Health

10 January 2018

The biggest disease faced in the world today is "affluenza", according to Kumi Naidoo, secretary general of Amnesty International.

"People believe happiness and a decent life comes from having more and more and more," the South African-born environmental activist said on Wednesday during a debate in Cape Town organised by the Green Economy Coalition and the Green Growth Knowledge Platform.

12 December 2018 

Today, December 12, is an equally significant date: the very first official Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day endorsed by the United Nations.

Universal health coverage is built on principles of equity and fairness, with health services allocated according to people’s needs and the health system financed according to people’s ability to pay.

Ten people, three banners, one folding table and just a handful of petitions — the fight to save the lives of millions of HIV-positive people began with the trappings of no more than your average mall fundraising stand on a December day at the foot of Cape Town's St George’s Cathedral.

3 December 2018 

Doctors in Zimbabwe went on strike on Monday in protest over poor working conditions and have also demanded that the government pay their salaries in foreign currency.

The strike is the second in as many months by junior doctors, with the latest strike coming against the backdrop of a recent cholera outbreak. The latest case of cholera was recorded last week in Mount Darwin, with at least three deaths confirmed by health officials.

6 December 2018 

Libya is set to launch a campaign overseen by the World Health Organisation to vaccinate more than 2.7 million children after months of shortages, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The "national immunisation campaign", organised with the United Nations children fund Unicef, is expected to begin on Saturday, Libya's WHO representative Jaafar Hassan told a press conference.

The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) has faced major difficulties with its vaccine supply, over which the state has a monopoly.
 

5 December 2018

In October, a tweet by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World says so: “49% of men and 34.1% of women in South Africa smoke, but only 51% of smokers have heard of vapo[u]r products. We must raise awareness around harm reduction.”

But is it true? A reader asked Africa Check to verify South Africa’s share of smokers. Data from a global smoking poll

29 November 2018 
 

I recently visited an informal settlement in the heart of Nairobi and met a group of adolescent girls. They spoke to me candidly about their lives in the context of high rates of HIV, teenage pregnancy and gender-based violence. 

As I was talking about violence, they stopped me. 

15 November 2018 

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has rejected an apology by Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba for his remarks about ebola.  And the Human Rights Commission says it will be contacting Mashaba about his remarks "which could be regarded as a violation of the constitution".

The union in Gauteng urged city residents not to accept the apology because it was not “genuine”. 

Mashaba made controversial remarks on Twitter about his citizen's arrest of an undocumented foreign national pushing cow heads in a trolley in the CBD.
 

10 November 2018

The Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) is aligning its benefits with the objectives of the National Health Insurance (NHI) fund to provide primary healthcare access to the vulnerable.

Principle Officer of GEMS Dr Guni Goolab, as well as chief Operations Officer Dr Stan Moloabi, briefed media on the medical schemes offerings for 2019 in Cape Town this week. GEMS is a medical scheme for government employees and was registered on January 1, 2005.