Universal health coverage cannot succeed with fragmented systems, weak data, and largely symbolic participation. A recent court-ordered pause to NHI implementation offers a chance to build the foundations properly, argue Dr Haseena Majid and Professor Mogie Subban.
Maryke Bezuidenhout is constantly on the road in rural, northern KwaZulu-Natal visiting and helping people with disabilities where they live. As part of Spotlight’s new Rural Health Heroes series, writer Sue Segar and photographer Thom Pierce tagged along with her.
Get to know South Africa’s malaria experts as they outrun hitchhiking mosquitoes and pollution-hardy bugs while navigating a regional funding collapse and a spiralling climate crisis. Joan van Dyk reports.
Individual rare diseases impact only a very small fraction of people, but collectively they are estimated to affect over three million in South Africa. As we mark International Rare Disease Day on 28 February, Elna Schütz assesses the state of play with rare diseases in the country.
In South Africa, access to weight loss medicines like Ozempic and Mounjaro remains limited to those who can shell out a few thousand Rand a month. In the second article of a Spotlight special series, Catherine Tomlinson looks at the medical need for these medicines in the country and what it would take for government to provide them in the public sector.
District managers in South Africa’s public healthcare system currently have to juggle funding from multiple government budget lines, each with different strings attached. To improve district health services, we urgently need to simplify and integrate these funding flows, argues Russell Rensburg.
Spotlight has unveiled a new tuberculosis dashboard and graph generator. We hope this dashboard will help people get a clearer picture of the state of South Africa’s TB epidemic – an epidemic that still claims over 50 000 lives a year. It follows on the launch of a similar HIV dashboard last November.
Bogus medical practitioners threaten the health of patients and undermines trust in doctors. The problem might be growing, but so is the fight against it. Elna Schütz reports.
The health department in the Western Cape is partnering with farms in the Cape Winelands to provide easier access to healthcare for farm workers. Sue Segar unpacks one such partnership and why it is a triple win for workers, businesses and the government.
Sales of weight loss medicines like Ozempic and Mounjaro have sky-rocketed in South Africa in recent years, although they remain too expensive for most people who might benefit from the jabs. In the first article of this Spotlight special series, Catherine Tomlinson tracks their remarkable rise and assesses when they will become more widely available here.
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.
What started as a childhood fascination with science and sport has grown into a mission to “democratise” technology with innovative, affordable rehabilitation solutions for people with limited resources. Biénne Huisman sits down with the associate professor – who was once a volleyball captain and is now the head of a top research centre – and who is proving that low-cost solutions are possible.
