It has been a bruising year or so for medical researchers in South Africa with the US pausing, cancelling, and then resuming some grants. But as bad as things were, what played out wasn’t the worst case scenario, and momentum is now building toward recovery.
Weeks after pledging to end child stunting by 2030, President Cyril Ramaphosa has kick-started a task team to drive this urgent national mission. But what concrete steps could government actually take to end stunting? Spotlight sat down for an in-depth interview with one of the country’s leading experts on the issue.
Funding cuts over the last year or so have created a crisis for multilateral health institutions. Which institutions emerge from this crisis, and in what form, will have real consequences for the health of people in South Africa, argues Spotlight editor Marcus Low.
A cutting-edge, South African-led HIV vaccine trial built on decades of research recently kicked off in Cape Town. Elri Voigt unpacks what exactly is being studied, and how the resilience, tenacity and urgency of a group of dedicated South African researchers made it possible.
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.
As World AIDS Day 2025 swings by, CAPRISA Director Professor Salim Abdool Karim reflects on the frantic days following this year’s unprecedented cuts to health aid and research funding from the US, arguing that the deliberate disruptiveness was designed to be cruel. Nonetheless, he argues, our HIV response must now forge ahead on a path that is more affordable, sustainable and independent.
In South Africa, many mothers and their babies have to visit the clinic more than 10 times in the first six months of the postnatal period. Early findings from an ongoing implementation science project suggests we can get this down to five. The hope is that the new approach will also help reduce HIV transmission from mothers to their babies. Elri Voigt reports.
South Africa has the world’s largest population of people living with HIV, which both heightens the risk of anal cancers and their severity. However, neither the collection of data nor the efforts for prevention and screening are in line with the likely impact. Experts say significant change is needed, reports Elna Schütz.
An HIV prevention jab that provides six months of protection at a time was given the green light by South Africa’s medicines regulator. The approval helps to clear the way for a limited public sector rollout of the “game-changing” shot set to start in April 2026.
A landmark ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeal means specially trained pharmacists will soon be allowed to dispense antiretrovirals without a doctor’s script. Pharmacists with the required training will need special permits from the director general of health. While no pharmacists yet hold these permits, Catherine Tomlinson reports that they may be able to start applying for them as soon as next month.
Ritshidze, South Africa’s powerhouse community-led healthcare monitor, is on the brink of shutting down. Experts warn its collapse could unravel years of progress in our clinics – just as worrying new data points to a decline in HIV services.
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.
