Cyber attack on South Africa’s laboratory service puts healthcare at risk

South Africa’s National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) is recovering from a ransomware attack that disrupted systems and deleted backups, hindering healthcare services nationwide. While all labs are functional, online access to results is unavailable. The attack has postponed major operations due to over 6.3 million unprocessed blood tests. The NHLS is rebuilding its system, with no restoration timeline determined, and will temporarily communicate urgent results by phone.