Author: Njih Favour
Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has expressed growing concerns about the country’s ability to address health inequalities. In his address during the second meeting of the G20 Health Working Group in Durban this week, Motsoaledi says the country’s efforts to invest in accessible, affordable and comprehensive primary health care for all are threatened by the harsh realities of global economic constraints. “We are witnessing a concerning trend: declining global health budgets simultaneously with rising costs. This is particularly acute in the Global South, where many nations are burdened by unsustainable debt servicing. These debt repayments are cannibalising health budgets, leaving…
Nosipho Matsoara, a data capturer, takes down details from two trial candidates at the Be Part Clinical Research Centre in Mbekweni, Paarl. (Photo: Chris Bateman) News & Features 26th March 2025 | Chris Bateman The world desperately needs an effective TB vaccine to reduce the illness and death still being caused by the centuries’ old bacterium. As we mark World TB Day, Spotlight visited a study site in Paarl where a promising experimental TB vaccine is now being tested as part of a large multi-country clinical trial. The first dose of an experimental tuberculosis (TB) vaccine was administered on February…
25 Mar SAHPRA Strengthens Regulatory Excellence: Celebrating the 2025 Graduates of the Clinical Assessors Programme Posted at 14:12h in News & Updates by Melanie Govindasamy Pretoria, 24 March 2025 –The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), in partnership with Pharmacometrics Africa and the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of the Witwatersrand, proudly announces the graduation of the fourth cohort from the Clinical Assessors Short Course — a flagship programme aimed at upskilling professionals within African Regulatory Agencies. The 14-week certified course continues to play a pivotal role in addressing the growing demand for regulatory science expertise…
This project is funded by: In Siyahlala, an informal settlement in the heart of Phillipi, Cape Town, the toilets supplied by the city have been blocked for a year. As a result around 300 households in Section G of the informal settlement use buckets to relieve themselves, before dumping them into the toilets that no longer flush. Lona Bukula, who’s been living here since 2016, says the sewage started overflowing when a nearby drain got blocked, causing the toilets to block too. The situation is so bad that waste collectors don’t take the garbage away because the sewage is running…
TB preventive therapy is an easier target for long-acting formulations, as it usually involves just one or two drugs and shorter treatment durations. (File photo: Nasief Manie/Spotlight) News & Features 25th March 2025 | Catherine Tomlinson Both TB treatment and TB preventive therapy involve taking lots of pills, usually for several months. Researchers are working on new long-acting formulations that might, for example, reduce an entire course of TB preventive therapy to a single injection. The biggest HIV news of last year was that an injection containing an antiretroviral called lenacapavir provides six months of protection against HIV infection per…
It’s been three months since reports of a global shortage of tuberculosis (TB) drugs and stockouts emerged. Motherwell Community Health Centre in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape is only left with five boxes of Rifinah, a fixed-dose combination of two anti-TB drugs rifampicin and isoniazid. A health worker at the clinic tells Health-e News that they see about 20 TB patients a day and are worried that the pills they have in stock won’t last a month. As a result, she says, they are being forced to ration the medicine and give patients just seven days’ worth of pills instead of the…
Tuberculosis has claimed an estimated 56 000 lives in South Africa in 2023. (Photo: Michael Conway/Pixabay) Comment & Analysis 24th March 2025 | Yogan Pillay and Gaurang Tanna The TB Sustainable Development Goals of reducing incidence and deaths from TB are achievable, if we all work together. We must double down on this ambition and be even bolder in our investments, write Yogan Pillay and Gaurang Tanna. There are less than five years to go before the deadline for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. One of those key goals is to make massive strides to end TB, specifically to…
Families in the Free State have been unable to bury their loved ones due to an autopsy backlog. The Pheko family from Botshabelo buried their son and brother last week, after waiting three months for an autopsy. “The body of my brother was found in December and an autopsy was only done on 6 March. It still breaks our hearts that we had to wait so long,” Ramorena Pheko says. The Kanono family from Thaba Nchu in the eastern Free State has been waiting for almost three weeks to know their son’s cause of death. Thembani Kanono is yet to…
Innovative research on long-lasting anti-HIV treatments were showcased at the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. (Photo: Fernando Zhiminaicela/Pixabay) News & Features 20th March 2025 | Elri Voigt A single shot of a new formulation of the antiretroviral drug lenacapavir could potentially provide protection against HIV infection for as long as a year. Spotlight reports on this and some of the other exciting research on long-acting anti-HIV medicines presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Several new developments in long-acting therapies for HIV treatment and prevention were presented to delegates at last week’s Conference on Retroviruses and…
The cancellation of NIH funding to South Africa will hinder progress in developing new tools to fight HIV and TB. (Photo: Ahmad Ardity/Pixabay) News & Features 20th March 2025 | Catherine Tomlinson Medical researchers in South Africa are in limbo as they wait to hear whether over R800 million in research grants from the United States National Institutes of Health will be terminated. South Africa’s top universities, which receive the bulk of the funding, will be particularly hard hit if the cuts materialise. In another major shock to medical research in South Africa, research groups around the country have been…