South Africa News

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa | 03 April 2014 - “Impressive strides have been made in the implementation of HIV, TB and PMTCT programme since the last reviews were conducted in 2009” is the highlight of the message delivered on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo by the Director of Disease Prevention and Control, WHO Regional Office for Africa, Dr Francis Kasolo. This statement was made at the handover ceremony of a report of the first ever Joint HIV, TB and PMTCT Review. 

Mr Michael Tukuru has recently been reassigned to WCO South Africa as the Operations Officer effective 26 May 2014. Previous to this assignment, he has spent the last 5 years in the Regional Office in Brazzaville Congo occupying different positions including Administrative Officer, EPR/IDS Programmes, and Manager of the Management Support unit for the DPC Cluster and subsequently the HPR/HSS Clusters. Prior to his work in Brazzaville, he spent 9 years in WCO Nigeria leaving as the Finance Officer.

The Health Accounts Teams Members from 12 countries that are in the process of undertaking a health accounts exercise and taking steps to institutionalize the process have completed a WHO training on System of Health Accounts (SHA) that took place from 26 – 30 May 2014, Johannesburg, South Africa. The participating countries were Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

WHO AFRO and WHO Rotavirus Regional Reference Laboratory for Africa at Medunsa Campus, Pretoria, partnered to carry out the 14th African Rotavirus Network Training Workshop at the University of Limpopo, Medunsa campus, just completed on 6 June.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has officially released a report on Pricing and competition in specialist medical services on a seminar organized by the WHO South Africa on Tuesday 17 June 2014. This paper argues that South Africa should separate the task of establishing a schedule of medical services from negotiations over overall payments to medical professionals.

30 June 2014 -- Immunization averts some 2.5 million premature deaths a year according to estimates and protects millions of children from illness and disability. Parents and children attending a South African clinic are among those today who will reap the benefits of routine immunization from the first days of life.

To support the National Department of Health’s policy development, the WHO Country Office commissioned a review of policies and programs used to improve the quality of medical care and reduce practice variation.  The review found that quality of care is measurable, and variations in practice have been documented in most countries. Variations in the use of cost‐effective health procedures have important implications for efficacy and cost, and health outcomes.

Pretoria, August 2015 - The WHO Country Office is providing technical support to the National Department of Health on various aspects of VMMC with support from the US Government through PEPFAR to be able to meet the ambitious Medical Male Circumcision (MMC) targets by 2016.

Medical malpractice is becoming costly, with litigation costs ranging from 2%-10% of total healthcare spending. Obstetrics is under particular scrutiny as amongst the highest litigation settlements. Specialists perceived as being under higher liability risks are likely to practice ‘defensive’ medicine, leading to an increase in unnecessary clinical procedures.  

North West Province, 19-21 August 2015 - The WHO country office has been supporting the NDOH in developing and finalising the National Adherence Strategy on Chronic Diseases (HIV, TB & Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). The strategy has been finalised and will be reviewed by the National Health Council in September. It was thus decided to work on a pilot implementation of this strategy. To this end, it was decided that orientation training was needed in some sites. Four provinces were identified with sites and controls in each of these relevant districts.