From the first reported cases of HIV in 1981 to the latest breakthroughs in long-acting prevention, this Spotlight timeline traces key moments in the global and South African response to the virus. It highlights scientific milestones, political controversies, activism, and the human stories that shaped one of the most significant public health challenges of our time.
Medical aid schemes will be given collective power to negotiate prices, according to draft regulations published last week. While some see the move as an important step toward reining in private healthcare prices, others argue that they do not go far enough and are legally unsound. Chris Bateman spoke to several leading experts about the proposed reforms.
There is a history of competition law being used to drive HIV medicine prices lower in South Africa. Now, two cases involving cancer medicines seem set to nail down what qualifies as “excessive pricing” in South African law – a legal development that could have far reaching implications for medicines prices in the country. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the details.
A Competition Commission probe recently resulted in a patent on an important tuberculosis medicine being dropped in South Africa. Twenty years ago, a similar Competition Commission case resulted in a settlement that helped drive down the prices of several antiretrovirals, thereby helping to set the stage for the country’s HIV treatment programme. Fatima Hassan and Leena Menghaney connect the dots between the two landmark cases and map out what has and has not changed over the last two decades.
One of the most damaging aspects of our public discourse on National Health Insurance (NHI) is the mistaken notion in some quarters that the only two options are NHI and the status quo, argues Marcus Low.
A potentially life-saving or life-extending breast cancer medicine is available to public sector patients in several of South Africa’s provinces, but not in the Western Cape. Elri Voigt asks what is behind the Western Cape government’s decision.
South Africa’s new National Strategic Plan for HIV, TB, and STIs is being developed this year. Spotlight editor Marcus Low asks what we should aim for in the new strategy and how we should go about developing it.
A year after the Competition Commission released its Health Market Inquiry (HMI) report, there has been very little action in addressing the report’s findings. Now, a notice the Competition Commission sent to stakeholders in September suggests there may finally be some movement. Elri Voigt reports.
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.
Government has failed in its duty to regulate the private health sector which is “neither efficient or competitive”, according to the Competition Commission’s report on the Health Market Inquiry (HMI) into the private sector.
