Summary of health news: May/June 2011

A North Gauteng High Court Judge has ruled that South Africa's ban on the advertising and promotion of tobacco products was reasonable and justifiable. Judge Legodi Phatudi dismissed an application by British American Tobacco South Africa, the leading manufacturer and distributor of 24 tobacco brands in the country, to declare the ban unconstitutional. He also dismissed their application for an order declaring the ban did not apply to one-to-one communications between tobacco manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retailers and consenting adult tobacco consumers.
Flu early but not automatically worse than before

The Times, 27 May 2011

Flu season has hit early this year. Cases were reported as early as the beginning of May, according to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases. Institute deputy director Lucille Blumberg said the H1N1 strain of flu, often referred to as swine flu, was the predominant strain circulating this season. H1N1 spread in July 2009. About 91 people in South Africa died of influenza that year, a third of them pregnant women.

Spending on the elderly care 'to double by 2050'

Netdoctor.co.uk, 18 May 2011

The cost of caring for the elderly is set to double by 2050, and may rise threefold, according to a new report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The report noted that half of all people who needed long-term care were 80 years or older, and that nearly one in ten people in OECD countries would belong to this age group by 2050. To meet the demands of ageing populations, governments would need to adopt more affordable long-term care policies and improve the provision of support for carers.


Joint effort to aid cancer patients

Business Day, 16 May 2011

Public-private partnerships have the potential to virtually eliminate long waiting times for cancer treatment in the state sector, the head of private health service provider GVI Oncology told delegates at the Voice of Cancer Survivor Forum. GVI Oncology CEO Deon Gouws said the public sector had six academic centres and five regional treatment centres, 32 radiation machines, and 45 radiation oncologists. By contrast, the private sector had 30 treatment centres, 38 machines, and 90 radiation oncologists. Gouws said the private sector treated less than a tenth of cancer patients, as half of SA's 8-million medical scheme members belonged to cheaper plans that would pay only for treatment in the state sector. Gouws advocated changes to the medicine pricing regulations, saying the high cost of oncology drugs in the private sector put treatment out of the reach of many private sector patients and medical schemes. Cancer drugs were up to four times cheaper in the public sector, he said. GVI Oncology has just concluded a public-private partnership agreement with the Western Cape provincial health department for radiation therapy for cancer patients who live in and around George. GVI Oncology will charge the state fees that are less than those paid by private patients. The company hopes to expand the public-private partnership to include its facilities in Kimberley and Nelspruit.
New hope for lung patients

The Times, 9 May 2011

The lung-transplant waiting list will be dramatically shortened when doctors start using a new method of preserving donated organs for longer. Lung-transplant specialist Paul Williams said the new method was costly but would cut the waiting list for transplants. The method, enabling doctors to preserve donated lungs for 12 hours out of a body, was published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.


Eye-care initiative will change lives in Africa

The Cape Times, 4 May 2011

Although 75% of childhood blindness cases are treatable, many blind children in sub-Saharan Africa access medical services too late. Non-profit organisation Orbis is hosting a conference in Cape Town to plan a continent-wide paediatric eye-care initiative involving the creation of 10 more centres over several years. In Africa, there are only 24 paediatric eye centres for the entire continent. South Africa has only one dedicated and fully developed centre, at the Red Cross Children's Hospital. The treatment of childhood blindness is one of the most cost-efficient medical procedures as it could drastically change a child's life.


Developing world is hardest-hit by non-communicable diseases

Netdoctor.co.uk, 6 May 2011

Non-communicable diseases such as cancer and heart disease are on the increase, with developing countries affected the most. According to the first World Health Organisation (WHO) global status report, more than 36 million people died from non-communicable diseases in 2008. And of these, nearly 80% of deaths occurred in low and middle-income countries. Dr Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, said they caused billions of dollars in losses of national income, and they pushed millions of people below the poverty line, each year.



Couples spend millions on fertility treatments

The Times, 3 May 2011

South African couples are spending in total more than R220-million a year on fertility treatment. Cape Fertility Clinic specialist Paul le Roux estimates that close to 7 000 IVF treatments, at an average cost of R32 000 each, will take place in South Africa this year. He attributed the increase to women delaying having children, therefore finding it more difficult to conceive naturally at an older age. Most applicants were from Gauteng, 25% were from Western Cape, and 5% were from KwaZulu-Natal

Retailers' checkout strategy slammed

The Cape Times, 2 May 2011

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has slammed retailers for shirking their moral responsibilities by placing sweets and chocolates along the aisles leading up to till points. But retailers have said they do stock healthier options alongside the sugary goodies which have been demanded by consumers. Vash Mungal-Singh, chief executive of the foundation, said retailers were entitled to make their displays as appealing as possible and were entitled to try and maximise sales and therefore profits, but when they targeted children with goods which were detrimental to the child's health, then a moral issue came into play.
Healthy staff boosts profits

The Business Times, 29 May 2011

Corporate spending on programmes to help staff remain in tip-top condition is a key component of saving costs and polishing the bottom line. That is the one of the major findings of the Healthy Company Index survey conducted by Discovery Vitality, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town and US expert Ron Goetzel, a professor of public health at Emory University in Atlanta. Top honours for the company with the healthiest employees went to software firm Business Systems Group (BSG). Among the companies it narrowly beat were, fitness chain Virgin Active and health food maker Vital Foods. Employees from 101 companies and organisations responded to a questionnaire that assessed a range of health risk factors, including whether they smoked, were overweight, how much alcohol they consumed, how much they exercised and what they ate. Craig Nossel, head of Discovery Vitality Wellness, said one of the statistics that "jumped out" of the survey was that people who did not lead healthy lifestyles had rates of absenteeism and hospitalisation about 30% higher than those who did.

Directors: CA Joseph, LP Kruger, J Talma, MD Wellsted (all four persons from the Surgery Division), PF Colin, HH Lewis, JA Kok,

YD Kara (all four persons from the Consulting Division), TD Erasmus (Pathology Division), and E van der Walt (Anaesthesiology Division)

Executives: Dr J C Archer (CEO)