Features

The Nigerian government wants to stop medical professionals from leaving to countries including the United Kingdom and the United States by making it mandatory for doctors to work in state hospitals for five years.

In 2020, 1.9-million children were stillborn according to a new report from the World Health Organisation. Read how one woman’s experience of stillbirth inspired her to start a mental health support group for parents who lost a child during pregnancy.

Around the time Phumeza Tisile was receiving treatment for extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the cure rate for patients with that form of the disease was 15%. Tisile beat XDR-TB despite the odds, but not without a cost: she lost her hearing.

Goodman Makanda survived the most drug-resistant form of tuberculosis that scientists know of, but he lost a lung to the disease in the process. Now, he says he would “rather die” than take handfuls of TB medicine again.

The WHO may have declared leprosy eliminated in 1998, but Bangladeshi tea pickers continue to be infected by the thousands.

Healthworkers are being attacked by Myanmar’s military — observers say it’s a tactic of war.

Pharmacy expert Andy Gray is the “insider’s insider” in South Africa’s public health sphere. Get to know him better here.

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.

Bayanda Maseko lost 2 000 chickens and more than R100 000 he invested in his farm in 2022, all because of loadshedding. Maseko says psychological support is needed in an industry where “it's every man for himself”. He speaks about the impact of these losses on his mental health in the March episode of Bhekisisa’s television show Health Beat.

The Shining Path insurgents in the 80s and 90s led a trail of destruction through the lives of indigenous Peruvians. Now, women are using dance to heal the trauma.

“Dhaqan celis” was a term used by Somalis that used to mean the practice of going back home to stay with relatives and learn more about your culture. But it’s taken on a whole new – much darker – meaning. Read more on this practice.

Get to know sexual and reproductive rights activist and doctor Tlaleng Mofokeng with our reporter Sean Christie.

Morphine was first introduced to Uganda 30 years ago, but as the burden of cancer increases, thousands of people still lack access to even basic treatment for pain relief.

When a primary school teacher in the Western Cape suspected that one of her pupils was being sexually abused, she did everything she could to help. Here’s what happened next.

South Africa plans to roll out treatment for opioid addiction to all government health facilities by 2028, according to a draft of the country’s sixth HIV action plan. Read one person’s story of recovery here.

In 2017, Lesotho became the first African country to legalise cannabis. Nearly six years later, the industry is yet to change the country’s fortunes.