We can generally trust that the medicines we buy at pharmacies contain what they are supposed to and that they were manufactured according to good quality standards. In his latest column, Dr Andy Gray zooms in on the regulatory scaffolding that enables this trust.
Substance abuse is both a symptom and a consequence of untreated mental illness, and government needs to urgently step in to confront this dangerous overlap, argues Gauta Mashego of SECTION27.
It has been a bruising year or so for medical researchers in South Africa with the US pausing, cancelling, and then resuming some grants. But as bad as things were, what played out wasn’t the worst case scenario, and momentum is now building toward recovery.
The sale of illegal medicines is a significant threat to public safety. In his latest Inside The Box column, Dr Andy Gray asks whether the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has the necessary tools at hand to provide protection in this area.
Healthcare funding is always about trade-offs, writes Thoneshan Naidoo, CEO of the Health Funders Association. The hardest question in healthcare is not what we would like to provide, he argues, but what we can provide sustainably, fairly and at scale.
The wins are there but the underlying reality remains, writes Professor Kogie Naidoo as she likens TB to a bridesmaid awaiting its turn to garner attention. The analogy is relevant given the overwhelming number of new TB infections and deaths each year globally for a disease persistently sitting in the shadow of other communicable and non-communicable diseases.
New TB tests have massive potential for South Africa’s struggle to get to grips with the age-old disease. Making the most of these new tests will require both ambition and smart implementation, argue Gaurang Tanna and Dr Yogan Pillay.
The persistence of TB is a reminder that medical solutions alone are not enough. Renier Coetzee and Ingrid Schoeman write that the disease thrives in conditions shaped by social injustice, including poverty, overcrowded housing, under-resourced health systems, and unequal access to care.
The only tuberculosis vaccine we have is a century old and offers only limited efficacy in children. With leading South African researchers involved in the pivotal clinical trials of three new tuberculosis vaccine candidates, we are on the verge of a major breakthrough, writes Associate Professor Angelique Kany Kany Luabeya.
The new government TB dashboard is a step forward for transparency and accountability in South Africa’s response to the ancient, but still deadly, disease. It is critical that we use it wisely to boost our testing efforts, argues a group of South Africa’s leading TB activists ahead of World TB Day on March 24th.
Journalist Ufrieda Ho passed away of cancer on 9 March 2026. In a career spanning three decades, she wrote for The Star, Daily Maverick, Spotlight, and many other publications.
Universal health coverage cannot succeed with fragmented systems, weak data, and largely symbolic participation. A recent court-ordered pause to NHI implementation offers a chance to build the foundations properly, argue Dr Haseena Majid and Professor Mogie Subban.
