HPV vaccination switching to single-dose and private schools to get government supply

Posted in: Access to Medicines, Child health, Focus, Healthcare system, InFocus, Latest, Reproductive Health, Spotlight

A decade into South Africa’s HPV vaccination programme, the health department is switching from a two-dose to a single dose vaccine regimen and girls in private schools are set to start receiving government subsidised jabs. The vaccine provided, GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix, will remain the same. The move is backed by evidence showing one-dose regimens provide similar protection against HPV infection as multi-dose regimens. Catherine Tomlinson reports.

HPV vaccination switching to single-dose and private schools to get government supply

Self-collected HPV tests feasible but still long way off

Posted in: Healthcare system, Latest, Reproductive Health, SRHR

An innovative new technology that allows women to collect their own samples for HPV testing, rather than having the sample taken by a healthcare worker, was recently tested in the Eastern Cape. Elri Voigt spoke to local experts about the study and what such a self-collected test might mean for cervical cancer detection in South Africa.

Self-collected HPV tests feasible but still long way off

HPV: What is happening with SA’s other relatively new vaccine programme?

Posted in: COVID-19, Edition 6: HIV & teens, Healthcare system, HIV/AIDS, Latest, Reproductive Health, SRHR

In 2014, South Africa launched an HPV vaccination campaign targeting 9-year-old public school learners in Grade 4. It involves delivering two doses of vaccine six months apart. Laura Owings asks how the campaign is going and what recent real-world HPV vaccine effectiveness data from the United Kingdom might mean for South Africa.

HPV: What is happening with SA’s other relatively new vaccine programme?

HIV and cervical cancer: Behind SA’s extraordinarily high numbers

Posted in: HIV/AIDS, Latest, Reproductive Health

A study recently published in The Lancet found that women living with HIV made up an astonishing 63.4% of new cervical cancer cases in South Africa in 2018. Elri Voigt spoke to local experts about the links between HIV and cervical cancer in South Africa and how cervical cancer is prevented, tested for, and treated in the public sector.

HIV and cervical cancer: Behind SA’s extraordinarily high numbers

In-depth: Promising signs for local biopharmaceutical production

Posted in: Latest

Biopharmaceuticals are therapeutic drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics in which the active ingredient is produced in a living substance such as eggs or tobacco plants. The living substance acts as a ‘miniature factory’ in which the active ingredient is grown and replicated. Catherine Tomlinson takes a deep dive into the fascinating research and other initiatives in South Africa aimed at spurring local production of these products – and asks why a Cape Town-based company opted to set up a manufacturing plant in Mauritius rather than at home.