European Union agriculture experts have recommended a ban on South African ostrich meat, but the Department of Agriculture says it has no official knowledge of this threat to the R1,2-billion export industry. "As I speak now, I don't have any official correspondence [from the EU]," the department's chief communications director said on Monday.
Government ministers have failed to provide written answers to 343 questions posed by the Democratic Alliance (DA), said DA deputy chief whip Mike Ellis on Thursday. "Next Friday, December 7, is the deadline for the submission of replies to all parliamentary questions posed to government departments during 2007," he said.
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is auditing its condom department after a manager at the bureau was accused of certifying defective condoms in exchange for cash. "On the basis of the allegations, we did an immediate check and we are covering the other companies," the bureau's general manager for food and health, Mike McNerney, said on Friday.
Most private hospital groups will maintain their tariff increases at the consumer inflation rate, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Friday. She said the Department of Health had met with several private hospital groups over the past week, who had committed to review their tariff increases.
About 2 000 nurses have been deployed to under-served areas across the country since the start of the year, the Department of Health said on Saturday. In a statement, the department said it will also open additional nursing colleges to increase the supply of nursing staff.
The klebsiella death toll at Durban's Prince Mshiyeni Hospital has risen to six. This follows the deaths of five other babies at the hospital two weeks ago. The deceased's mother, Lungile Ngema, said that nurses had taunted her, saying mothers who gave birth at home brought the disease to the hospital.
The Department of Health should be sued for the klebsiella outbreak by the parents of the five dead babies, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. The DA spokesperson for health, Mike Waters, said the parents of the two surviving babies should also sue the department for negligence.
There has been great progress in the response to the challenge of HIV/Aids and few setbacks, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Saturday. Speaking at World Aids Day commemorations in Mokopane, Limpopo, Tshabalala-Msimang pointed out that the setbacks have been in the area of research.
South Africa's tuberculosis (TB) cure rate will reach 85% over the next five years, the Department of Health vowed on Thursday. Releasing the final version of its latest TB strategic plan, Director General of Health Thami Mseleku said the plan's goals were guided by international targets.
The Department of Health is recalling a second consignment of defective condoms, this time from Kohrs Medical, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said in Pretoria on Monday. "At least five batches belonging to Kohrs Medical were sampled and failed an air-burst test," Tshabalala-Msimang said.
The National Assembly on Thursday adopted a motion of full confidence in Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, thereby rejecting the original motion by the Democratic Alliance, which called for a special committee to probe her fitness to hold public office.
A new liver costs about R450 000, according to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang -- herself the recent recipient of a new liver. In a written reply to a question by the Inkatha Freedom Party's Ruth Rabinowitz in the National Assembly, she said hospital expenditure on liver transplants was, all inclusive, about R450 000 per patient.
As opposition parties called for urgent action to address the "crisis" of HIV infection in babies attending state hospitals, the Health Department took steps on Monday to get to the bottom of the matter. The department was concerned at media reports "alleging there have been cases of HIV infection as a result of inadequate infection-control measures".
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's statement concerning dual-therapy HIV treatment was a "gross distortion of the truth", the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Tuesday. According to Tshabalala-Msimang, a 2001 court judgement limited her department to implementing only monotherapy nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant mothers.
Eleven people who were allegedly carrying out illegal abortions were arrested in central Johannesburg, the city said on Monday. City officials and metro police came upon a makeshift hospital of horrors on Friday when they were trying to clean central Johannesburg of "poster pollution".
