Details of the US$8.5billion funding South Africa is set to receive to support the move to a just transition and a climate resilient economy haven’t been made public yet. Here’s what’s clear so far.
Employees at the Afrigen biotechnology company and Vaccine Hub facility at work in the manufacturing laboratory.
Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images
Afrigen will be a technology transfer and training hub: it shares technology and develops skills specifically around how to produce a safe, effective and affordable mRNA vaccine.
The COVID pandemic highlighted the gaps in South Africa’s health system.
Guillem Sartorio / AFP via Getty Images
Budgets on their own don’t solve structural issues. But they do provide some insight into government plans for addressing its broader developmental priorities.
Former South African President FW de Klerk photographed in Pretoria in 1989.
EPA-EFE/Walter Dlhadlha (AFP/via Getty Images), via
“Fat cakes” are incredibly popular in cities and townships across sub-Saharan Africa. But they are also unhealthy because of their high carbohydrate content.
Labels are not the only tool needed in the effort to prevent noncommunicable disease.
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Damon Galgut joins a distinguished line of South African authors, who are grappling with the complex dynamics of the country’s white community in their writing.
Blood feeding female malaria vector Anopheles arabiensis.
University of Pretoria Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control
The countries share related populations, economies, ecologies and epidemiologies. This interconnectedness highlights challenges and opportunities for more effective malaria control across the region.
South Africa offers free malaria testing and treatment to anyone entering the country along shared borders.
Jaishree Raman
Jaishree Raman, National Institute for Communicable Diseases et Shüné Oliver, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
The South African Malaria Control Programme is one of the few on the continent that is entirely funded by government. The stable source of funding has allowed for steady malaria control interventions.
If South Africa wants to improve air quality and meet climate change goals, it needs to move away from coal.
Bloomberg Creative/Getty Images
To improve air quality, a combination of efforts is needed including reducing Eskom’s emissions, investing in cleaner sources of energy, and reducing emissions.
Lightning storm over Johannesburg, South Africa.
Dr Carina Schumann, Johannesburg Lightning Research Lab, University of the Witwatersrand.
This challenges the current assumption that coughing is the primary driver of TB transmission.
South African cricketer Quinton De Kock and team captain Temba Bavuma make their way out to bat in a T20 World Cup match against Australia.
Photo by Gareth Copley-ICC/ICC via Getty Images
It’s important to guard against empty gestures. Taking the knee represents a start. But on its own it won’t bring meaningful change to the lives of black people.
Africans are stereotyped as having no regard for time and timing. This is a myth.
BioNTech Marburg is one of the largest manufacturing facilities producing mRNA vaccines in the world.
Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand