In-depth: Breakthrough hepatitis C cures slowly becoming more widely available in South Africa

Almost a decade after they were first proven to be safe and highly effective, game-changing medicines to cure hepatitis C are finally becoming more widely available in South Africa. But not all the regulatory and other challenges behind the delay have yet been overcome and, as a result, access remains relatively limited for now. Catherine Tomlinson reports.

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Analysis: Why has the price of this cancer medicine risen and fallen by over a thousand percent since 2016?

Lenalidomide is an important medicine used for the treatment of multiple myeloma – a type of bone marrow cancer that is not curable and typically requires long-term, ongoing treatment. Over the last decade, the price of this drug has fluctuated dramatically in South Africa and patients and their doctors have gone to extreme lengths to access it. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the remarkable recent history of lenalidomide.

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In-depth: What the approval of flucytosine means for the treatment of cryptococcal meningitis in SA

After seemingly endless delays, a critically important drug for the treatment of cryptococcal meningitis was recently approved in South Africa. Yet, while the approval of flucytosine was a major step forward, much more still needs to be done to ensure wide availability of this life-saving medicine for the second leading killer of people living with HIV. Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the details.

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