South Africa’s disaster management plan targets the most vulnerable. But it needs to respond in a more deliberate way when it comes to people with disabilities.
Ramaphosa’s call for a new social compact will fall on deaf ears unless there are some fundamental changes to the way in which the pandemic is being managed.
Fabrice Flipo, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School
The pandemic, in that it represents a major and therefore exceptional risk, calls for a response built collectively, and not by a small group of experts or decision-makers.
There has been a rapid redirection of resources towards COVID-19-related research. In the long term, this resource reallocation is likely to result in budget cuts in all research areas.
Too much ultraviolet radiation is dangerous for human health. Excessive exposure can cause skin ageing and sunburn and can induce melanoma, cataracts, ocular melanoma, and immunodeficiency.
Early reports by the National Health Laboratory Service indicated that it had the capacity to do 30,000 tests a day. But capability to do so has not materialised.
Chronic pain is everyone’s problem. It’s costly, debilitating and, according to new statistics, increasingly common. Reversing the trend is achieveable but far from easy.
The threat posed by COVID-19 on mines is considerable. The main reasons are cramped working conditions underground, transportation in packed cages, and a high incidence of other respiratory diseases.
As COVID-19 cases continue to increase in Kenya, there is a looming threat for escalated disease and death due to the many people with chronic conditions.
South Africa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was one of ‘intervene first and ask questions later’. Now is the time for government to state clearly what its strategic endgame is.
It’s possible to evaluate countries’ readiness to lift their lockdowns, based on how well they managed the first wave of the pandemic, and how ready they are for a digital economy.
Emilie Counil, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED) and Myriam Khlat, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
In addition to the elderly and health workers, those holding front-line jobs are particularly exposed. Infection risk and aggravating co-morbidities could compound social inequalities in time of crisis.
Wearing masks is being introduced in conjunction with maintaining a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres and following hygiene measures such as hand washing.
Dean Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at University of the Witwatersrand; and Director of the SAMRC Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand
Professor of medicine and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town