Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Mia Malan

Creator

Mia Malan

Mia Malan is Bhekisisa's editor-in-chief and executive director. Malan has won more than 20 African journalism awards for her work and is a former fellow of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University.

Lenacapavir, the six-monthly anti-HIV jab, which prevents HIV through sex, is now stocked for free at 360 government clinics in six provinces. (Jay Caboz)

How to use the anti-HIV jab — and where to find it

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab, which prevents HIV through sex, is now stocked for free at 360 government clinics in six of South Africa’s provinces. How does the jab work, how do…

Our anti-HIV jab will be rolled out in six weeks. But funding cuts hollowed out the system needed to deliver it

The uptake of the once-every-six-month HIV prevention jab lenacapavir (LEN) in South Africa will be heavily affected by the Trump administration’s funding cuts to the country, a…

Complex organised crime networks are fuelling a health crisis that is getting worse and addiction treatment isn’t keeping up.

Here’s how to make drug addiction a health issue, not a criminal one

Experts say South Africa’s contradictory approach to drugs — treating addiction as both a disease and a crime — is fuelling a worsening crisis in places like Westbury, where…

Our LEN is here; Now for quality checks in Ireland

SA’s first consignment of the twice-a-year anti-HIV injection, lenacapavir — 37 920 doses — arrived last week at OR Tambo Airport via two shipments from Dublin. The batches…

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Can talks save South Africa’s NHI from a courtroom war?

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has met the South African Medical Association — one of the organisations taking him to court about the National Health Insurance Act — to talk…

South Africa’s National Aids Council, Sanac, has asked local drug companies to submit applications by April 7 to make generic versions of lenacapavir, an anti-HIV jab that could end Aids by 2043 in the country. Sanac will submit a shortlist of successful applicants to the producer of the original shot, Gilead Sciences, by July. (Tim Wege)

Bringing it home: SA is leading the charge to make anti-HIV jab for Africa 

South Africa’s National Aids Council, Sanac, has asked local drug companies to submit applications by April 7 to make generic versions of an anti-HIV jab that could end Aids by…

After being diagnosed with HIV at 33, retired Constitutional Court justice Edwin Cameron never thought he’d make it to 40. He’s now 73 and part of a generation that is growing older thanks to antiretrovirals and, he says, the activism that made sure it was available in South Africa. Photo: Stefan Els
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HIV made him expect to die at 40. At 73, Edwin Cameron asks: Who’s planning for our ageing survivors?

At 33, the retired Constitutional Court justice thought he had, maybe, seven years left. His story traces the arc from certain death because of Aids to a chronic, manageable…

Health economics research estimates that obesity cost South Africa approximately R33.2 billion in 2020, equivalent to about 15% of government health expenditure and roughly 0.67% of GDP. (Yunmai/Unsplash)
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Obesity: the chronic disease that isn’t treated like one

A review of 37 studies found that when people stop taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, the weight comes back

After a year of US funding cuts across global public health, including South Africa’s hard-hit HIV programmes, new realities are settling in. We spoke to Mitchell Warren from the New York HIV advocacy organisation, Avac, to find out what that means for South Africa. Photo: Paul Botes

What will HIV funding look like in 2026?

After a year of US funding cuts across global public health, including South Africa’s hard-hit HIV programmes, new realities are settling in

The tattoos on Zandile Simelane’s arms tell a story that most people can’t read. Hidden beneath the delicate blue ink of flowers and butterflies, dull white scars rise, remnants of the time when cutting herself seemed like the only way to express how much she was hurting. (Bhekisisa)

Cutting: Why teens turn to self-harm when they don’t have words for their pain

For some teenagers, emotional pain manifests as deliberately cutting, burning, hitting, biting, scratching or picking at their skin

What’s driving anti-immigrant healthcare blockades? Sharon Ekambaram from Lawyers for Human Rights says it’s everything from the sky-high cost of Zimbabwean passports and corruption to South Africa’s institutionalised xenophobia — and a growing global intolerance of migrants. (Bhekisisa team)
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Court orders government, police to block vigilantes from two clinics — and put up warnings at entrances

The judgment complements a November ruling meant to stop groups such as Operation Dudula from blocking foreign nationals from entering government hospitals and clinics and…

To end Aids by 2043, the South African government says it could get a group of local pharmaceutical companies to make generic shots of lenacapavir from 2027 onwards. There is, however, a hitch. None of the companies that will be involved have a licence to make the jab. (Julia Koblitz/ Unsplash)

SA wants to make its own six-monthly HIV prevention jabs by 2027. But there’s a hitch

None of the companies that will be involved have a licence from the inventor of Lenacapavir, Gilead Sciences, to make the jab

The high court has ruled that blocking foreigners from healthcare is unconstitutional. Photo: Bhekisisa
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Is the NHI channelling Operation Dudula’s healthcare blockades?

While groups like Operation Dudula flood the zone with fear, confusion and misinformation around healthcare access for foreign nationals, that space has been easy to muddy,…

One in 10 clinics in South Africa will start to hand out a twice-a-year anti-HIV jab as early as February. The country’s medicines regulator, Sahpra, says it’s on track to announce its registration decision within the next few days, by the end of October. So who should get LEN first? (Anna-Maria van Niekerk)

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab could be in 360 clinics by February. Who should get the first doses?

The country’s medicines regulator Sahpra says it’s on track to announce its registration decision by the end of October

Long shot?: In April next year, South Africa plans to start rolling out an anti-HIV jab, taken only twice a year, that could end Aids in the country within 14 to 18 years. But is our public health system equipped to keep track of millions, who are on the shot? (Unsplash)

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab is coming. But can SA keep track of millions of users?

The shot, called Lenacapavir, has a 100% success rate in preventing young women from getting HIV through sex

Two Indian generic drugmakers — Hetero and Dr Reddy’s — will be funded by the Gates Foundation and Unitaid, respectively, to produce and sell the twice-a-year anti-HIV shot around R692 per person per year. (Anna-Maria van Niekerk)

Two drugmakers will sell the 6-monthly anti-HIV jab for the price of the daily prevention pill

Hetero and Dr Reddy’s will be funded by the Gates Foundation and Unitaid to produce and sell the twice-a-year anti-HIV shot around R692 per person a year

The health department anticipates that it could start to use government money to buy cheaper generics of anti-HIV jab the lenacapvir by April 2027. (Unsplash)

SA plans anti-HIV jab roll-out at hundreds of clinics by April

The health department hopes to make the twice-a-year anti-HIV injection lenacapavir available soon and to be buying generics by 2027

US President Donald Trump (Flickr)

Small win for activists, but SA’s HIV projects won’t reopen

The $400 million the United States congress removed from a list of funding programmes the Trump administration wants to cut doesn’t cancel the cuts to HIV and TB programmes made…

Research indicates the anti-HIV jab, lenacapavir, protects women completely and works almost as well for men, transgender and nonbinary people. Photo: Marko Milivojevic/Pixnio

SA gets R520 million to buy the twice-a-year anti-HIV jab – but there’s a snag

The country isn’t getting extra money from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; it has to use cash from a grant it has already been awarded and was cut by 16% in June

The pathological hatred Trump inspires on the left and the quasi-religious devotion he commands on the right reflect tensions within American democratic culture. File Photo

It’s the ‘Donald disease’ that’s making us sick

With the 12 specialised key population clinics in South Africa funded by the US government, and now shuttered, getting treatment at government clinics has been difficult, if not…