Health & Fitness

Eighty percent of men who suspect their partners cheated on them are having their suspicions confirmed by DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) tests. Information gathered from leading DNA laboratories in the country by The Sunday Mail Society shows a massive surge in demand for voluntary paternity tests by both married and single …

Brazilian researchers have found that a molecule in the venom of a type of snake inhibited coronavirus reproduction in monkey cells, a possible first step toward a drug to combat the virus causing COVID-19. A study published in the scientific journal Molecules this month found that the molecule produced by …

Scientists in South Africa have discovered a new viral variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It’s not a single virus but a clustering of genetically similar viruses, known as C.1.2. The researchers, in a pre-print study released last week but yet to be peer reviewed, found this cluster has picked up …

Primary and secondary education minister Cain Ginyilitshe Mathema has been airlifted to Harare from Bulawayo after his health deteriorated, ZimLive can reveal. The 74-year-old was admitted to the United Bulawayo Hospitals’ refurbished Covid-19 facility in mid-August after catching the respiratory illness. Sources said the minister was flown to Harare on …

It has been said that malaria breeds poverty, and poverty breeds malaria. This is the reality in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where after decades of control initiatives there were still some 384,000 deaths and 188 million malaria cases in 2019. Malaria prevention in African countries heavily depends on using insecticide …

A new coronavirus variant, C.1.2, has been detected in South Africa and a number of other countries, with concerns that the variant could be more infectious and evade vaccines, according to a new preprint study by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform. The study …

Child and women’s rights groups have urged the Government to immediately reform the country’s laws to outlaw child marriages and introduce stiffer penalties for abusing the girl child. This follows the death of Anna Machaya (15) who died during child birth before being secretly buried at an apostolic sect church …

A young man carefully dismantles a fluorescent light and empties a small sachet of methamphetamine into the tube. Using a cigarette lighter, the 24-year-old Zimbabwean heats it until the white crystals liquefy and begin emanating smoke. Sitting in a room in Glen View, a working-class suburb in the capital Harare, …

Health activists in Africa have slammed Johnson & Johnson for exporting vaccines produced in South Africa to countries in Europe, which have already immunised large numbers of their people and have even donated vaccines to more needy countries. The one-dose J&J vaccines were exported from South Africa, where they had …

A stark contradiction lies at the heart of Africa’s response to Covid-19. The continent consumes a quarter of the world’s vaccines across all diseases and given this level of consumption, one would expect African nations to be well experienced at producing, procuring and delivering them to their people. By Benedict Oramah …