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After Echo: ‘Life for young women navigating puberty is gruesome’
We've proven Depo Provera doesn't make it easier to contract HIV. But African women are still left with too few contraceptive choices.
‘She can’t discern jam from Vaseline’: Advice for the children of Alzheimer’s patients
In South Africa, a gene test that will tell you if you’re at risk for Alzheimer’s disease costs R3 600. But major organisations warn people against using these home kits without also getting counselling to help them work through the results — regardless of the outcome.
COVID-19 is killing private medical practices. Here’s how to save them
As cases of COVID-19 mount, people are steering clear of clinics and doctors are forced to postpone surgeries to free up beds. If something isn’t done now, there’s slim chance private doctors will have the ability to volunteer for the national response because their jobs — and those of their staff – won’t survive the pandemic.
This agreement could be South Africa’s answer for an affordable COVID-19 vaccine. But there’s...
When COVID-19 vaccines come onto the market, poorer countries will have to compete with wealthier ones, who can pay more, for access. Will it help if lower and middle-income countries pool their funds and order vaccines in bulk?
Why we should be making our own COVID medicines, vaccines and supplies
There's been an unequal scramble for COVID-19 vaccines, test kits and medicines that can shorten recovery periods. Wealthy countries have already pre-ordered more than 2 billion doses of vaccines that are still being tested, leaving poorer countries with few options for equal access. But what if we could produce some of the COVID solutions at home?
Could South Africa’s lockdown ‘experiment’ help chart a path to a more sober and...
Researchers will need to carefully untangle cause and effect when it comes to learning what lockdown and a moratorium on alcohol sales have meant for the country – and our collective future.
We say goodbye to South Africa’s ‘people’s doctor’, Sindi van Zyl
South Africa lost one of its most prominent HIV doctors, Sindisiwe Van Zyl this weekend due to COVID-related complications. She’ll be remembered for her ability to make HIV and reproductive health knowledge accessible to her hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers.
African drumming: New rhythm in therapy
Drumming therapy can help to reduce anger and tension and increase a sense of wellbeing.
In epidemics, our health facilities can become hotspots. Here’s what to do about it.
Two epidemics, two diseases, 200 kilometres and almost 20 years apart. Find out what they have in common.
Pathologies of pleasure: What they don’t teach you in medical school
Tlaleng Mofokeng is a doctor, writer, radio and TV presenter as well as an internationally-renowned health activist. She’s made it her life work to educate people on sexual and reproductive health and rights and her first book is a primer on everything from anal sex to intersectionality.Read why medical school never prepared her for becoming ‘the sex doctor’ in this excerpt from her newly released first book, “Dr T: A Guide to Sexual Health and Pleasure.”
#AIDS2016: ‘Never again must the political meddling of a few derail progress’
The International Aids Conference returns after 16 years to a very different South Africa, but the battle against HIV is not yet over.
The coronavirus outbreak & mental health: What you need to know
Find out what South Africa's coronavirus outbreak means for your mental health and why comfort may be closer than you think.
Mediation could ease SA’s medico-legal woes but it’s no quick fix
South Africa is now home to more than 90 trained medical mediators, but there’s not much work to go around - yet.
‘We only write about them when they are dead’: Hate killings of black lesbians...
Nearly three decades after South Africa’s first Gay and Lesbian pride march, journalist and researcher Nechama Brodie takes a look at the violent history the country’s black lesbians have endured.
Women can wait up to two months to find out if their babies have...
The world has more than halved the number of babies who contract HIV from their mothers in the last two decades. But in some places, rates of mother-to-child transmission of HIV are rising again and we don’t have a moment to lose when it comes to diagnosing — and treating — babies born with the virus.
Rape increases your long-term risk of contracting HIV. Here’s what could fix that
Trauma care for rape survivors in South Africa has been crucially underfunded — and now there’s evidence of the HIV-related consequences.