TB vaccine could help add to a growing field of science that asks, can you really reprogramme your immune system?

How safe is it to fly during the coronavirus? We look at what the risk is and the measures you can take to protect yourself while flying during a pandemic.

Industry influence and government spats stalled regulations that could have curbed harmful alcohol use in South Africa nearly a decade ago.

South Africa has a drinking problem but research reveals a few things that could help curb harmful alcohol use in the country.

The Health Professions Council of South Africa was supposed to have reviewed the curriculum of some international medical schools to help foreign-trained doctors register faster in the country. Two years later, there’s still no list and some doctors are sitting idle amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

A new investigative report details the rapid spread of coronavirus disease in St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban, and how it could have been prevented.

The coronavirus spread rapidly through Netcare St. Augustine’s Hospital and beyond and made up 14% of KwaZulu-Natal’s infection by the end of April.

Official modelling predicts South Africa will see about 40 000 deaths from COVID-19 by November and is likely to run out of hospital beds.

The sphere of the politics of science is intense and complex — the larger the problem, the bigger the payoff to solve it.

Testing delays stoke fears that COVID-19 figures may be under-estimated.

Quarraisha and Salim Abdool Karim both serve on the ministerial committee that advises President Cyril Ramaphosa on South Africa’s COVID-19 response. In our recent webinar, we asked them eight questions about what to expect of life between now and September.

Bhekisisa just wrapped up its first online event, which was presented in partnership with the South African Health Technologies Advocacy Coalition. Here are a few things we learned along the way about reaching our readers during the coronavirus lockdown. 

Africa Check separates fact from fiction when it comes to the latest unproven treatment for COVID-19, this time from Madagascar.

With substandard medicines already in wide circulation, fears are growing that coronavirus could create a lethal ‘parallel crisis’.When Joana Opoku-Darko’s daughter Anna was 18...

The Collective of African Workers, a grassroots organisation campaigning for an end to the shanty towns in one of Spain's most important farming regions.

It’s a new normal, warn South Africa’s leading coronavirus scientists. And schools and workplaces won’t be exempt from seeing sporadic outbreaks of the new coronavirus, they say.