Author: Njih Favour
A truck drives toward Eskom’s massive Duvha Power Station, where 300-metre-tall chimneys spew smoke. (Photo: Thom Pierce/Spotlight) News & Features 10th September 2025 | Sue Segar Journalist Sue Segar and photographer Thom Pierce recently visited Emalahleni in Mpumalanga to report on how air pollution is impacting the health of people in the area. In part 3 of this Spotlight special series, we zoom in on the science of air pollution and what it does to the human body. Towards early evening when the sun starts fading, the smoke-filled communities of Emalahleni have an apocalyptic feeling to them. It’s a landscape…
Civil society has criticised the government for not being proactive enough in the face of cuts to crucial public health services that were funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development through PEPFAR (the U.S President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). “We made noise. We’ve been saying that the U.S funding cuts will affect us a lot. And you know what we got? We were called names,” says Treatment Action Campaign chairperson Sibongile Tshabalala, speaking at the opening of the South Africa AIDS conference in Johannesburg this week. Earlier this year, during a media briefing on the impact of U.S…
Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly antiretroviral-containing injection, is one of the most promising tools yet in the fight to end AIDS. (Photo: Shutterstock) Comment & Analysis 9th September 2025 | Fatima Hassan, Leena Menghaney, and Bellinda Nkoana A new HIV prevention jab has the potential to bring an end to the AIDS epidemic. But a lack of ambition and unjustifiable secrecy over pricing is holding it back, argue three leading health activists. Imagine a new HIV prevention tool existed that could – if it reached the right people – flick the switch to prevent almost all new HIV cases across the world.…
21 Aug SAHPRA attains clean audit outcome for the 2024/2025 financial year Posted at 12:30h in News & Updates by Melanie Govindasamy Pretoria, 21 August 2025 – The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) is proud to announce that it has obtained a clean audit outcome from the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) for the 2024/2025 financial year, following its first clean audit for the 2023/24 financial year. The AGSA’s audit confirmed the rigour and strengths of SAHPRA’s financial and operational controls as SAHPRA’s financial statements and the selected indicators on reported performance information were found not to have…
08 Sep Temporary Closure of SAHPRA Pretoria Office Posted at 09:43h in News & Updates by Ntokozo Msiza Dear Stakeholders, Please be informed that the SAHPRA Pretoria office is temporarily closed until further notice. For any enquiries, we kindly request that you email or call the relevant unit directly. Our teams remain available to assist you remotely during this period. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your understanding. RegardsSAHPRA Source link
Sylvia Nodela and her son Joshua at the Gugulethu Community Health Clinic. (Photo: Biénne Huisman/Spotlight) News & Features 8th September 2025 | Biénne Huisman Joshua was safely delivered from Sylvia’s belly instead of her uterus one year ago. Biénne Huisman meets mother and baby, and hears from some of the healthcare professionals involved in the remarkable outcome. Sylvia Nodela’s eyes fill with tears as her son bounces in her arms, happily chirping. It’s a grey winter morning as we gather at a maternity clinic in Gugulethu. Exactly one year prior to our interview, Joshua’s birth defied formidable survival odds for…
Nthuthuko Mchunu was admitted to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Durban. (Photo: Freepik) Nthuthuko Mchunu was admitted to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Durban. (Photo: Freepik) Imagine taking your child to the hospital only to be told, days later, that they are missing. Nthuthuko hasn’t been seen since 2018. (Photo: Supplied) This is what happened to Deliwe Mchunu from Ntuzuma in KwaZulu-Natal. In June of 2018, her son, Nthuthuko Mchunu started showing symptoms of “depression and anxiety”. Concerned, she took him to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Durban, where he was admitted. But days following his admission Deliwe received a…
This project is funded by: A 66-year-old man from Stinkwater, a village north of Pretoria has been missing since March 2025. Amos Modikwe Shiang was living with dementia when he disappeared, and his family are losing hope in finding him. “My uncle just went out and we thought he was at the neighbours, only to find out he went astray to an unknown place. We tried to call the (local) residents for help but it was too little, too late,” says his nephew, Lucas Shiang. A missing person’s report was filed with the police, but six months later, there’s no…
A child-friendly version of the antiretroviral drug dolutegravir was registered in South Africa in 2022. (Photo: Tina Floersch/Unsplash) News & Features 4th September 2025 | Elri Voigt 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. The potent antiretroviral (ARV) drug dolutegravir has become the backbone of South Africa’s HIV treatment programme. The drug was first included in South Africa’s ARV tender in 2019 and was rolled out in phases…
Vaccines have been hailed as one of the greatest public health interventions in history. It’s estimated that child deaths dropped by more than 50% since the introduction of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation 50 years ago. Parents are encouraged to vaccinate their children to ensure their safety. But in recent years, there’s been a decrease in childhood immunisation rates. This is particularly concerning because gaps in immunisation can lead to the outbreak of vaccine-preventable diseases like the measles outbreak that the country is currently facing. It’s crucial for parents to vaccinate their children to prevent such outbreaks. Measles is a…