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IOL News
an hour ago
- Business
- IOL News
The hidden costs of SA's gambling crisis
In March, an online betting platform shared a story of someone turning a R4 wager into an astounding R83,701.54. While stories like this grab attention, the rise in online sports betting also brings important considerations. South Africans place more than R1 trillion in bets annually, with R700 billion spent on sports betting alone. For many, particularly those with limited financial resources, the appeal of a big win can be incredibly tempting. However, the reality is often more complex. Instead of earning easy money, those who indulge in excessive gambling frequently face financial strain, said John Manyike, Head of Financial Education at Old Mutual. According to the National Gambling Board's 2022/23 gambling statistics, sports betting in South Africa has expanded significantly over the past decade, growing from under 10% of the gambling sector in 2009/10 to over half in 2022/23. 'What stands out is that 36% of those who gamble do so to pay off debts or cover expenses,' explained Manyike, referring to the 2024 Old Mutual Savings and Investment Monitor. Among low-income earners (those earning between R8,000 and R15,000 per month), this figure rises to 41%, highlighting a concerning trend. Despite rising costs of living and economic pressures, gambling has gained popularity, particularly due to the widespread use of mobile phones and internet access. This is especially evident among young African men. Advertising from betting companies further fuels this trend, increasing participation within this demographic. 'This can be risky, particularly for young people and low-income earners, who may see gambling as a way to improve their financial situation,' says Manyike. However, he notes that losses can add up quickly, sometimes leading to financial stress. 'In a country already facing high unemployment and economic challenges, it's important to be aware of the potential financial pitfalls of gambling.' Unlike investing, gambling is based purely on luck, yet many believe they can develop a winning approach. The truth is that the house edge ensures that bookmakers maintain a profit over time. For instance, when odds are at -110 on both sides of a bet, a bettor must risk R110 to win R100, meaning even skilled bettors face a statistical disadvantage in the long run. The belief that that the system can be beaten can lead to risky financial decisions. 'Beyond financial losses, gambling can also take a psychological toll,' said Manyike. 'It can lead to stress, anxiety, and even a cycle of chasing previous bets in the hope of recovering losses.' A 2016 study by the University of Cape Town's Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health noted a significant association between suicidality and pathological gambling. It found that pathological gamblers were five to ten times more likely to have a history of suicide attempts than non-gamblers. Furthermore, gambling doesn't just affect individuals—it can have ripple effects on families, sometimes resulting in financial strain for loved ones. 'While gambling is legal many people don't fully understand the long-term risks involved due to a lack of financial education.' For those who feel their gambling habits might be affecting their financial well-being, Manyike advises seeking support. 'The South African Responsible Gambling Foundation offers free and confidential counselling services,' he added. Additionally, professional counsellors who specialise in gambling addiction can provide guidance. 'Gambling is not a reliable source of income, and without careful management, it can lead to serious financial setbacks. By increasing financial awareness and promoting responsible gambling, we can help people make informed decisions and avoid unnecessary financial risks,' Manyike concluded.
Eyewitness News
2 days ago
- Health
- Eyewitness News
World No Tobacco Day: 'Variety of weird conditions' associated with some e-cigarette flavours, says expert
CAPE TOWN - People across the globe are marking World No Tobacco Day on Saturday, under the theme 'Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products'. While there's extensive research on traditional tobacco products like cigarettes, vaping and e-cigarettes do not have as much long-term research on their effects. This as alternative nicotine products, such as vapes or Zyns, have been reportedly creating new and fatal diseases. Leading pulmonologist at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Professor Richard Van Zyl, said some flavours in e-cigarettes have been found to be linked to new conditions. "The flavourants in e-cigarettes aren't there in tobacco cigarettes. So, we're seeing a variety of weird conditions, you may have heard of something called popcorn lung, which is specifically related to butter flavourant diacetyl, which has been seen in some e-cigarettes, not all e-cigarettes, so it's a weird combination of diseases because of the flavourant." Van Zyl said that the diacetyl flavourant causes inflammation in the lungs. "So popcorn lung, it gets its name from diacetyl, the flavourant of butter popcorn, so that's where the popcorn part comes from, because it was found in workers in a popcorn factory, that's where it gets its name from. What it is because of this specific flavourant in butter flavour, the diacetyl flavourant causes an intense inflammation in the lungs.' He further explained, "So the lungs in a sense fill up with inflammation, and so you can't breathe, and it is often fatal, which is completely different from cigarettes which slowly damage your lungs. Thankfully, popcorn lung is very, very rare, but it is one of the weird things we have seen with electronic cigarettes.'
Daily Maverick
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Maverick
South Africa's honeybush sector must transform from its unjust past: what needs to change
The biodiversity economy is made up of businesses and economic activities that use living species and ecosystems to make profits without damaging the environment. But in South Africa, it is haunted by economic racism, with indigenous people still not in control of the biodiversity economy. A good example of what's going wrong with transformation initiatives is the story of honeybush tea. Biodiversity economy researcher Sthembile Ndwandwe of the University of Cape Town explains. Honeybush (Cyclopia spp.) is a plant indigenous to South Africa, with a long history of use as a herbal tea by local people in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces. It has traditionally been used for medicinal purposes. Efforts to develop the honeybush industry began in the 1900s. Honeybush is still a small and growing industry with little revenue and minimal profits to share with communities. But it is also deeply rooted in centuries of struggle for access to land and natural resources. What happened to honeybush during colonialism and apartheid? For centuries, during colonisation, slavery and apartheid in South Africa, control over commercialised plants and animals was handed to white-owned business. Black people were forced off their land by the colonial and apartheid governments. Land was broken up into individual title deeds and handed over to white settlers for commercial agriculture, or to the government for westernised conservation. The seizure of land for conservation, plantations and commercial agriculture led to the separation of wild plants like honeybush from those who traditionally used them. Honeybush became the property of landowners: the apartheid government, white-owned timber companies, and white commercial farmers. However, these unjust barriers did not prevent so-called Coloured (mixed-race) and Indigenous Khoi and San communities from continuing to harvest and trade small amounts of honeybush tea. How should transformation have happened? Apartheid ended in 1994. This coincided with efforts that began in the early 1990s by the Agricultural Research Council and the South African National Biodiversity Institute to 'rediscover' honeybush. Projects attached to formal honeybush value chains were opened to dispossessed communities who had produced the tea for centuries from wild plants. The post-apartheid South African government introduced policies to speed up the participation of Black and Indigenous people in the biodiversity economy. A strategy was published in 2015 and a further draft in 2024. These set out ways to include Black and Indigenous people in conservation and businesses involving wild plants (biotrade or bioprospecting) and game animals (the wildlife economy). For example, there were plans to commercialise 25 wild plants, create thousands of jobs, and involve communities in the search for new products (bioprospecting). The government came up with development plans to develop honeybush businesses, and allocate land and infrastructure to Black and Indigenous honeybush producers to participate. These plans were commendable but did not succeed in transforming the industry. What's gone wrong? The focus of transformation was on profit-generation and the number of jobs created. This removed the emphasis from quality jobs and dignity for those who remain racially excluded from enjoying nature. In some cases, transformation further excluded people. For example, permits have been used since the 1800s to exclude Black and Indigenous harvesters from freely accessing land and harvesting plants. After apartheid ended, the role of permit systems as tools for limiting Black and Indigenous people's movement and access to nature were not questioned. Instead, they became part of the formal honeybush trade. They continue to play a key role in managing access to wild plants. This formalisation has prevented Black and Indigenous harvesters from picking wild honeybush without a formal permit. It has left them dependent on applying through those who have power for permits, such as white landowners. This has reinforced and legitimised white supremacy over access to land and natural resources. Secondly, landowners gave permits to white harvest team leaders or supervisors of the workers doing the harvesting. This displaced Black and Indigenous leaders. Another problem is delayed negotiations around access and benefit sharing. This is meant to direct a share of the profits from biodiversity-based industries to local communities. The agreements are still being negotiated, usually by the government, representatives of the industry and traditional authorities. This excludes the communities who've been producing and fighting for honeybush access for centuries. Lastly, those with land and processing infrastructure retain power in the honeybush industry. Black and Indigenous people whose families farmed honeybush for generations remain at the margins. They often have to take up disempowered jobs as planters, harvesters (pickers), helpers in processing facilities, and retail packagers. The result is that Black and Indigenous people have limited control over the honeybush trade and are left in a subordinate position. Is this part of a bigger problem in the biodiversity economy? Landlessness is the bigger problem. The majority of people who've lived and worked for generations in honeybush growing regions and who were dispossessed of their land did not get it back after apartheid ended. Instead, less than 25% of South Africa's land has been redistributed to Black and Indigenous people. When generations of people work with nature, they need sovereignty over space and all the different plants in nature. Being confined to small plots of land means Black and Indigenous people cannot fully use and enjoy all the plants in a region. What should happen next? The government, industry representatives, communities involved with honeybush and the National Khoi and San Councils must transform the industry beyond just redistributing a small fee from commercial farmers and honeybsuh businesses. These are important next steps: Land should be expropriated and redistributed to those involved in the biodiversity economy who are currently landless. Honeybush is a small industry with little profit to share. Access and benefit sharing systems should be designed to show benefits to communities that are not about money alone – in the form of justice, conservation, and restitution. Permits must be replaced with systems that are accessible to the people who were previously forced off their land. To do this, my research recommends using the Black gaze: empathising with the dispossession of the original inhabitants of the land, and bearing witness to the domino effect that landlessness has had on Black families historically connected to honeybush. The absence of traditional knowledge holders in honeybush patent applications means that they're erased from written memory of honeybush intellectual advancements. The honeybush industry needs epistemic justice. This is where Indigenous knowledge is recognised as true and valid, and not only seen as useful if it advances 'science' or helps market products. This will require transformation of the whole honeybush industry, so that traditional knowledge holders are named and remunerated as equal knowers in innovation. Transforming South Africa's biodiversity economy requires a longer-term vision of changing the exclusionary practices, views and structures that are embedded in our environmental policies. DM
Daily Maverick
4 days ago
- Health
- Daily Maverick
Are children living with HIV being left behind? Here's what the stats tell us
Huge gains have been made in reducing new HIV infections and deaths in children. Yet, many of the statistics for children still look worse than those for adults. Spotlight asked experts why this is the case and what factors prevent children living with HIV from starting and staying on the treatment that can keep them healthy. Of the 157,000 children living with HIV in South Africa, about one in three is not getting the medicines they need to stay healthy. That is according to recent estimates from Thembisa, the leading mathematical model of HIV in South Africa. At first glance, the contrast with adults seems stark. While only 65% of children with HIV are on treatment, the figure for everyone in the country who is living with the virus stands 13% higher at 78%. For these numbers, children are defined as people younger than 15. The differences hold across much of the cascade of HIV care. While 95% of all people with HIV have been diagnosed, only 85.5% of kids with the virus have been diagnosed; 81% of all diagnosed people are on treatment, but only 76% of diagnosed kids are. And of all people on treatment, 92% have viral suppression, but only 77% of kids on treatment are virally suppressed. There is substantial variation in these figures across South Africa's provinces. For example, while more than 70% of kids living with HIV in the Western Cape and Northern Cape are on treatment, fewer than 60% are on treatment in each of the other seven provinces. What to make of the numbers The reality is more nuanced than a cursory look at the above data would suggest. For one, there is some uncertainty about the exact numbers. Compared with the Thembisa estimates, two national surveys on HIV prevalence conducted in 2017 and 2022 found higher levels of HIV prevalence in children. In one recent analysis of the 2017 data, it is estimated that only 40% of children living with HIV had been diagnosed. 'The paediatric HIV data sources aren't as consistent with one another as the adult data sources are,' Dr Leigh Johnson, an expert in HIV and TB modelling from the University of Cape Town and key developer of the Thembisa model, tells Spotlight. '[T]here's more uncertainty around our estimates of HIV prevalence in children than there is in adults, which is important because the HIV prevalence estimate is the denominator in the ART coverage estimate.' ART stands for antiretroviral therapy. Apart from some uncertainty over the data, Johnson also cautions that while treatment coverage in children is lower than in adults at 65% compared with 78%, this doesn't necessarily mean the rates of treatment initiation and retention are poorer in children than in adults. As he explains: 'This is because coverage is a cross-sectional measure (measured at a point in time), whereas the rates we're talking about are measured over a period of time. Two groups can have the same rates of ART initiation and retention but have different levels of coverage (cross-sectionally) if they are followed for different average durations (longer duration of follow-up typically means higher coverage).' Put another way, a child of four who became infected at the age of one would only have had about three years to get diagnosed, while an adult aged 40 who became HIV positive at 20 would have had 20 years to get diagnosed. Because of this effect, you'd expect a higher proportion of 40-year-olds to have been diagnosed than four-year-olds, even if everyone tested at the same rate. 'The rates are difficult to measure directly, but our model suggests that the ratio of ART initiations to new infections (a crude proxy for the ART initiation rate) have been a bit lower in kids than in adults in recent years,' Johnson says. HIV often progresses faster in children While a crude proxy, it is a concerning trend if the rates of ART initiation in children are lower than in adults, since HIV tends to make children much sicker and faster than adults. 'Young children have immature immune systems, so when HIV is acquired at a young age… children tend to have a more rapid HIV disease progression than adults. Children can progress to having advanced HIV disease within months, whereas in adults this process usually takes several years,' says Dr Kim Anderson, a clinical epidemiologist and doctor with expertise in treating children and adolescents living with HIV. However, she explains, it is estimated that up to 10% of all children living with HIV are 'slow progressors' and don't get sick as quickly. Because their immune systems are not fully developed, it is vital to diagnose children as early as possible, Dr Moherndran Archary, a professor of paediatric infectious diseases based at the KwaZulu-Natal health department and researcher at the Africa Health Research Institute, tells Spotlight. '[U]ltimately, we do want to make sure, in children, we diagnose them early, start them on antiretroviral treatment… and keep them virologically suppressed throughout the treatment, especially in the childhood and adolescent phase,' he says. Delaying HIV treatment is likely to lead to children developing high levels of viremia (virus in the blood), which can negatively affect the brain, kidneys, lungs and other organs. Progress has stabilised Overall, the data paints a picture of huge progress when it comes to HIV in children, which in recent years has slowed. 'Over time, there has been a general trend towards declining numbers of children acquiring HIV and declining Aids deaths in children,' Johnson says. 'However, the proportion of children living with HIV who have been diagnosed has stabilised at about 85% to 86% in recent years. 'Also, levels of ART coverage in children have stabilised at relatively low levels in recent years (about 65%),' he adds. ART coverage here means the percentage of all children with HIV who are on treatment. This is not the same as the second 95 from the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets, which looks only at the percentage of already diagnosed children who are on treatment. Johnson says the UNAIDS target indicators 'are not always a good reflection of progress in reducing HIV incidence and Aids mortality, which are arguably more important'. Between the start of 2005 and the start of 2024, says Johnson, there has been a 97% reduction in HIV/Aids-related deaths in children, compared with a 78% reduction in adults. In that same period, there's been an 87% reduction in children acquiring HIV, compared with 69% in adults. He says the decline in children getting HIV to be 'largely a reflection of success in reducing adult HIV incidence rates and getting more women onto ART', as ART drastically reduced HIV transmissions from mothers to their children. This, in addition to earlier diagnosis of more infants with HIV and them starting treatment before they get really sick, are behind the decline in HIV-related deaths in children. Vertical transmission remains a concern While experts Spotlight spoke to agree that the rates of vertical transmission have gone down significantly, it remains a big driver of new HIV infections. If the mother's HIV is not under control – either because they don't know they have HIV, or the treatment hasn't had a chance to work yet – then the virus can be transmitted to their child during pregnancy, birth or while breastfeeding. 'In South Africa, we achieve good ART coverage among pregnant women and the number of new infections in children has declined as a result; infections in children make up around 5% of all new infections,' says Anderson. 'Although rates of vertical transmission in South Africa are relatively low (2% to 3%), maternal HIV prevalence is high, therefore the number of new infections in children each year, around 6,500, still remains a concern.' The reasons for this, she says, are complex, ranging 'from children being missed because of limitations in routine testing, challenges in ART adherence, and a need for optimised treatment regimens'. Routine testing might be missing children Children living with HIV tend to be diagnosed through routine postnatal testing or when they visit a healthcare facility with symptoms suggestive of HIV. 'All babies born to mothers living with HIV will have an HIV test, a PCR test (a blood-borne test) that is done at delivery and then at multiple time points in the first year of life,' Archary says. A PCR test is used for babies under the age of two instead of a rapid test because rapid tests look for viral antibodies, which could have been passed to an infant from their mother. The turnaround time for the PCR test is about 72 hours, which could pose a further challenge since the result can only be communicated to the caregivers if they come back to the healthcare facility. 'Our routine testing is geared towards picking up children much earlier and starting them on antiretroviral treatment – and I think that's completely an appropriate response. The problem is really if someone falls between the gaps of that initial net, then unless they present to a healthcare facility, there's very little opportunity for them to get picked up,' he adds. Johnson flags the same issue. 'My biggest concern is that HIV testing efforts have focused very heavily on testing infants/the first 18 months of life, and there hasn't been enough attention paid to testing in older kids. A large proportion of undiagnosed paediatric HIV is in older children… We need to focus on innovative testing strategies to reach older children living with HIV,' he says. Difficulties with achieving virologic suppression Anderson says that, once diagnosed, the rates of linkage to care – going from getting an HIV test to getting care from a healthcare facility – and receiving initial HIV treatment are good for children. The challenge is keeping those children on treatment since high levels of treatment adherence is needed to keep the virus under control. 'Prolonged gaps in care (more than six months) are common among children starting ART, with up to a third experiencing interruptions within the first year, highlighting significant challenges with retaining children in care,' she says. Archary explains that another complication is that children rely on adults to give them their treatment. Some of these children move between different caregivers so they might not get their treatment regularly or from the same person. He adds that stigma also plays a role. Some mothers might be scared to tell other caregivers that their child is living with HIV, and this might result in the child not getting their treatment when they are not with their mother. In the past, HIV treatment itself also posed challenges. Anderson says older, less-suitable treatment regimens led to fewer children keeping the virus under control. These include regimens that were bitter tasting, or pills meant for adults that had to be crushed and were difficult to dose correctly, side-effects, and at times 'insufficient market incentives' for child-friendly formulations. Today, a child-friendly formulation that contains the drug dolutegravir is recommended as part of the preferred first line treatment for children from four weeks of age. Results from a recent Cape Town study, reported on by Spotlight, showed that two new formulations of dolutegravir were also safe to use in newborns. Anderson describes the introduction of cheap, child-friendly dolutegravir as a significant breakthrough that could transform paediatric outcomes. 'It is hoped that transitioning all children on ART to dolutegravir-based regimens may significantly improve paediatric viral suppression rates.' This is because dolutegravir-based regimens, she says, have several advantages, including better palatability and once-daily dosing and fewer side-effects. 'We don't have much recent data yet to show if these expected improvements are being realised… but watch this space!' What needs to be done? Despite the progress, Archary says there is still a long way to go. One priority is providing better support for mothers or caregivers. A lot of the counselling he and his team provide to caregivers of children living with HIV is to help them get a strong support structure around themselves and the child. This, he says, serves as a type of safety net to ensure the child is always given their treatment, no matter what happens. Anderson also weighed in on this. 'Family-centred approaches and better attention to broader social support for the most vulnerable mothers are needed for more successful HIV prevention and treatment,' she says. Family-centred approaches include 'structuring the healthcare services/visits so that mothers and children are seen together at the same visit, ideally by the same provider'. Anderson says this type of integrated service, which does exist in some healthcare facilities, will reduce the burden of having to do multiple clinic visits and helps to manage their healthcare in a more holistic way. 'It would be ideal for mothers to have postnatal access to support from psychologists, social workers, counsellors and peer support groups. Such services are not always available, and if they are, they are overburdened,' she adds. Another approach, says Anderson, is having community health workers provide home-based support. This could include checking that the child is getting their treatment, offering advice to caregivers, assessing food security and assisting with social grant access if needed. 'Small financial incentives or support (like paying for transport or giving food vouchers) might help vulnerable families overcome economic barriers that lead to treatment interruptions,' she reckons. Important research derailed Long-acting HIV treatments for children could potentially help them stick to treatment better because caregivers wouldn't have to give medicine every day. However, some research efforts along these lines have been derailed by the funding cuts and new funding policies for research grants from the US government. 'I am hopeful that long-acting injectables could be the game changer we've long awaited, both in further reducing vertical transmission, and in improving viral suppression rates among mothers and children,' Anderson says. 'At the same time, I am worried that cuts to future HIV research funding could undermine the hard-won progress we have made.' This is a reality for Archary. He was involved in a study set to look at the use of long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine injections for HIV treatment in adolescents, paired with peer support interventions. But this was halted because funding through a grant from the US National Institutes of Health, which is the largest public funder of biomedical research globally, was cancelled. 'I think it's a wake-up call for research in South Africa because we've been quite highly dependent on external funding… [M]uch of the innovative research that's happened in HIV, TB and other infectious diseases has happened from South Africa, so we've got the intellectual capital, but we do need to now find the money in order to cover that gap,' he says. DM
The Citizen
4 days ago
- General
- The Citizen
Historic Fochville site in danger as illegal dumping continues despite community pleas
The once-scenic veld behind the Gert van Rensburg Stadium in Fochville, Gauteng, is now an unofficial dumping ground, sparking outrage among residents. Despite multiple reports and pleas from the community, the Merafong City Local Municipality has yet to take any meaningful action. The area, known for its quiet beauty and cultural significance, contains the ruins of ancient Sotho-Tswana settlements, which date back over 300 years. According to research conducted by archaeologist Mark Steven Anderson in his 2009 doctoral thesis at the University of Cape Town, this region was home to a thriving community that farmed, herded cattle, and accepted refugees during a turbulent period of Southern African history. However, this vital piece of South Africa's pre-colonial heritage is now being buried beneath piles of building rubble and household waste. Shockingly, eyewitnesses have previously reported municipal vehicles contributing to the illegal dumping. 'We have asked the municipality so many times to help, but have given up because they just don't seem to want to do anything about the problem,' said Corne van der Merwe, a concerned resident. Another local, Johan Knell, highlighted the tragic irony: 'By the looks of it, thousands of people stayed here hundreds of years ago, and now no one seems to care.' Despite being made aware of the issue last year, and again recently, the Merafong City Local Municipality has not erected 'No Dumping' signs, fenced off the area, nor enforced any waste management bylaws. Calls and queries by the local media continue to go unanswered. Environmental degradation, public health concerns, and the irreversible loss of cultural heritage now hang in the balance. Why This Matters The site reflects the legacy of the Sotho-Tswana people, who lived in the area until the 1820s. It holds archaeological significance as a potential educational and tourism asset. Its current state could result in the permanent loss of historical artefacts and cultural knowledge. What needs to happen Residents are urging: Immediate clean-up of the site. Installation of no-dumping signs and surveillance. Intervention from the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) or relevant government departments. Recognition of the area as a protected heritage site. Until such measures are taken, the community fears that a unique piece of South Africa's history may be lost forever under heaps of waste. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
