The theme for this year’s World AIDS Day is “Equalise and Integrate to End AIDS”. One aspect in which more equality is needed is between the quality of HIV testing services and aiming to test as many people as possible, argues René Sparks.
KwaZulu-Natal clinics are outperforming facilities monitored in other provinces on various indicators and health services in the province have improved year-on-year, but some marginalised groups continue to have a hard time accessing healthcare services. This is according to the latest provincial report from community-led monitoring project Ritshidze. Nthusang Lefafa spoke to several NGOs about the findings and asked the province’s health department for their response.
South Africa is expected to begin piloting the HIV prevention injection early next year as one of several projects that experts hope will reveal the answers to some of the biggest questions about the future of the shot – who will deliver the injection, where, and how to sell people on the idea that just six shots a year could protect them from HIV. Laura Lopez Gonzalez reports.
As a rebellious teenager growing up in the British town of Harpenden, Professor Helen Rees would sneak out to attend anti-apartheid talks. Today, she is a renowned scientist and chair of South Africa’s medicines regulator. Biénne Huisman chatted to Rees about her career, prioritising women’s reproductive health, and her role at the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority.
According to some estimates, over a third of tuberculosis (TB) patients have high levels of psychological distress and a quarter have an alcohol use disorder. Following an eye-opening project in KwaZulu-Natal, Atlantic Institute Tekano Fellow Amanda Fononda argues that a diagnosis of an illness (such as TB) should be accompanied by mental health screening for treatment readiness, adherence, and overall well-being.
There is still no test to diagnose long-COVID and also no cure. It’s the fallout of the pandemic that is fast becoming a mounting health concern. Ufrieda Ho reports.
Although the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, Gauteng in 2017 had been declared unfit for human habitation” and “an occupational hazard, patients and healthcare workers are continuing to receive and provide health services under unusually difficult conditions. Some say they fear for their lives. Thabo Molelekwa visited the hospital and spoke to some healthcare workers and patients about conditions at the hospital and asked the provincial health department about plans to address the concerns.
Receiving the Public Health Association’s annual PHILA award recently is one of a string of accolades Professor Mosa Moshabela, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal has under his belt. Biénne Huisman spoke to him about his journey to becoming a doctor and his deep-seated commitment to public health, health innovation, and improving health systems.
The quest for access to equitable and quality surgical care for all will not be won only in board rooms, theatres, or hospital corridors. We have to take this quest into communities and build alliances. In that respect, we can learn from one of the best examples of how community participation and mobilisation can help change health policy – the movement to ensure access to affordable and universal anti-retroviral treatment for persons living with HIV, argues Professor Kathryn Chu and Sangeun Lee.
During the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, oxygen was a lifesaving consumable, but in many remote rural areas of the Eastern Cape, logistical challenges such as poor roads and long distances made distribution difficult. A group of doctors and engineers, however, developed a sustainable lifeline in the form of an oxygen generator at Madwaleni Hospital. Luvuyo Mehlwana reports.
Unsafe sex, interpersonal violence, high body mass index, high systolic blood pressure, and alcohol consumption are the top risk factors for disease and death in South Africa, according to the Second Comparative Risk Assessment study conducted by the South African Medical Research Council’s Burden of Disease Research Unit. Nthusang Lefafa spoke to some of the researchers to unpack the findings.
Some healthcare services at Boitumelo Regional Hospital in Kroonstad are hamstrung by construction delays, poor maintenance, and water shortages – despite the hospital being classified as one of the Free State’s ‘ideal hospitals’. Refilwe Mochoari investigates.