South Africa’s rollout of lenacapavir, a six-monthly HIV prevention injection, requires nurses to learn, adapt and find ways to make it work for patients. Christina Pitt unpacks how.
As South Africa is piecing together a new policy document on palliative care services for people with life-limiting and life-threatening illness, Motlalentoa Motsoane argues that making people’s lives better will depend on details like accurate costing, sufficient funding, and effective referral systems.
The road to cancer treatment in South Africa often involves many encounters with healthcare workers and long journeys far from home. From pink iPhone covers to pink embroidery yarn, and cornstarch, Biénne Huisman hears the stories of people from vast corners of inland South Africa, and beyond, who travelled to Bloemfontein for specialist medical attention to treat their cancer. This is part 4 of Daily Maverick and Spotlight’s special series on cancer in South Africa.
In recent decades, we’ve seen massive advances against several types of cancer. In a still unfolding example, South Africa’s massive HPV vaccination campaign is set to slash cervical cancer rates in the coming decades. Biénne Huisman unpacks the details in part 3 of a Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer in South Africa.
All medicines and treatments have to go through lengthy safety and efficacy testing, but this is particularly tricky – and often delayed – for one important age group. Elna Schütz explores the complexities of conducting clinical trials involving babies, and why those complexities are worth grappling with.
Two women, two breast cancer journeys. In the first article of a new Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer in South Africa, Biénne Huisman speaks with rugby referee Aimee Barrett-Theron and cancer warrior Joyce Witbooi, who helps women navigate Cape Town’s public health system.
Precious Matsoso tells Biénne Huisman how, over three decades, she helped shape some of the most consequential health policy negotiations in South Africa and in global governance. She also shares memories about her Soweto childhood filled with music, science, and political uprisings.
A crucial hotline run for nearly 20 years from the slopes of Devil’s Peak in Cape Town for healthcare workers anywhere in South Africa, from the country’s busiest urban hospitals to far flung resource strained rural clinics, has been suspended due to a lack of funding.
In a country like South Africa which grapples with a high prevalence of gender-based violence, forensic nursing unfortunately remains a largely overlooked specialisation, with little incentive for remuneration. One nurse tells Elna Schütz every flicker of hope a patient carries home is a reminder of why she chose this path.
In March 2024, a pivotal clinical trial was launched to evaluate what might well become the first new tuberculosis vaccine on the market in more than a century. As anticipation mounts for the trial to deliver results, Russell Rensburg argues that we need to start preparing for a rollout of the jab, but that we should think of preparation more widely than just the technicalities of regulatory approval and drug supply.
Ten months after an enabling court judgment, some pharmacists in South Africa can finally start applying for permits that allows them to dispense HIV prevention pills without a script from a doctor. Catherine Tomlinson reports.
Every three minutes, a child with a cleft lip or cleft palate is born somewhere in the world. While surgery can repair this, Kholofelo Mphahlele argues that the real measure of success is a culmination of a very long journey that plays out in classrooms, on playgrounds, when photographs are taken, and within communities and workplaces.
