Detecting fever requires measuring core body temperature. Screening measures the body’s surface temperature.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Health + Medicine – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 701 - 725 of 1521 articles
Local participation and ownership of the response to COVID-19 is the only sustainable option.
In the hope of finding a cure for COVID-19, it is easy to get lost in the hype. But chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine should for now be set aside.
Until now, the interaction of temperature and air pollution and its contribution to these diseases hasn’t been studied conclusively in South Africa - or anywhere on the African continent.
Removing social medicine from the education of medical students would be to their detriment - as well as their future patients.
There is need for evidence that the virus is being suppressed.
With the advent of novel tobacco products and the tobacco industry falsely marketing them as less harmful, the adage “prevention is better than cure” has never been more important.
According to the estimates by the World Health Organisation, Africa is one of two regions – along with the Eastern Mediterranean region – where smoking rates are on the rise.
Challenges that women and girls in low-income areas face have been worsened by measures taken to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Africa needs to be better prepared to deal with future pandemics. That should start with a re-assessment of how countries invest in – and support – local research.
This is the first time that camel handlers in East Africa have been shown to have been exposed to MERS.
The pandemic coincides with the long rainy season in Kenya. Rain increases mosquito breeding sites, vector density and thus transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.
Two thirds of South African women are overweight or obese and their babies are three times more likely to become obese themselves.
In poorer parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, health systems are not designed to care for people with chronic conditions. They are more focused on single, acute diseases.
One of the methods researchers are exploring to combat COVID-19 is gene editing: altering the genome of the virus to make it harmless.
Gross negligence won’t be excused under any circumstances. But standards for reasonable medical care can’t be the same as in pre-COVID-19 times.
Myiasis, a neglected tropical disease, can cause severe clinical outbreaks in humans and animals with potential economic losses in the livestock industry.
There is hard and persistent work that needs to be planned for, like a kind of ongoing rehabilitation process, to realise the dream of one health system for all South Africans.
Authorities around the world can do more to ensure that correct information and messages on the pandemic reach everybody.
On this continent, a child dies from malaria every two minutes. This is an unacceptable reality for a treatable and preventable disease.
COVID-19 differs significantly from HIV and Ebola. But the potential consequences of having a misinformed public are similar.
South Africa’s disaster management plan targets the most vulnerable. But it needs to respond in a more deliberate way when it comes to people with disabilities.
There has been a rapid redirection of resources towards COVID-19-related research. In the long term, this resource reallocation is likely to result in budget cuts in all research areas.
Too much ultraviolet radiation is dangerous for human health. Excessive exposure can cause skin ageing and sunburn and can induce melanoma, cataracts, ocular melanoma, and immunodeficiency.
Early reports by the National Health Laboratory Service indicated that it had the capacity to do 30,000 tests a day. But capability to do so has not materialised.