Community Health Workers (CHWs) are an important element in the government’s re-engineering of primary health care strategy. Here Melanie Alperstein and Tinashe Njanji highlight the challenges CHWs in the Eastern Cape face and offer some solutions to improve the working conditions of CHWs and improve health outcomes in the province.
Early childhood development programmes have a huge role to play in the lives of young children, including in their nutrition. In the third part of a six-part series on child hunger, Kathryn Cleary investigates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown on these programmes, and how some organisations are fighting for solutions.
Numbers from the National Institute of Communicable Disease and from some provinces show that TB diagnoses have dropped dramatically in 2020 – likely due to COVID-19 and the related lockdown. The Eastern Cape Department of Health has however declined to share information on the TB situation in the province and their catch-up plans. Some activists are concerned about the situation. Luvuyo Mehlwana reports.
Food is not the only thing needed to end child hunger and malnutrition. Another invisible nutrient is love. In the second of a six-part series focussing on child hunger, Kathryn Cleary speaks to a 19-year-old about his battle against the vicious cycle of hunger and poverty in the Eastern Cape.
The exit of Doctors without Borders’ (MSF) rape crisis support in the North West province during the COVID-19 pandemic arguably could not come at a worse time. Is the North West’s Department of Health ready to take over these services? Ufrieda Ho reports.
After more than 16 years at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, Shihaam Cader and her team have helped to treat and rehabilitate thousands of malnourished children. Kathryn Cleary chatted to Cader for the first part of a six-part special series on child hunger in South Africa.
South Africa’s childhood immunisation rates declined in 2020 compared to previous years, largely due to COVID-19 and the related lockdown. Elri Voigt asked government about the country’s catch-up plans.
Much has been reported on alleged corruption and governance failures in the Eastern Cape Health department that have devastating consequences for health services to those most in need. This is also true for inadequate Emergency Medical Services in the province. Nontsikelelo Mpulo and Thokozile Mtsolongo argue that solutions to the province’s EMS woes should start with improved spending of available budgets.
Tuberculosis treatment can be shortened from six to four months in 80% of children, according to findings from a landmark study. Amy green reports.
In 2019 around 360 000 people in South Africa fell ill with tuberculosis (TB) and about 58 000 people died due to the disease, according to a World Health Organization Report released last week. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these already alarming numbers, with some TB patients stopping treatment during lockdown. Siyabonga Kamnqa looks at the plans the Western Cape Health Department has in place to get its TB programme back on track and finds old challenges still remain.
A new four-month treatment course for drug-sensitive tuberculosis (the most common form of TB by far) is as safe and effective as the current six-month treatment course that has been in use since the 1980s, according to findings from a large new study. Amy Green reports.
A World Health Organization report published last week showed more people are falling ill with tuberculosis in South Africa than previously thought – but also that the country’s treatment success rate for dangerous drug-resistant forms of the disease have improved. Amy Green asks what’s behind these numbers.