Whether or not someone living with HIV in South Africa gets a one- or three-months’ supply of antiretrovirals at a time depends partly on the clinic where they happen to go for HIV care. Ahead of World AIDS Day 2024, Elri Voigt unpacks the legal and policy issues relating to prescriptions and HIV medicine refills and asks why people living with HIV are treated so differently in different parts of the country.
HIV prevention injections that can provide two, or even six, months of protection per shot have arguably been the biggest HIV story of the year. Ahead of World AIDS Day, Professor Francois Venter assesses the state of play and the critical next steps with these potentially game-changing new tools in the fight against HIV.
It’s acknowledged in key policy documents, well known at the coalface and much ventilated in the media: South Africa’s public healthcare system has too few healthcare workers, especially medical doctors, certain specialists, and theatre nurses. Less recognised however is the shortage of public sector pharmacists. Chris Bateman lifts the lid on this until now largely hidden problem – and its impact.
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.
Over the last decade, it has become clear that South Africa’s progress against TB depends on diagnosing more people more quickly. In this Spotlight special briefing, Marcus Low asks how we can best go about it.
An extended impasse over a vital agreement for training and improved hospital management between the Gauteng Department of Health and Wits University remains derailed, despite behind the scenes efforts to get it back on track, reports Ufrieda Ho.
Highly effective treatments for HIV have existed since the mid-1990s. But while these treatments keep people healthy, we do not yet have a safe and scalable way to completely rid the body of the virus. In this Spotlight special briefing, Elri Voigt takes stock of where we are in the decades-long search for an HIV cure.
A flexible silicone ring that slowly releases antiretrovirals is one of just two long-acting HIV prevention products registered for use in South Africa. Results from a new study might pave the way for a longer-acting version of the vaginal ring that provides three months of protection at a time, as opposed to one month with the current ring. Elri Voigt reports on these findings and looks at how the one-month ring has influenced HIV prevention choices in South Africa.
Some patients at KwaZulu-Natal hospitals are donating lung tissue for use in TB research. Sue Segar tracks what happens to these tissue samples and explores why these samples are so important to unlocking the mysteries of what the TB bacterium does inside the human body.
An estimated 56 000 people in South Africa and 1.25 million around the world died of TB in 2023, according to just-published figures from the WHO. This means that in 2023 TB overtook COVID-19 as the top infectious disease killer on the planet. Marcus Low unpacks the new numbers.
Pregnant women are typically excluded from clinical trials of new TB medicines. This has led to a lack of solid scientific evidence on how best to treat women who fall ill with TB while they are expecting. Tiyese Jeranji asked local TB experts about the problem and puts the spotlight on a recent study that broke the mould by opening its doors to pregnant women.
To see National Health Insurance primarily as the setting up of a state-run medical aid scheme risks underplaying its massive potential to restructure how public healthcare services are organised and funded, and with that, its potential to boost the delivery of primary healthcare services in South Africa, argues Russell Rensburg.
