South Africa is part of a ‘pariah group’ of countries not yet certified polio-free, thanks to weaknesses in our disease surveillance and vaccination programme. The Department of Health is determined to win back its certificate next month, and launched an immunisation coverage survey last week to investigate the nation’s vaccination rate. 

The City of Johannesburg is launching an emergency measles vaccination campaign following after 11 cases of the the illness have been reported in Gauteng.

Nigeria has been free of polio for an entire year, thanks to an aggressive vaccination policy supported by the Gates Foundation.

The shortage of the BCG vaccine to protect newborns against TB is “not as grave as has been portrayed in some media quarters”, according to the National Advisory Group on Immunisation (NAGI).

HIV and tuberculosis (TB) drug stock outs have hit about 14 percent of health facilities nationwide in the last nine months, according to a new study released today by civil society coalition the Stop Stock Outs Project.

The world could save 20 million children in the next five years with better access to vaccines, according to Wits Reproductive Health Institute Executive Director Helen Rees.

New data shows that South Africa’s expensive pneumococcal vaccine roll out has cut childhood hospitalisations due to meningitis, pneumonia and rotavirus by about 70 percent in just five years, according to Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi.