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The Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Bhekisisa is one of only a few media outlets in the Global South specialising in solutions-based narrative features and analysis. We not only uncover problems but also critically evaluate the solutions meant to fix them. It’s an approach we also take with our opinion pieces.

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We can get polio out of Africa this year and out of every country in the world in the next several years, say Bill and Melinda Gates.

Four factors blocking medicines made in Africa

Setting up a continent-wide medicines regulator in Africa could be key to getting the continent’s people the treatments and COVID vaccines they need. Here’s why more countries need to put their weight behind it.
Protection needed: Malaria kills more than a million poeple in the world every year - mostly children and preganant women

Our leaders must keep their word

Though progress has been made, Africa must continue the fight against Aids, TB and malaria.
Universal access to healthcare needs to be recognised as a fundamental human right.

Is universal access to healthcare possible?

The Elders say everybody is entitled to decent, affordable medical attention.

Abortion: Government to get tougher on doctors with moral objections

Draft guidelines will look to balance a doctor or nurse's right recuse themselves from performing abortions with a person's right to choose.
One country, one healthcare system was a theme at Ramaphosa's summit

#AIDS2016: Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi admits that ‘key leaders were in denial’

South African health minister calls AIDS denialism an 'unlucky' moment for a country that has since become a leader in HIV treatment, prevention.
Advocates for the partial decriminalisation of sex work overlook that the buying of sex in SA is already criminalised and this has not curbed demand

Sex, shrugs and policy holes: Why partially decriminalising sex work isn’t enough

After almost two decades, the South African Law Reform Commission chose fiction over facts.
Promising Ebola vaccines languished for years in research and development for more than a decade without funding.

Money can’t be the only motive for developing life-saving medicines

Will the world act now to be ready for the next big outbreak?

TB: This pee test could save your life

What if diagnosing South Africa’s deadliest disease was as simple as taking a drug store pregnancy test? That day might be closer than you think.
Bhekisisa bagged five awards at the Discovery Health Journalism Awards on Wednesday night. From left: Amy Green, Mia Malan and Ina Skosana

Bhekisisa: Help us choose a winner

One of our reader letters will win a one-year digital subscription to the Mail & Guardian. Help us decide who deserves it.
If a pregnant woman does not have the right nutrition

It pays to invest in poor girls and women – the returns are greater

Rwanda has shown that improved nutrition lifts individuals, families, communities and economies.

Four lessons from 40 years of HIV: Why COVID doesn’t end with equitable vaccine...

Inequity in COVID vaccine access echoes mistakes from the HIV response. In the forty years since Aids was first identified, there have also been several lessons on how to contain a pandemic. Starting with equity and supporting health systems.
Draft national health department guidelines will look to balance a doctor or nurse's right recuse themselves from performing abortions with a person's right to choose.

Unconscionable: Health workers’ right to refuse abortions vs women’s right to choose

When religion trumps science in medicine, women's bodies and Constitutional rights may be caught in the crossfire.

Does SA’s biggest killer show up in your party’s manifesto?

A curable and preventable disease is South Africa’s biggest killer. Is your political party going to do something about it — and does it show up in their election manifesto?
At least one in four children in Africa is still not receiving the vaccinations they need.

SA must close the immunisation gap that parallels class

Vaccines take centre stage in times of crisis but outside of public health emergencies they do not always get the attention they deserve.
Santie Pretorius lost more than 100kg after undergoing bariatric surgery

My controversial 100kg revolution

Santie Pretorius details her weight loss journey, which included surgery, in a new book.
National guidelines say babies should get nothing but their mother’s milk for the first six months of life. But fewer than one in 10 women makes it to six months.

‘I thought I’d breastfeed my baby for a year. That dream was short-lived’

We tell moms to exclusively breastfeed. But we don’t tell them about all the things that get in the way of that, including depression.