South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout has started, but many citizens still remain skeptical about taking their jabs. In this podcast, Prof Mark Tomlinson from the Institute for Life Course Health Research in the Department of Global Health sheds more light on vaccine hesitancy and how we can overcome it. 

Stellenbosch University

Saturday (20 February) is World Day of Social Justice. In this podcast, Prof Ronelle Burger from the Department of Economics and RESEP (Research on Socioeconomic Policy Group) talks about how the bias in data availability perpetuates social injustice and existing inequalities.

Stellenbosch University

Thursday (11 February) is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. In this podcast, Dr Taime Sylvester, who is a postdoctoral research fellow at the South African Medical Research Council’s Centre for TB Research in the Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics, speaks about the importance of addressing the gender gap in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Stellenbosch University

Today (4 February) we observe World Cancer Day. In this podcast, Prof Anna-Mart Engelbrecht, who leads the Cancer Research Group in the Department of Physiological Sciences, highlights some of the advances in personalised medicine and biotechnology that are offering new hope for cancer patients.

Stellenbosch University

As a registered social worker but also a person with a disability, Noreth Muller-Kluits always knew it was her calling to facilitate change and help address the needs of persons with disabilities. She recently graduated with a PhD in Social Work, and in this podcast talks about her doctoral research, which focused on the experiences of adults with an acquired physical disability on social work support in a South African context.

Prof Arnold Schoonwinkel, Vice-Rector for Learning and Teaching, will retire at the end of 2020 after a long and distinguished career at Stellenbosch University. In this podcast, he reflects on the highlights and challenges.

It’s important for companies to rotate from audit firms after a certain period of time. In this podcast, Prof Nicolene Wesson from the Stellenbosch University Business School sheds more light on mandatory audit firm rotation and what this means for South Africa.

Thursday (3 December) is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. In this podcast, Dr Marcia Lyner-Cleophas from the Disability Unit reflects on what the pandemic has taught us in terms of removing the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating meaningfully in all spheres of society.

Gender-based violence (GBV) continues unabated in South Africa, even during the annual 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children (25 Nov-10 Dec). In this podcast, Prof Juliana Claassens from the Gender Unit in the Faculty of Theology talks about the possibility of looking at both biblical and contemporary trauma narratives to deal with GBV in our society.

Stellenbosch University

Researchers at Stellenbosch University (SU) are searching for the safest and most effective treatment for babies at high risk of contracting HIV.

“Babies with HIV constitute a small proportion of the HIV-positive population, and only a few antiretroviral drug formulations and little pharmacokinetic data are currently available to inform optimal treatment,” says Prof Adrie Bekker of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at SU’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS). “We have made significant progress in the field of HIV, but a gap remains regarding optimal prevention and treatment of babies born to women with HIV.”

Bekker and Dr Tim Cressey from Chiang Mai University in Thailand are the principal investigators of the PETITE study, evaluating the pharmacokinetics and safety of a novel fixed-dose combination (FDC) 4-in-1 granule formulation (abacavir/lamivudine/lopinavir/ritonavir) in neonates exposed to HIV.  The study is funded by Unitaid as a part of the larger BENEFIT Kids project led by SU’s Desmond Tutu TB Centre. The BENEFIT Kids project primarily aims to improve children’s access to better treatment as well as the prevention of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and has included this complementary and vitally important study for this much neglected population of infants.