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At a conference towards the end of last year, some of the great names in African public healthcare shared their lessons about what can — and can’t — work on the continent, from setting up new hospitals to implementing national health insurance. Sean Christie was there.

South Africa’s medicines regulator is helping to process pharmaceutical companies’ applications for medicines to be approved by the African Medicines Agency. But the country won’t have a say in the appointment of the agency’s head because it hasn’t yet ratified the treaty for its establishment.

Walking on the road in Accra can be dangerous, say researchers. Using a cellphone while doing so can up the chance for an accident even more. Here’s what a study found should be done to keep pedestrians safe.

Why do pandemics such as Aids not automatically end when we have the medicine to control them? Because they play out in a world where inequality frequently prevents drugs from reaching the people who need it most, writes Mia Malan.

For grandmothers across Côte d’Ivoire, climate change has had unexpected consequences. Once abundant with crop life, sustenance farming has become an unpredictable nightmare in the country’s villages. Young people of working age are now leaving villages in droves — without their children.

In collaboration with the Pulitzer Centre, Bhekisisa is hosting a webinar for African journalists on 29 March focusing on the role the media can play to increase the uptake of life-saving medicines.

In the small rural town of Chivhu, Zimbabwe, 10-year-old Grace Zvarebwa is training for a pan-African schools chess tournament in Liberia. Chess is an activity normally reserved for the country’s elite schools, but the sport has transformed the lives of rural school girls like Zvarebwa.

Afrigen Biologics, a Cape Town pharmaceutical company, has made Africa’s first COVID jab as part of the World Health Organisation’s mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub. How did they do it and what’s next?

A vasectomy is a permanent form of contraception for men. During this surgical procedure, the tubes that take sperm from the testicles to the glands that make semen are cut — in about the time of a lunch break.

The majority of South Africa’s public hospitals have a problem with tracking the costs of patient care, this study found. This poses a problem for the country’s plans for a National Health Insurance as hospitals could operate at a loss and face reimbursement challenges.

Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer have said low vaccine uptake in Africa is due to increasing hesitancy on the continent. But the truth is inequitable distribution of COVID vaccines have left Africa as a vaccine desert.

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.

Vaccines will only be registered for use in South Africa if their common side-effects are mild. To qualify as a “very rare” side-effect, the symptom needs to affect fewer than one in 10 000 people. Here’s why.

We’re all aware of the health benefits of walking. But for many of Africa’s urban populations who are forced to walk because of poor development planning, walking is not a leisure activity – it’s an indicator of inequality.

COVID vaccines have become one of the most sought after commodities in the world, but manufacturers simply can’t produce enough jabs for everyone who needs them. Bhekisisa investigates what this means for the emergence of a vaccine black market, as well as vaccine theft and falsification.

When it comes to leadership and innovation, there's much that industrialised nations can learn.