Journalist Sue Segar and photographer Thom Pierce recently visited Emalahleni in Mpumalanga to report on how air pollution is impacting the health of people in the area. In part 3 of this Spotlight special series, we zoom in on the science of air pollution and what it does to the human body.
A new HIV prevention jab has the potential to bring an end to the AIDS epidemic. But a lack of ambition and unjustifiable secrecy over pricing is holding it back, argue three leading health activists.
Joshua was safely delivered from Sylvia’s belly instead of her uterus one year ago. Biénne Huisman meets mother and baby, and hears from some of the healthcare professionals involved in the remarkable outcome.
A child-friendly formulation of the antiretroviral drug dolutegravir was first included in the country’s HIV treatment guidelines in 2023. New estimates suggest that most children aged one to four living with HIV have now been switched to the drug, reports Elri Voigt.
The health department has plans to roll out lenacapavir, a twice-yearly HIV prevention injection, in a select group of public sector clinics by April 2026. Meanwhile, little progress has been made towards rolling out a two-monthly prevention injection, despite the four-year head start this product had on lenacapavir. Catherine Tomlinson reports.
Doctors have blown the whistle about a crisis at one of KwaZulu-Natal’s most important public hospitals, saying it is functioning far under capacity due to a series of crippling cuts. Chris Bateman reports.
In the latest chapter of a long-running legal battle over the Gauteng Department of Health’s obligation to provide people in the province with radiation oncology services, the department has suffered another loss in the courts. Ufrieda Ho assesses the legal situation and asks what it means for people still waiting for the life-saving treatment.
From anti-apartheid activist to top rated researcher, Professor Rachel Jewkes has spent her career trying to make the world a better place for women. Elri Voigt spoke to her about her journey to South Africa from the United Kingdom and how she became one of the country’s leading researchers on gender-based violence.
Rather than trying to do everything from scratch, medicines regulators from different countries are increasingly sharing the load between them by ‘relying’ on each other’s work. In his latest Inside The Box column, Dr Andy Gray explains how such ‘reliance mechanisms’ can help regulators make decisions more quickly and efficiently, and digs into the details of how South Africa can make the most of these mechanisms.
When South Africans get caught up in the country’s often dysfunctional home affairs system, sometimes even DNA evidence isn’t enough to prove their citizenship. This can, among others, have consequences for people’s ability to access healthcare services. For foreign nationals, navigating the system can be even harder.
The obesity epidemic will hit South Africa hard on top of our high HIV burden, but advocate researcher and scientist Dr Nomathemba Chandiwana says she is ready to fight back harder. She speaks to Ufrieda Ho about her journey from working in state hospitals to transitioning into obesity medicine, and her move to Cape Town.
Despite a landmark court judgment three years ago that upheld the right to clean air, air pollution remains rife in South Africa’s coal country. For part 2 of this Spotlight special series, journalist Sue Segar and photographer Thom Pierce travelled to meet some of the activists on the ground in Mpumalanga.
