Blog

Cheryl Cohen, National Institute for Communicable Diseases and Sibongile Walaza, University of the Witwatersrand Global mobility has increased and the world has become more connected. But this comes with a greater risk of the spread of respiratory diseases, particularly pneumonia, which is a leading cause of death in children under the age of five and …

South Africa is testing digital technology to detect outbreaks of respiratory diseases Read More »

Coronavirus in South Africa South Africans watched as the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic and in early March it hit our shores with the first South African case diagnosed. Some early decisive action from government introducing lockdown and closing borders ensured that we delayed our surge of admission and bought us precious time to …

Living with COVID-19 is the new normal Read More »

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been included to the Notifiable Medical Conditions (NMC) in South Africa. NMCs are diseases that are of public health importance because they pose significant public health risks that may result in disease outbreaks or epidemics both nationally and internationally. What is Multisystem …

MIS-C is now a notifiable condition in South Africa Read More »

On 25 August 2020, the African Region celebrated the declaration by the African Regional Certification Commission that Africa is free of wild poliovirus (polio). This milestone is a big stride towards achieving the goal of global polio eradication. Polio is targeted to be the second human disease, after smallpox, to be globally eradicated through vaccination. …

African Region declared free of wild poliovirus Read More »

How many people in one household contract SARS-CoV-2 and transmit it without having symptoms, and how does SARS-CoV-2 interact with other pathogens in the home? A new study aims to find out how many people in individual households in rural urban South Africa become infected with SARS-CoV-2, how asymptomatic [producing or showing no symptoms] people …

Study explores SARS-CoV-2 transmission by asymptomatic people in rural and urban households in SA Read More »

by Gesine Meyer-Rath, Sheetal Silal, Juliet Pulliam and Harry Moultrie A group of modellers recently put out a manifesto specifying “five ways to ensure that models serve society”, with specific application to the COVID-19 pandemic[i]. They summarise the uncertainty regarding almost all central aspects of how SARS CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) behaves, including …

The Known, the Unknown and the Unknowable- Modelling Covid-19 between Scarce Data and the Need to Make Decisions Read More »

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause a global health crisis. With over 12 million cases recorded worldwide, it is expected to be with us for a long time. In South Africa alone, over 200 000 cases have been reported since the first case was recorded in March 2020, and over 3 000 deaths have been reported. The …

The COVID-19 crisis in South Africa: Protecting the vulnerable Read More »