In 2013 Thabiso Senamela had a terrible headache. He walked from his home in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, to buy painkillers at a local pharmacy. But before reaching his destination he suddenly collapsed in the street. Passersby rushed him to…
The global measures to end the tuberculosis epidemic are showing signs of recovery post-Covid. More cases have been diagnosed and the number of people who died from the disease has gone down. Despite this apparent recovery, the World Health Organisation…
Dr Patrick Ngassa Piotie is a Senior Programme Manager at the University of Pretoria Diabetes Research Centre and the Chairperson of the Diabetes Alliance Deaths due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are on the rise in South Africa. The increase in…
Dr Jaishree Raman is a Principal Medical Scientist and the head of the Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Malaria exerts a huge public health burden on communities within…
Charles Shey Wiysonge, Stellenbosch University The BCG vaccine for TB has been used for 100 years. It is largely effective for children under five, but less so in older people and can’t be used on patients who have certain medical…
The health sector has taken a knock following finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s announcement of cuts to the HIV programmes as well as spend on health infrastructure in the medium term budget policy statement on Wednesday. The minister’s speech gave a…
South Africa will now be paying 40% less for the multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) drug bedaquiline. Bedaquiline is a key component in the cocktail of drugs used to treat MDR-TB. Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is currently the sole manufacturer…
Lerato Mthunzi, Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union (HAITU) General Secretary October is mental health awareness month and as it draws to an end, a few key issues must be highlighted to make this month less of a ritualistic…
[This story was first published on 17 October 2023. It’s been updated to reflect the latest developments] Bogus health professionals have been a hot topic in South Africa lately. One of the more sensational is the story of ‘Tik Tok’…
Mmamapudi Kubjane, University of the Witwatersrand and Leigh Johnson, University of Cape Town Around the world, men are more likely to get TB and to die from it than women. We recently conducted research to establish the various factors that…
Ten Limpopo municipalities have three months to show detailed plans of how they’re going to provide residents with water, or face court action. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) says failure by municipalities to provide basic services can no…
Prof David Katerere, Tshwane University of Technology Research Chair in Pharmaceutical & Biotech Advancement in Africa (PBA2) Traditional medicine is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as healthcare which is embedded in traditions and people’s heritage. It ranges…
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in South Africa accounting for 22.6% of all female cancers. Men can also get breast cancer, with approximately 1% diagnosed. Health-e News spoke with Dr Diana Pillay, a radiation oncologist at…
In October 2017, Reokopetswe Molobi (33) from Ramaphosa village in Moretele Local Municipality, had a difficult and prolonged labour. “My pregnancy was great. I had no complications until my due date. I was admitted and spent three days in labour,”…
Sesona Mehlala has dealt with poor eyesight for most of her life. The 27-year-old started wearing glasses at nine. But even with the spectacles she struggled to see. In 2015 she buckled under the financial and mental strain of frequent…