Every year around 40 000 people are hospitalised with influenza in South Africa and around 11 000 die of the disease. Spotlight interviewed leading Professor in Vaccinology Shabir Madhi about the flu and its implications for the fight against COVID-19.
Government has rolled out an intensified screening and testing campaign in the hope of finding more COVID-19 cases during and after the lockdown period, but the disparity between the country’s testing capacity and the actual number of tests being conducted remains substantial.
Unless timely action is taken, South Africa could be faced with a new form of “pharmaceutical apartheid,” like that experienced in the early days of the AIDS response, writes Professor Yousuf Vawda & Professor Brook K. Baker.
The Department of Health has announced that it will rely on community healthcare workers to assist with tracking and tracing potential COVID-19 cases but has not provided assurances about how it will protect these workers during the process and beyond, writes Nontsikelelo Mpulo and Tendai Mafuma.
Children experience anxiety and panic as acutely as adults do; only they might be better at hiding it. There is concern that the COVID-19 pandemic and national lock down will lead to an increase of physical and emotional abuse towards children and that the economic fallout of the pandemic will add a new dimension of hardship to children’s lives.
Around the turn of the century developing countries fought for and won safeguards to promote access to medicines in international trade law. These safeguards are now being heralded by lawmakers around the world as critical legal mechanisms that nations can and must use in the fight against COVID-19, writes Catherine Tomlinson.
Many of the key epidemiological numbers for COVID-19 are still uncertain. Adele Baleta takes us through some of the best estimates out there.
Reproductive freedom can include both the right to avoid procreation through means like abortion and the right to choose procreation through surrogacy and Assistive Reproductive Technology. Spotlight sat down with a mother who has been a surrogate on two occasions to discuss choice, the legalities and medical side of this process.
On Friday (10 April) Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize recommended that members of the public wear cloth facemasks of at least three layers. In so doing, Mkhize gave direction on an issue that has created much uncertainty. Dr Kerrin Begg unpacks the science and policy driving this decision.
A team of local scientists have put together the first genetic fingerprint of a SARS-CoV-2 virus found in South Africa. Spotlight spoke to two of the scientists to learn more.
The National Health Laboratory Service claims it has the capacity to do 15 000 COVID-19 tests a day, but that the actual number of tests being done is lower because of limited demand from provinces.
Spotlight asked Dr Lungile Hobe-Nxumalo, Chair of the Rural Doctors’ Association of Southern Africa, how rural healthcare facilities can prepare for the fight against COVID-19.