From the limited rollout of a new HIV prevention jab to developments with new weight loss medicines, to high-stakes court cases relating to National Health Insurance (NHI), 2026 is set to be another tumultuous year in healthcare. Here are nine stories that Spotlight will keep a close eye on.
The year’s biggest health story by far has been the cuts to US aid for health and US support for health research. But it’s also been a year of important HIV prevention developments, NHI court cases, ongoing crises in some of our provincial health departments, and some first steps toward accountability for the corruption at Tembisa Hospital.
United States funding cuts shredded specialised services at a transgender clinic in the heart of Johannesburg. But a new collaborative initiative refuses to let this be the end of the journey for trans clients. Journalist Ufrieda Ho and photographer Thom Pierce meet some of the people at the forefront of the project.
The National Health Laboratory Service has provided HIV, TB, syphilis and cholesterol data, which Spotlight and GroundUp obtained through the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
As World AIDS Day 2025 swings by, CAPRISA Director Professor Salim Abdool Karim reflects on the frantic days following this year’s unprecedented cuts to health aid and research funding from the US, arguing that the deliberate disruptiveness was designed to be cruel. Nonetheless, he argues, our HIV response must now forge ahead on a path that is more affordable, sustainable and independent.
From the first reported cases of HIV in 1981 to the latest breakthroughs in long-acting prevention, this Spotlight timeline traces key moments in the global and South African response to the virus. It highlights scientific milestones, political controversies, activism, and the human stories that shaped one of the most significant public health challenges of our time.
It is estimated that around half a million people living with HIV in South Africa don’t know they are living with the virus. One way to help these people is by offering them the means to test themselves in the privacy of their own homes. As Catherine Tomlinson explains in this #InTheSpotlight special briefing, such self-screening tests are part of our HIV response on paper, but in reality, the tests are massively underutilised.
In South Africa, many mothers and their babies have to visit the clinic more than 10 times in the first six months of the postnatal period. Early findings from an ongoing implementation science project suggests we can get this down to five. The hope is that the new approach will also help reduce HIV transmission from mothers to their babies. Elri Voigt reports.
South Africa has the world’s largest population of people living with HIV, which both heightens the risk of anal cancers and their severity. However, neither the collection of data nor the efforts for prevention and screening are in line with the likely impact. Experts say significant change is needed, reports Elna Schütz.
Spotlight has launched a new HIV dashboard and graph generator based on outputs from the Thembisa model. Our hope is that this dashboard will help the public and people working in healthcare to find important HIV numbers more easily. Please take a look and let us know what you think of it.
The number of HIV viral load tests is significantly lower than expected, according to an analysis of data from the National Health Laboratory Service which Spotlight and GroundUp obtained through the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
An HIV prevention jab that provides six months of protection at a time was given the green light by South Africa’s medicines regulator. The approval helps to clear the way for a limited public sector rollout of the “game-changing” shot set to start in April 2026.
