All medicines and treatments have to go through lengthy safety and efficacy testing, but this is particularly tricky - and often delayed - for one important age group. Elna Schütz explores the complex...

Precious Matsoso tells Biénne Huisman how, over three decades, she helped shape some of the most consequential health policy negotiations in South Africa and in global governance. She also shares memo...

A crucial hotline run for nearly 20 years from the slopes of Devil's Peak in Cape Town for healthcare workers anywhere in South Africa, from the country’s busiest urban hospitals to far flung resource...

Many people who report with TB symptoms at South Africa’s public sector clinics do not receive TB tests. Testing more of these people is one of the most effective things we can do to reduce rates of T...

Two women, two breast cancer journeys. In the first article of a new Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer in South Africa, Biénne Huisman speaks with rugby referee Aimee Barrett-Thero...

Two women, two breast cancer journeys. In the first article of a new Daily Maverick and Spotlight special series on cancer in South Africa, Biénne Huisman speaks with rugby referee Aimee Barrett-Thero...

Many people who report with TB symptoms at South Africa’s public sector clinics do not receive TB tests. Testing more of these people is one of the most effective things we can do to reduce rates of T...

A crucial hotline run for nearly 20 years from the slopes of Devil's Peak in Cape Town for healthcare workers anywhere in South Africa, from the country’s busiest urban hospitals to far flung resource...

Precious Matsoso tells Biénne Huisman how, over three decades, she helped shape some of the most consequential health policy negotiations in South Africa and in global governance. She also shares memo...

Aspen Pharmacare has announced that it will not be manufacturing the lenacapavir HIV prevention injection, and that it will instead focus on producing alimatravir, an experimental HIV prevention pill....

A crucial hotline run for nearly 20 years from the slopes of Devil's Peak in Cape Town for healthcare workers anywhere in South Africa, from the country’s busiest urban hospitals to far flung resource...

One of the top killers of people living with HIV in South Africa is a fungal infection caused by spores found all around us. In this Spotlight special briefing, Elri Voigt unpacks what we know about t...

One of the top killers of people living with HIV in South Africa is a fungal infection caused by spores found all around us. In this Spotlight special briefing, Elri Voigt unpacks what we know about t...

For years, hospitals have relied on the unpaid, unprotected labour of trainee-specialists to fill their rosters, but these doctors are reaching a breaking point. Joan van Dyk reports.

For years, hospitals have relied on the unpaid, unprotected labour of trainee-specialists to fill their rosters, but these doctors are reaching a breaking point. Joan van Dyk reports.

As a young doctor working in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Hennie Hamilton lived with a Zulu family for four years, an experience which, he says, changed him forever. Twenty-three years later, he’s still worki...

HIV is known for its ability to outsmart our immune system's normal defences. A small number of people living with HIV are however able to generate more effective immune responses to HIV. In this spec...

As a young doctor working in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Hennie Hamilton lived with a Zulu family for four years, an experience which, he says, changed him forever. Twenty-three years later, he’s still worki...

HIV is known for its ability to outsmart our immune system's normal defences. A small number of people living with HIV are however able to generate more effective immune responses to HIV. In this spec...

To Professor Salim Abdool Karim, excellence should be the only standard. In science, he says he is inspired by imaginative thinking such as that of American comic publisher Stan Lee, co-creator of Spi...

From counselling about small nodules to overcoming people’s fears of needles, Biénne Huisman takes the pulse of a new HIV prevention injection’s rollout in the Western Cape.

In a country like South Africa which grapples with a high prevalence of gender-based violence, forensic nursing unfortunately remains a largely overlooked specialisation, with little incentive for rem...

Which vaccines are in use in South Africa and how does our vaccination schedule measure up to international standards? In this #InTheSpotlight special briefing, Catherine Tomlinson unpacks the recent ...

From counselling about small nodules to overcoming people’s fears of needles, Biénne Huisman takes the pulse of a new HIV prevention injection’s rollout in the Western Cape.

With plans in motion to roll out universal health coverage in South Africa, Dr Katlego Mothudi, of the Board of Healthcare Funders, argues that revising the compulsory prescribed minimum benefits that...

In March 2024, a pivotal clinical trial was launched to evaluate what might well become the first new tuberculosis vaccine on the market in more than a century. As anticipation mounts for the trial to...

Ten months after an enabling court judgment, some pharmacists in South Africa can finally start applying for permits that allows them to dispense HIV prevention pills without a script from a doctor. C...

Ten months after an enabling court judgment, some pharmacists in South Africa can finally start applying for permits that allows them to dispense HIV prevention pills without a script from a doctor. C...

HIV is known for its ability to outsmart our immune system's normal defences. A small number of people living with HIV are however able to generate more effective immune responses to HIV. In this spec...

The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has lifted its ban nearly 18 months after an order to stop work with South Africa. The funding ban created a crisis...

The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has lifted its ban nearly 18 months after an order to stop work with South Africa. The funding ban created a crisis...

HIV is known for its ability to outsmart our immune system's normal defences. A small number of people living with HIV are however able to generate more effective immune responses to HIV. In this spec...

With glimmers of tenderness beneath a stoic façade, Tara Gerardy-Bissolati tells Biénne Huisman about her struggle to beat opioids, why homelessness is a public health issue, and her commitment to bri...

Long before she became a pioneering scientist, Professor Liesl Zühlke insisted on seeing her tonsils after they were removed when she was just five years old. Today, paediatric cardiology is close to ...

South Africa has an ageing population of people living with HIV. For the first time a set of clinical guidelines maps out a framework to help keep this group of people healthier for longer, reports El...

The regulation of complementary and alternative medicines in South Africa has been hotly contested in recent decades, including in court rooms. In his latest column for Spotlight, Dr Andy Gray unpacks...

High-octane executive force Marlene le Roux tells Biénne Huisman about contracting polio when she was three months old, about not dimming her light, and renovations that made the Artscape Theatre Cent...

From inspecting spaza shops to monitoring water quality, Environmental Health Practitioners help prevent disease before outbreaks occur. A Public Protector investigation reveals why Gauteng municipali...

Every three minutes, a child with a cleft lip or cleft palate is born somewhere in the world. While surgery can repair this, Kholofelo Mphahlele argues that the real measure of success is a culminatio...

Dr Hermann Reuter did pioneering work treating HIV in the early 2000s in Cape Town and in the rural Eastern Cape. Today, his focus is substance abuse, which he believes is the country’s biggest health...