With plans in motion to roll out universal health coverage in South Africa, Dr Katlego Mothudi, of the Board of Healthcare Funders, argues that revising the compulsory prescribed minimum benefits that medical schemes must provide can be a tool to deliver meaningful improvements today while laying the foundations for a more sustainable healthcare system tomorrow.
A survey of 49 000 teenagers in the Western Cape reminds us that preventing violence does not begin in a hospital, a police station or a courtroom. It begins much earlier, in families, schools, sports fields, faith communities and neighbourhoods, writes Western Cape Provincial Minister of Health and Wellness Mireille Wenger.
Eight months after the Supreme Court of Appeal gave the green light for specially trained pharmacists to dispense antiretrovirals without a script from a doctor, the programme remains stuck in the starting blocks. With enabling permits now seemingly on the horizon, Angela Tembo and Dr Deanne Johnston ask if there has been sufficient planning to make the initiative a success.
If South Africa is serious about ending TB, protecting people living with HIV, and safeguarding the next generation from nicotine addiction, Parliament must finally pass the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill, argues Professor Lekan Ayo-Yusuf, as we mark World No Tobacco Day on May 31.
Spotlight has unveiled a new tuberculosis dashboard and graph generator. We hope this dashboard will help people get a clearer picture of the state of South Africa’s TB epidemic – an epidemic that still claims over 50 000 lives a year. It follows on the launch of a similar HIV dashboard last November.
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.
Vigilantes have unlawfully prevented people they deemed to be foreign nationals from accessing public healthcare services. SECTION27 health activists map out the implications of a Gauteng High Court judgment delivered at the end of last year, explaining that it obliges the state to take active and coordinated steps to remove barriers hindering people’s access to healthcare.
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.
Spotlight and GroundUp published a two-part exposé showing how US aid cuts led to the deaths of children in Mozambique. Here, Jesse Copelyn considers what led to this tragedy and who should bear responsibility for it.