One of the greatest challenges to our healthcare system today is creating effective new drugs. Despite ever-increasing investments in research and development, the number of drugs that win approval for clinical use each year has steadily decreased over the past 50 years. It now costs of more than $2.5bn (£1.6bn) to bring a single compound from the bench to patients. Because many have to be developed to find one that works, drug costs have become exorbitant.Continue reading→

PRETORIA: South Africa continues to value its relationship with the United States, Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu said on Thursday.
“South Africa greatly values our relationship with the US. Our partnership both domestically and regionally continues to yield benefits for our people in the areas of trade and investment, capacity building, health and education, youth and gender empowerment and the promotion of democracy and good governance in the African continent,” said the minister.
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A NIGERIAN-born scientist, Dr. Samuel Achilefu, has won the prestigious St. Louis Award for 2014 for creating cancer-visualizing glasses.Achilefu, a professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, and his team developed the imaging technology in cancer diagnosis into a wearable night vision-like goggles so surgeons could see the cancer cells while operating.“They basically have to operate in the dark,” Bloomberg Businessweek quoted Achilefu, 52, as saying.“I thought, what if we create something that let’s you see things that aren’t available to the ordinary human eye.”Continue reading→

In marking Mandela Day, RSG and the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) have joined forces this July. Not only will RSG’s announcers and SABC employees be invited to donate blood, but listeners will be encouraged to donate a total of 6,700 units of blood.
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Following the world’s first in skin graft surgery in the Western Cape recently, a healthcare management expert says more innovations such as these depend on better management in the healthcare system.
Better management education for clinicians is essential if we want more medical innovations such as the recent ground-breaking skin culture transplant performed by doctors at Tygerberg and Groote Schuur in Cape Town.
So says Bruce MacDonald, course convenor of the customised Health Leadership Programme (HLP) XXII at the UCT Graduate School of Business. The HLP course is customised for the staff at the Western Cape Department of Health by which it is also fully funded.
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In September 2014, Genesis Medical Scheme launched an application against the Minister of Health, asking the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside regulations that provide for the Prescribed Minimum Benefits (PMBs), which are made by the Minister in terms of the Medical Schemes Act.
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Approximately 10 times smaller than a traditional ultrasound machine, it provides high quality images, is portable and easy to use, and is designed for expectant mothers in remote areas who wouldn’t otherwise have access to this type of innovative technology, or advanced care.Royal Philips has launched a new ultra-mobile ultrasound system VISIQ to the South African market. The size of a tablet, the VISIQ is the first ultra-mobile system from Philips.
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African traditional medicine is widely perceived as a form of voodoo medicine, as a survival of some stone age pre-modern illiterate formation that still functions and fulfils medical purposes for Africans. This is, at least, how many anthropologists have viewed the subject. They have argued that African traditional medicine is unlike ‘western medicine’, and then go on to establish how witchcraft and magic is embedded in this ‘unique’ medical practice. African medicine men and women are portrayed as witch doctors – as if the trado-medical profession is about treating and curing witchcraft.
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Botswana Botswana’s 2015 mHealth Innovation Competition has been launched with much promise from those taking part to excel beyond limit. This is the third competition in a series of such competitions organised by the Botswana Innovation Hub and other stakeholders who include Orange Botswana, University of Botswana, Unicef, BotswanaUPPEN Partnership, CADLINE, SAIS (Southern African Innovation Support Programme), PEPFAR (The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and the Ministry of Health.

BUP’s Informatics Program has been spearheading mHealth and mHealth capacity building for over seven years now, starting with a simple pilot study taking photos of skin lesions with phones and sending to dermatologists.
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Johannesburg — Patient and leading health organisations in South Africa have now joined a Fix the Patent Laws campaign launched in 2011 by Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to push for reform of the country’s current patent laws.
The campaign’s promoters say that these laws severely restrict access to affordable medicines for all people living in South Africa.
The organisations which have adhered to the campaign are: People Living With Cancer (PLWC), South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), DiabetesSA, CanSurvive, SA Federation for Mental Health (SAFMH), Stop Stock Outs, Cancer Association of Southern Africa (CANSA), Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Alliance (SABDA), South African Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance (SANCD Alliance), Marie Stopes, Epilepsy South Africa and Cape Mental Health.
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