Long Form

Anne von Gottberg and Cheryl Cohen are two of South Africa’s foremost scientists. We’ve got them and their colleagues to thank for the country’s world class surveillance of SARS-CoV-2. But this powerful duo are also experts on how to bridge divides — and married.

Somalia is facing a humanitarian crisis. Many people have been displaced due to climate change-induced droughts, and conflict between the army and al-Shabaab has left many regions without food.

South Africa’s medicines regulator will announce a decision on the approval of a two-monthly HIV prevention jab within days. If the shot is approved, the health department could start rolling it out on a large scale within nine months — but that depends on the injection’s price.

Rural hospitals and clinics struggle to attract or retain senior healthcare professionals. Health workers who grew up in rural towns can plug the gap as they are more likely to work at facilities in far-flung places than their urban counterparts.

The April 2022 floods in KwaZulu-Natal, left Mfundo Shezi without HIV treatment for two weeks. He had no way of getting more because the centre he frequents was closed for two weeks – and his ID book was washed away.

A stockout of the version of testosterone (made by Pfizer) used by state facilities and nonprofits is entering its second year. It’s left transgender men in South Africa, who use the hormone as part of gender-affirming treatment, with few options. Find out what lengths they’re forced to go to get the medicine.

Zackie Achmat was one of the most vociferous voices against former president Thabo Mbeki’s HIV denialism in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He now lives in downtown Cape Town and fights state capture — and broken trains.

Specialist doctors at many state facilities aren’t showing up to work despite earning millions of rands a year in taxpayer money. The consequences for patient health can be devastating but not everyone agrees on the solutions.

Otlotleng Moolikwe fell pregnant after having sex with her boyfriend when she was 13 years old. And she’s not the only one. One in six South African teenagers between 15 and 19 years old have had a child. Here’s how to help them stay in school.

South Africa is rushing to roll out its first national gender-based violence action plan. But as bureaucracy and the coronavirus pandemic stall progress, violence against women continues unabated. And the hot spots that will receive extra resources, it seems, have been wrongly identified.

This is an ode to the women whose names made it into news outlets between 2018 and 2020. It’s also a tribute to those who didn’t – the faceless, nameless women whose stories will remain untold. This project is a collaboration among Bhekisisa, Media Hack and the Canon Collins Trust.

Linda-Gail Bekker says researching infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and HIV is like a colossal round of the murder mystery cluedo. Follow the story of the scientist with the purple pixie-cut from a farm in Zimbabwe to her inauguration as the first African president of the International Aids Society and beyond.

Yvette Raphael describes herself as a ‘professional protester, sjambok feminist and hater of trash’. Government officials would likely refer to her as ‘a rebel’. She’s fought for equality her entire life, she says. And she’s scared of no one.

When it comes to leadership and innovation, there's much that industrialised nations can learn.

The pandemic’s impact is long-term: the UN warns that it could lead to 13 million more child marriages over a decade.

As South Africa enters level two of its national lockdown, international travel remains restricted. One of the few exceptions are repatriation flights, which require a mandatory quarantine period. But the toll of mounting stress and isolation may have long-term consequences on people’s mental health.