One of the main challenges remains that diagnostics and drugs for people suffering from advanced HIV aren’t readily available. This group of people is vulnerable to deadly opportunistic infections.
It has long been recognised that mental disorders can run in families. And often members of such families differ in their symptoms.
Getty Images
Digital contact tracing apps can successfully contribute to the management of viral outbreaks. These apps can even be designed to protect privacy rights and to work across borders.
Mona Market in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa operates on the third week of every month when traders set up temporary dwellings for the four days.
Gary Stafford
Most healers still practice in their houses where there is little privacy. Others use more private backrooms. But these spaces were not designed for the practice of traditional medicine.
Expenditure cuts require a political settlement that has failed to materialise under South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Getty Images
South Africa’s National Treasury now proposes to reduce salaries. On the face of it this seems sensible. But the fundamental issue is the structure of the public service.
Disruptions to schooling at the lower grades should be remedied, otherwise there could be a serious impact on the quality of Matriculants a decade or more from now.
Research findings have implications for Grade 8 and 9 maths teaching.
GettyImages
Grade 9 learners in top and lower performing schools have difficulties with the same topics in maths. This has implications for curriculum revision and for teaching.
Laboratory testing still plays a vital role in the diagnosis and the prevention of the spread of COVID-19.
Phill Magakoe / AFP via Getty Images
It is important to understand that not everyone should be tested and that the timing and correct use of the different types tests is important in order to gain the best results.
South African Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni. The origins of the country’s fiscal crisis are deeper than COVID-19.
Getty Images
Resolution of South Africa’s fiscal crisis depends on faster economic growth which must be led by private investment. Fiscal consolidation is necessary but without growth debt will not stabilise.
Parts of South Africa’s economy, such as the transport sector, are dominated by a few companies, which raises barriers to entry.
Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images
South Africa needs some serious structural reforms before its moribund economy can come to life.
The increasingly well-coordinated global anti-vaccine movement has repurposed itself to challenge the very reality of COVID-19.
Hasan Esen/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be developed in record time and may be approved for production, distribution and acceptance some time in 2021.
Illustration of Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria.
GettyImages
The African continent has the highest burden of gonorrhoea worldwide. In South Africa alone, it’s estimated that more than 2 million new cases occur annually.
Whistle blowers in South Africa don’t get the support they deserve.This includes lack of legislative backing as well as support from society, employers and professional bodies.
A hominin track in Garden Route National Park, lightly outlined in chalk. The track is 24 centimetres long.
Charles Helm
As lockdown restrictions are relaxed, it is key to continue high-impact non-pharmaceutical interventions that will not impede economic activity, but limit the spread of COVID-19.
Activists of the Movement for Change and Social Justice canvassing the streets of Gugulethu in Cape Town.
MCSJ
The unique challenges of the pandemic changed the way community organisations work. Organisations that worked in silos during other emergencies bundled their expertise and resources.
The WHO recommends sanitisers with an alcohol content of at least 70%.
Phill Magakoe / AFP via Getty Images
Hand hygiene is a critical part of the response to COVID-19. Washing hands at regular intervals during the day is essential. If water and soap are unavailable, hand sanitisers are an alternative.
A mural in Maboneng, Johannesburg.
Kim Ludbrook/EPA-EFE
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