News and analysis

The uptake of the once-every-six-month HIV prevention jab lenacapavir (LEN) in South Africa will be heavily affected by the Trump administration’s funding cuts to the country, a new report has found. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with doctors, nurses, peer counsellors, transgender and young people, sex workers, gay and bisexual men and government health workers with personal experience of the funding cuts in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Experts say South Africa's contradictory approach to drugs — treating addiction as both a disease and a crime — is fuelling a worsening crisis in places like Westbury, where illicit drugs plague the community.

SA’s first consignment of the twice-a-year anti-HIV injection, lenacapavir — 37 920 doses — arrived last week at OR Tambo Airport via two shipments from Dublin. The batches reached the country six weeks later than expected. The delay of the shipment meant the health department couldn’t start its roll-out on April 1, as it had originally planned, and had to postpone it to mid to late May.

It’s been a year since the US government’s aid cuts sent shock waves around the world. But in one maternity hospital in Freetown it’s the loss of UK funding that threatens to unravel years of steady progress to address maternal mortality.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has met with the South African Medical Association — one of the organisations taking him to court about the National Health Insurance Act — to talk about “things we have in common”. President Cyril Ramaphosa is also planning to meet with Business Unity South Africa, again, after an initial meeting in 2024, during which they discussed alternatives to the NHI.

South Africa is trialling a cheap, portable TB test that costs a third of the current standard. But the new test can't detect drug-resistant TB, raising questions about how much diagnostic accuracy a national programme can afford to trade for reach.

The HIV prevention shot lenacapavir will be rolled out at South African clinics within the next couple of months — from 2027, the health department will also buy generics. But how best to spend the HIV prevention budget so that the country can drive infections down as fast as possible? We take a look at what modelling data shows.

CAB-LA, the two-monthly HIV prevention injection, was approved in South Africa over three years ago but never reached government clinics. As lenacapavir prepares to launch, CAB-LA's quiet exit carries lessons about what it takes to turn good science into public health.

South Africa’s National Aids Council, Sanac, has asked local drug companies to submit applications by April 7 to make generic versions of an anti-HIV jab that could end Aids by 2043 in the country. The original version of the once-every-six-months shot, known as lenacapavir, is produced by the US pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. Sanac will submit a shortlist of successful applicants, who met the requirements of the Council’s expression of interest call, to Gilead by July.

The implementation of the NHI is effectively frozen in court and constitutional clashes, blocking South Africa's most sweeping health overhaul since 1994. We talked to health economist Susan Cleary to find out whether the NHI is a wise way forward.

Superbugs are a big public health issue. So is climate change. Put the two together and the problem becomes even bigger. Here are 11 questions and answers that make it easy to understand why.

A pending court complaint alleges bias after the regulator voted to block radio advertisements about the dangers of sugar.

The tobacco industry is getting ready for the final showdown as South Africa’s Tobacco Bill heads into its last rounds, pulling out its well-worn talking points on illicit trade and high taxes. We talked to tobacco economics expert Corné van Walbeek to unravel fact from industry fiction.

A review of 37 studies found that when people stop taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, the weight comes back. Experts working in obesity aren’t surprised because, they say, just like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, the effects of the medicine disappear when you stop taking it. Researcher Nomathemba Chandiwana says it’s time to start treating it like one.

After a year of US funding cuts across global public health, including South Africa’s hard-hit HIV programmes, new realities are settling in. We spoke to Mitchell Warren from the New York-based HIV advocacy organisation Avac to find out what that means for South Africa.

Many mothers who work as domestic workers have to make an impossible choice: keep your job or breastfeed your child. It’s a decision that carries lifelong health consequences for their babies. A decade-old proposal could help break the cycle.