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(John McCann/M&G)

The quest for the (vaginal) ring

The HIV prevention tablet is now available in South Africa but popping a pill every day to stay HIV-negative may not be for everyone

Where there’s smoke: An investigation by anti-tobacco nonprofit the  Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found companies were paying young influencers to secretly advertise cigarettes on social media. (Instagram)

A new smoke signal: Is Big Tobacco using influencers to illegally punt new products?

Could companies’ wooing of social media influencers be just a clever ploy to get around the country’s tobacco advertising ban?

(Madelene Cronje)

How one project is finally helping reduce the risk of suicide among teens

When kids at risk of suicide can talk to trained friends & family, they’re seven times less likely to die, says one of the world’s largest studies.

Health worker infections have risen to 170 at state and private hospitals and two healthcare staff succumb to the disease in a space of seven days. (Paul Botes/M&G)

Hospitals close in Mpumalanga as doctors and nurses fear for their safety

Health workers in Mpumalanga fear for their lives because of crime and unsafe buildings

Find out what today’s Echo Trial results could mean for people who use the Depo-Provera birth control shot. (Tomas Bravo)
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What are Echo Trial results does Depo-Provera birth control shot increase risk of HIV

For 25 years, scientists have wondered whether the Depo-Provera could increase people’s risk of contracting HIV. Today, we find out if it does.

A South African study may have proved to the scientific community that Depo-Provera does not fuel HIV risk. Now, to tell women, activists say. (Reuters)
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BREAKING: Study confirms this popular birth control does not increase your HIV risk

We now know the answer after more than 25 years of guessing, but will women believe it?

“People say Depro-Provera is popular. Walking into a clinic and getting the only birth control available isn’t a choice, it isn’t about popularity. it’s a sign of a problem with the choices offered to women.”
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After Echo: ‘Why the study results scare me’

We’ve proven Depo Provera doesn’t make it easier to contract HIV. But African women are still left with too few contraceptive choices.

South Africans could face rising living and borrowing costs after inflation accelerated to 4% in April, with economists warning that fuel-driven global price shocks — not domestic demand — are complicating the South African Reserve Bank’s interest rate outlook

[WATCH LIVE] Blessers, blessees & HIV: SA’s risky relations and what to do about them

Bhekisisa’s latest policy dialogue takes a deep dive into one of the biggest challenges facing SA’s HIV response at the 9th Aids conference.

Community health workers didn’t just provide at-home HIV testing. They went into schools to help teach young people sexual and reproductive health and encourage boys to get medically circumcised. (MSF)
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BREAKING: How this KZN town used ARVs to cut new HIV infections by 83%

Small town, big goals: Eshowe has become one of the first SA communities to put enough people on HIV treatment to reduce new infections in the area.

The department of social development has long relied on international donors to pay for the counselling rape survivors need. Is it time for SA to finally foot the bill? (Oupa Nkosi)

Rape crisis centres nationwide lose counsellors

The rresident promised more funding to the country’s one-stop centres for victims of abuse. But can provinces afford to make good on his promise?

Should public health experts spend more time online and speaking to news media?

Should health experts use social media? Here’s why it can be your own printing press

Public health officials and journalists are like two peas in a pot — they need each other.

What happens when anesthesia works as well as it should? (Getty Images)

This is what it’s like waking up during surgery

General anaesthetic is supposed to make surgery painless. Now there’s evidence that one person in 20 may be awake when doctors think they’re under.

Here’s what you missed at this week’s World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting on access to affordable medicines. (Doctors Without Borders)

Seven things that will make you think twice about the cost of drugs

Life-saving medicines are out of reach for many patients but a World Health Organisation meeting held in Johannesburg this week could change that.

Yahya Jammeh peddled fake HIV ‘cures’ complete with alleged human rights abuses. But he also banned female genital cutting, which can put women at risk of dangerous and lifelong complications.(Marco Longari, AFP, Getty Images)
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A dictator’s unexpected legacy

Having banned female genital cutting, his ousting may have been good for democracy but bad for women’s bodies.

José Malumbu has been mourning his son’s death for over a decade. (Wikus de Wet)

‘The family needs to see Sino’s bones, so we can be released from this pain’

When this toddler died at Leratong Hospital, his body disappeared. Here’s what happened when his parents went back there more than a decade later.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) will crack down on allegations of bribery at The Health Professions Council of South Africa. (Reuters)

Did the Health Professions Council trade cash for qualifications?

If allegations prove true, it may mean that corruption at the regulator enabled unqualified people to masquerade as doctors and nurses.

Sniper bullets, designed to kill at distances of 1 000m, are being fired at targets from a much shorter range. On average each patient needs between five and nine surgeries before their wounds can heal, MSF says. (Laurie Bonnaud, MSF)

gaza march of return casualties Israel targeting of civilians

There’s something distinctly cynical about Israel’stargeting of people’s legs in Palestine’s march for freedom.

In the company of women: Judia, 19, came to the village of Umoja six years ago, having run away from home to avoid being sold into marriage. Umoja was founded in 1990 by 15 women who were raped by British soldiers. (Georgina Goodwin, the Observer)

The village where men are banned

Inside the Kenyan village that began as a refuge for survivors of sexual violence.

Sold on the idea: Asiphe Ntshongontshi used the family calendar to keep track of when she took the HIV prevention pill. She lives in Masiphumelele outside Cape Town close to a youth centre and clinic that dish out the tablet. (David Harrison)

Making the sale: Re-branding the HIV prevention pill for women

Since the country’s national rollout, less than a quarter of people who’ve started taking PrEP are young women — despite high HIV rates among them.

US curtailment of information on, and access to, contraception and abortion care is a human rights violation
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Trump expands global gag rule that blocks US aid for abortion groups

Policy bans aid going to foreign groups that support abortion rights as secretary of state Pompeo says: ‘This is decent and right’