The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) in South Africa experienced a ransomware attack on June 22, 2024, severely disrupting its operations.Â
The attack deleted backups and caused significant delays in lab testing across public health facilities.
Although the laboratories have since resumed functionality, physicians remain unable to access test results via the online portal.
Despite the breach, no patient data was compromised. However, the attack has had a profound impact on emergency patients and intensive care units.
The NHLS, which serves as the primary provider of diagnostic pathology services for 80% of South Africa’s population, now faces a backlog of over 6.3 million unprocessed blood tests.
This delay is hampering major operations and overall healthcare delivery across the nation. As a temporary measure, urgent test results are being communicated via telephone.
This incident is part of a broader trend of cyberattacks targeting South African institutions. Previous attacks have affected the International Trade Administration Commission and the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.
In a related development, Kenya’s healthcare system faced its own challenges on June 29, 2024, when the National Health Insurance Fund service portal experienced technical issues.
This outage forced patients to make cash payments for healthcare services.
