While various medicines are produced in South Africa, the active pharmaceutical ingredients going into these medicines are mostly still imported. Catherine Tomlinson reports on a local company that is trying to change that – starting with active pharmaceutical ingredients for tuberculosis and COVID-19 medicines.
At an estimated R27 billion per year, the cost of corruption equates to about 10% of the country’s total budget for health in 2022. With procurement understood to be a government’s single greatest corruption risk – health contracts are especially vulnerable. This is why reform related to safeguarding public procurement and resources is now beyond urgent, argues Zukiswa Kota.
The period covered by South Africa’s National Strategic Plan (NSP) for HIV, TB, and STIs 2017 – 2022 will soon come to an end. Against the backdrop of another World TB Day, Tiyese Jeranji asked several local tuberculosis experts what they think the TB priorities should be as South Africa develops an NSP for the next five years.
It is estimated that over 100 000 of the over 300 000 people who fall ill with TB in South Africa every year are not diagnosed. As a result, improving TB screening and testing has become a high priority in South Africa’s TB response. Coinciding with World TB Day 2022, Spotlight editor Marcus Low examines new information shared by the National Department of Health and assesses the state of the country’s TB case-finding efforts.
Investing in tuberculosis means that everyone has a stake in eliminating TB as a public health threat in our country: every person, every family, every community, every organisation (public and private) as well as government, writes Dr Yogan Pillay and Gaurang Tanna.
For healthcare, a post-pandemic human rights-focused budget would have allocated funding specifically for backlogs in access to health services from the past two years, as well as tackling the present inequities in access to healthcare that characterise the public health system. Tshidi Lencoasa, Khanyisa Mapipa, and Julia Chaskalson argue that this year’s budget does not do enough to enable government to realise people’s fundamental human right to access healthcare.
There is nothing humans can do about the fact that everyone dies eventually, but there may be room to do better when it comes to how some doctors, nurses, and care workers break the news of dying and death; and also how they give practical support to a grieving family. Ufrieda Ho looks at what measures are in place to guide healthcare workers, patients, and their families through this process in health facilities.
Women and girls seeking abortions are often forced to seek informal, illegal, and unsafe abortions as a result of various systemic barriers. Khanyisa Mapipa, Sibusisiwe Ndlela, and Thokozile Mtsolongo look at the state of abortion services in the public sector in the Eastern Cape.
On 17 February, Deputy Health Minister Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo led a march against unsafe abortions in Rustenburg, North West, but a march alone cannot eliminate barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing safe abortions in the public health system. Much more is needed, argue Sibusiwe Ndlela, Khanyisa Mapipa and Thokozile Mtsolongo in an open letter.
While there are nine experimental tuberculosis (TB) vaccines in advanced trials, the vaccine pipeline beyond those nine prospects is relatively depleted. Adele Baleta reports on this and much more from the virtual Global TB Vaccine Forum held last week.
As we transition towards a different strategy in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and look to build up better, there was an expectation that the budget tabled this week, would provide insight into the government’s response and strategy to address the gaps left by COVID. Russel Rensburg looks at some of the budget’s hits and misses as it relates to healthcare.
There is no time to waste in planning the South African rollout of cabotegravir (CAB LA), the long-lasting antiretroviral injection approved for use in the United States in December 2021, say local health experts.
