The critical question in South Africa s ongoing healthcare reform is whether improving private healthcare regulation will assist in the transition to the NHI system.
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While Covid-19 will continue to make headlines for some time, 2021 will also be a critical year for healthcare reforms in South Africa and for various aspects of the country’s HIV and TB response. These are Spotlight’s top 12 healthcare questions for the year.
1. Can government procure and effectively roll out Covid-19 vaccines?
Providing safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines to as many people as possible and as quickly as possible will be government’s biggest health priority this year. This will in the first place require that we rapidly procure sufficient volumes of the appropriate vaccines. At the time of writing, South Africa has signed up to the COVAX facility (likely to provide doses for around five or six million people) and made a deal with the Serum Institute of India for the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine (doses for around 750 000 people). Much more will be needed to get close to government’s target of vaccinating around 40 million people. Beyond procurement
These are Spotlight’s top 12 healthcare questions for the year.
1. Can government procure and effectively roll out Covid-19 vaccines?
Providing safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines to as many people as possible and as quickly as possible will be government’s biggest health priority this year. This will in the first place require that we rapidly procure sufficient volumes of appropriate vaccines. At the time of writing, South Africa had signed up to the Covax facility and made a deal with the Serum Institute of India for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Much more will be needed to get close to government’s target of vaccinating around 40 million people. Beyond procurement, the vaccination programme also poses a massive logistical challenge – arguably a bigger challenge than the roll-out of antiretroviral treatment, given that Covid-19 kills people much more quickly.
On the first day of January 2020, only a few people knew about a worrying new infection in Wuhan, China. By the end of the year, the infection had swept across the globe, causing over 1.6 million confirmed deaths (actual deaths will be significantly higher).
On the one hand, the story of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) over the past 12 months, was one of massively disruptive lockdowns and people dying in hospitals that were put under immense strain. On the other hand, it was also a year of remarkable scientific achievement. By the end of November preliminary – but nevertheless compelling – data had shown that three different vaccines offer protection against Covid-19. Prior to that, a few treatments and interventions were found to improve survival – local work on high-flow nasal oxygen was notable – while some much-hyped treatments, like hydroxychloroquine, were shown not to work.