Medical Brief News Updates

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi’s proposal to review remunerative work outside the public service (RWOPS) could bring both benefits and challenges to the sector, says an expert, who suggests new measures, for instance enhanced oversight to ensure doctors don’t neglect their public sector duties, could be introduced. On the down side,… Read more »

Cancellation letters, ending billions of rands of South African universities’ US Government-funded HIV and TB research grants with immediate effect, started to roll in over the weekend — with one affected researcher anticipating that more than 300 such grants will be ended, holding massive implications for tertiary learning and research… Read more »

Aspen Pharmacare has been rapped over the knuckles by the US Food and Drug Administration and issued with a warning letter for failing to take sufficient steps to prevent microbial contamination at a key facility in Gqeberha that makes eye drops and many other medicines requiring sterile production. In the… Read more »

The Eastern Cape is reaching crisis point with TB drug stockouts three months after reports of a global shortage of the medicines first emerged, with Motherwell Community Health Centre in Gqeberha now having just five boxes of Rifinah – a fixed-dose combination of two anti-TB drugs rifampicin and isoniazid –… Read more »

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi yesterday called on G20 member states to “prioritise public health over competing interests”, with the goal of accelerating progress towards universal health coverage. Addressing the second meeting of the G20 Health Working Group Motsoaledi noted a “concerning trend” of declining global health budgets coupled with rising… Read more »

The Department of Health’s tardiness in settling its bills to hospital equipment suppliers is leading to a massive rise in small companies’ overdrafts and loans, heightened stress, and, in some cases, may result in business closures. The SA Medical Technology Industry Association (Samed) said R1bn was owed to 50 of… Read more »

Content with words like abortion, breast and vagina or that deal with menstrual or sexual health is being flagged as sexually explicit and removed from sites like Amazon, Google, TikTok and Meta, and charities and businesses are concerned this is entrenching a rollback of diversity policies and reproductive rights. From… Read more »

Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi is to withdraw the gazetted regulations prohibiting the sale, importation and manufacture of food products containing cannabis and hemp, after a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Presidency said Ramaphosa wants more stakeholder consultation and public participation on the proposed regulations “that will limit health… Read more »

A new petition launched by SA Diabetes Advocacy, in partnership with several national diabetes organisations, is calling on the National Department of Health (NDoH) to prioritise access to Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) for children under 18 with type 1 diabetes. The goal is to make life-saving technology available to help… Read more »

A young person with Duchenne muscular dystrophy died after treatment with the recently approved gene therapy delandistrogene moxeparvovec (Elevidys), Sarepta Therapeutics said last week, adding that the patient had experienced acute liver failure. Testing showed he also had a recent cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, which was a possible contributing factor, according to… Read more »