A key concern in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic internationally has been a shortage of medical equipment, particularly ventilators. Elna Schütz asks whether we are sufficiently prepared in South Africa.
Government can now track people’s movements through their cell phones to establish who may have come into contact with people who have tested positive for COVID-19. Spotlight spoke to experts and activists about the new tracking plans.
A collaboration of public health and infection prevention doctors of TB Proof and Public Health Action Team started a Masks4All campaign arguing for homemade face masks as a potentially powerful tool to the fight against COVID-19. Here they explain why.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize must use all the legal mechanisms at his disposal to ensure that the constitutional imperative that everyone has the right to have access to health care services is realised, writes Nkululeko Conco and Tendai Mafuma.
In South Africa’s war against COVID-19 community healthcare workers are foot soldiers on the frontlines. Spotlight spoke to CHWs from across the country about their concerns regarding a lack of protective equipment and job security.
South Africa’s 21-day lockdown is a drastic measure intended to help and protect the public. For it to work it needs an extraordinary level of trust, communication and clear messaging and will have to be implemented with belief, commitment and engagement by the vast majority of our people, writes Dr Lydia Cairncross and Kelly Gillespie.
South African researchers are poised to start enrolling patients in a landmark international clinical trial which will compare the safety and effectiveness of four different drugs or drug combinations against COVID-19.
Tendai Mafuma describes what happened when SECTION27 tried to use new regulations to bring an end to the promotion of an unproven treatment for COVID-19 in South Africa and compares the current situation with the TAC’s successful court battle against Matthias Rath’s promotion of unproven AIDS treatments.
Healthcare workers are sounding the alarm as life-saving protective equipment runs critically low in facilities across South Africa, and the world, due to increased demand created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meeting the challenge of an increasing cancer burden is only possible if there is political will to bridge the gap between our cancer policy documents and the reality faced by thousands of cancer patients in the health system writes Professors Jeannette Parkes and Lydia Cairncross.
Four provinces have made positive moves to announce that patients on chronic medicines will be able to have their scripts filled for as long as three or four months in order to minimise their exposure to possible COVID-19 infection in public spaces like clinics.
South Africa’s strategy to defeat COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) is to lockdown the country and upscale testing to quickly identify individuals who may have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.