“Wheelchair breaker! Fatty boom boom!” These are the words hurled at 42-year-old Nomakhephu Nelane when she had to board the patient transport to transfer her from Pelonomi to Botshabelo Hospital in August 2023. She has kidney failure and it is…
Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) recently announced that it would lift patents on the life drug bedaquiline. Bedaquiline is a key component in the cocktail of drugs used to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) which develops when the TB bacteria…
New HIV infections are still a major driver of the epidemic. According to UNAIDS adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately affected. Around the world, this population group accounts for about 4000 new infections every week. In South Africa, where…
South Africa has one of the most liberal abortion legislation in the world. But this has not translated to easy access to abortion. Many women still struggle to get the services. fWhen they do, they are faced with bad attitudes…
Glenda Gray, South African Medical Research Council South African-born Professor Hoosen “Jerry” Coovadia, renowned academic and prominent anti-apartheid activist, passed away on 4 October. As a paediatrician I was privileged to know and work with him over two decades. Prior…
Wishing and praying for rainfall, that is how Oscious Maluga spends most of his days. Maluga is a smallholder farmer from Mabila, a water stricken village outside Sibasa in Limpopo. The 30-year-old grows various crops on his five hectare farm…
Twelve years back, the North West Department of Health started construction on a multi-million rand, state-of-the-art community health centre (CHC) in Mathibestad in the Moretele local municipality. The project was meant to be completed in 2015. But the unfinished building…
Sixty-three-year-old Maria Nemakonde is just two years away from retirement, something she’s not quite looking forward to. Nemakonde is a teacher at a school for children with special needs in Shayandima, outside Thohoyandou in Limpopo. And she’s worried about what…
Primrose Freestone, University of Leicester Every year, around 2.4 million people in the UK get food poisoning – mostly from viral or bacterial contamination. Most people recover within a few days without treatment, but not all are that lucky. As…
Ten Morgan community members in Winterveldt, north of Pretoria, are up in arms. They have had to contend with a “fly infestation” for more than a month now. Residents say the pests come from the nearby poultry farm. Philly Khoza…
It’s been three months since expectant mothers in Seutelong in Moretele, North West province have been able to get an ultrasound scan at Sediane clinic. Patients say they have repeatedly been told that the doctor is not available. The clinic…
Arnetia Brown got her first period when she was 13 and pain has been a regular part of her life since. “With my very first cycle my father found me passed out on the floor. I actually fainted because I…
“We do not expect to be robbed or held at gunpoint while saving lives,” says Levy Leburu, an emergency medical services (EMS) worker based in Jouberton near Klerksdorp in the North West province. In August he started an online petition…
It’s a sunny midweek afternoon and the streets of downtown Johannesburg are buzzing with people, hooting taxis and hawkers on the pavements. On the corner of Klein and Koch street in Hillbrow, Health-e News meets Nelson Khethani, an old man…
David Martin Shaw, University of Basel; Philip Lewis, University of Cologne, and Thomas C. Erren, University of Cologne We expect medical professionals to give us reliable information about ourselves and potential treatments so that we can make informed decisions about…
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