World Move for Health day is celebrated annually on 10 May.

In this time of COVID-19, we have become aware of what the term pandemic means. But are you aware that “inactivity" has also been described as a world-wide pandemic with wide reaching implications for health?

Regular physical activity reduces the risk of multiple medical conditions and also improves immunity if done sensibly. For example, don't exercise while you are sick but try to regularly do moderate intensity exercise. But how do you know that what you are doing is classified as moderate intensity exercise? The best way to check this is by using the 'Talk Test' - if you can talk while exercising but not sing then you are doing moderate intensity exercise. If you can sing perfectly, you are not working hard enough, and if you can only talk by saying a few words between breaths, then you are probably working too hard! If you have some way of monitoring your heart rate with a fitness watch or heart rate monitor, moderate intensity is when you are working at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate.

How much exercise is needed to ensure you are getting all the health benefits you need? A minimum of 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise (the type that keeps your heart rate up continually, like jogging or swimming) plus strength exercise for about 30 minutes twice a week.

You don't need equipment for the strength exercises; they can be just body weight exercises, such as lunges push-ups, and planks. It's a good idea to include core exercises into theses strength exercises.

For the cardiovascular exercise, choose whatever tickles your fancy, be it dancing in the kitchen to badminton on the lawn. Walking or, for the fitter, jogging. Create a track around your house or garden, even include some obstacles to keep it interesting.

Keep in mind that if you are starting up exercise for the first time to be kind to your body and work it up slowly. Also make sure to be safe and keep your social distancing during lock down.

Apart from intentional exercise, World Move for Health day is also about being less sedentary. Especially during lockdown, it's easy to spend the day in front of a laptop. How about switching to sitting on a ball so you can bounce around? Set an alarm that goes off every 25 minutes to make you stand up and walk somewhere. Use these quick breaks for your strength exercises, one type on each break. Stand when you phone a friend. Lunge to and from the kitchen. Your aim is to keep yourself moving and keep things interesting!

This year, World Move for Health day falls on Mother's day – how about challenging your mother to start exercise or virtually doing a work-out with her? It's the gift of health!

So start thinking ahead - what are you going to do on 10 May to get active and move for your health?

​Stellenbosch University's (SU) Maths Identity project helps primary school learners with mathematic reasoning and stimulates positive attitude towards mathematics.

The project, aimed at engaging 80 Mathematics Education final year students in a school environment, is another example of how SU is an engaged teaching and learning hub that supports its students in developing the graduate attributes as set by the University.

Led by Dr Erna Lampen, a lecturer in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the SU Faculty of Education, the maths project has engaged with over 500 school learners since its inception in the year 2017.

“The project was inspired by the plight of Grade 8 learners being promoted with extremely low marks. To ease this, we started this project and started working with a group of 80 final year students who engage with learners from Grade 4 to 7."

“In this project we focus our attention on the learners' attitudes, engagement and reasoning in mathematics. The earlier learners understand that mathematics is not only about marks, the better the engagement and in that way their attitudes toward the subject changes. We want learners to know that maths is also about intellectual engagement – our learners need to know that engaging and asking questions in class can yield better marks," she says.

Lampen says she believes primary school learners should awake to mathematics – that is become mathematical thinkers – hence the focus on building identity as mathematical thinkers, rather than focus on club.

According to Lampen, the project is about teaching final year students the right way of responding to learner reasoning in ways that promote engagement and agency as part of their academic work. “We have worked with AF Louw Primary School from 2017–2018, and before lockdown we were working with Laerskool Cloetesville," she says.

“We want to equip our final year students with the skills to notice and take up learner reasoning in the classroom. Our final year students are required to learn to listen intently and interpret what the learner has to say," adds Lampen.

She says although it has been a challenge for one lecturer to monitor the students' engagements, the schools have been appreciative and cooperative for the support.

Lampen says this project was born out of her passion for mathematics, “My research interests are within the broader field of pre- service teacher education, with particular focus on aspect of learner and teacher engagements in problem centred mathematics.

According to Lampen, it is essential for the teacher to be able to notice and respond to learner reasoning, and developing conceptual teacher talk specifically in the content areas of geometry and statistics.

She says it is quite unfortunate that the learners at the schools they work in do not have access to the internet to continue the work. She says they were unable to continue with the work after the COVID-19 lockdown as both the fourth year students and primary school learners need contact and interaction in order for both parties to benefit and continue with the work.

Some challenges are better solved together. This is the belief behind a new inter-faculty collaboration to provide a life-skills programme for high-risk children in the Bishop Lavis community. This initiative, entitled the SLEAK project, builds on an existing project that was started in 2008 by the Division of Occupational Therapy at Stellenbosch University's (SU) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS).

Partners from three different SU faculties – the Division of Occupational Therapy, Maties Sport and Theology – will now join forces in the expanded multi-faceted programme thanks to funding from the university's Division of Social Impact.

The programme will run three times a week, in four phases of six weeks each, and will address a range of themes using the skills and input of the three faculties. The 24-week programme is split into thematic blocks of six weeks.

Dr Martin Heine at the FMHS' Institute of Sport and Exercise Medicine (ISEM), who is the custodian of the expansion project through his work with the Division of Social Impact, said the expanded programme started in February with about 15 children. “Initial reactions are very positive. The feedback is that the kids are loving it and are enthusiastically embracing the programme. We are fully on track and expecting to grow."

Heine said one of the main goals of the enterprise is for the Division of Social Impact to explore the feasibility of a more interdisciplinary social impact activity. “As an example, a garden project where people grow their own produce as part of occupational therapy, may benefit from input by a dietician on how to use the produce in a healthy way, or the division of agriculture on how to grow produce in space or water-constrained environments," explained Heine. “However, in practice, barriers may exist that limit this type of collaboration. What we are doing is exploring interdisciplinary work that is feasible in Bishop Lavis so that we can evaluate the interfaculty work further for future initiatives."

The programme will address specific themes (i.e. respect, resilience, big dreams, leadership) through the different “lenses" and expertise of the different faculties. Each profession has a specific role in instilling these skills, using their own methodologies. “For instance we will look at each theme through constructive leisure time activities (Occupational Therapy); through sport and games (Maties Sport), and through actively engaging family structures (Theology)," Heine explained. “We believe that having the three different disciplines working together on a specific topic will have a bigger impact on the children, students, and volunteers than we would have achieved otherwise through just one discipline."

“At the end of each theme, we will take children and volunteers to Maties Sport on the Stellenbosch Campus so that they can engage with student athletes. For many, it may be the first time they leave Bishop Lavis and will broaden their perspectives." Heine said the programme came about through his wider involvement in Bishop Lavis, both through his academic work, as well as conversations between the university and the City of Cape Town (CoCT) in relation to the mayoral urban regeneration programme that is set out for Bishop Lavis."

“In our conversations with the City, we discussed their plans to develop a wellness centre in Bishop Lavis. We've had our service-learning platform for students there for quite a while (>25 years) already in the form of the Bishop Lavis Rehabilitation Centre, but wellness is a different concept from health. With 'wellness' being broader, and more focussed on social determinants of health (e.g. poverty) as well. This opened the door to hosting more university stakeholders than just those from the medical health sciences."

The Division of Social Impact commissioned Heine to further explore such an interdisciplinary platform for social impact and to hold conversations with the CoCT, external-, and internal stakeholders.

“That is how this project came about. It is a spin-off and test-case for the idea that in the future there could be a platform to host more disciplines beyond conventional 'health' disciplines… for more catalytic social impact, through different students and professions, and community members working together.

“The idea is that social impact is not something that should happen in silos."

Maatje Kloppers from the Division of Occupational Therapy said the project was initiated by students and community volunteers in 2008. “Up until this partnership was formed, the project was self sustaining in terms of financing – with our children and partners recycling plastic bottle tops for our running costs. The Social Impact project is a pilot for collaboration to strengthen our activities with their profession-specific knowledge".

Juanita Jacobs, who is project coordinator and social impact coordinator for Maties Sports, said she is using soccer to transfer life skills to the children in the programme.

“It is going so well. The children are excited about this programme. You can already see the difference in commitment – in the first week they came in their school clothes, but by the third week they were coming prepared in their sports clothes. Jacobs, who has her provincial colours for various sports, and has a post-graduate diploma in sport development, is involved in a number of schools in Stellenbosch, said there is a buzz of excitement among the children now. “They are showing they want to be involved."

​Rejeanne Louw, one of four students from the Theology department, said she and her fellow students were involved in house visits to the parents and caretakers of the children involved in the programme. “It has been good engaging the parents and hearing reports of how the behaviour of the children has changed – for instance in being more neat and addressing their parents with respect. On the basis of the reports of the parents, I would say this programme is having a good effect and will continue to do so in the future."

Caption: Maties Sport staff with a group of children at the Bishop Lavis Day Hospital.

​​​Nigerian born Chioma Amaechi says she first heard of Stellenbosch University (SU) when she was searching for the best universities in Africa after completing high school in 2010.

Chioma is a full-time honours student in public and development management at SU's Faculty of Economic and Management Science (EMS). She also works as a student research assistant for the Africa-UK Trilateral Research Chair, Mainstreaming Gender for Energy Security in Poor Urban Environments (GENS), at Stellenbosch University (SU).

“I am a community builder at heart, and I am excited to be realising my dreams at this prestigious university in my field of study," said the 25-year-old.

Chioma's hard work has resulted in her being awarded the 2020 Mandela Rhodes Foundation Scholarship alongside 54 other scholars from all over Africa. Chioma says she cherishes the achievement and sees it as a learning, inspiration and propelling platform to be a phenomenal African leader.

The Mandela Rhodes Foundation is an official Nelson Mandela legacy organisation tasked with developing exceptional leadership capacity in Africa. The organisation provides a combination of postgraduate funding with a leadership development programme to young Africans with academic prowess and demonstrated leadership potential.

“I believe that education is a very important tool and a necessary aid required to create the desired future and to combat the poverty that plagues most of Africa. Development studies will help me in fulfilling my dreams of creating a sustainable Africa for the most vulnerable people.

Driven by her passion for young people, Chioma is also the convenor of Youth Activate the Movement (YATM) and Hadassah's Mere, a platform she uses to train and empower youth and girls in underprivileged communities in Lagos, Nigeria.

She says the platform seeks action and integration of sustainable agendas to make the lives of Africans better. “I am passionate about societal development, sustainable growth, gendered entrepreneurship and public policy. I see these as necessary tools required for building a sustainable society."

She uses various mediums to speak against the sexual harassment of African girls and aims to seek solutions to the fundamental problems associated with women and children in emerging economies, particularly in relation to poverty, inequality and hunger.

“It is my dream to see a society of thriving women exceeding boundaries and breaking stereotypes and the programme at SU is exceptional for this," she adds.

“Being at SU and in South Africa has been a beautiful and gratifying experience, I'm excited to be here, learning every day in my chosen field of study. The ultimate life lesson I have learnt up till this point is to 'go for it'. This sums up dreams, passion, and impacts. Whatever you want to achieve is possible when you go for it," says Chioma.

She says most of her life challenges are inflicted by the mind, but she has willed herself to move above it and it worked. “Sometimes, I have to remind myself and play it in my head as a mantra that I can be better. Other times I take actions that make me better. Either way, the trick is to condition your mind that you are better than the lowest of days; so you keep moving," she adds.

She says her job and life goals are intertwined, and she wants to be happy while doing what she loves, which is a public service. Apart from serving people, Chioma enjoys engaging with family and friends, making videos of funny dances and creating a comfortable space for herself.

To read more on her work, click here.

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With education students not being able to do their practical teaching blocks due to school that are still closed because of Covid-19, the education students at Stellenbosch University (SU) have recently released free activity packets to contribute to learners' education despite the current situation.

These packets are compiled by the Beyond Education program, an initiative of the Education Student Committee's (ESC) social impact portfolio. This project was launched in February 2020. Just before the national lockdown was implemented, the members of this program came up with an idea to help learners who do not have access to internet or e-learning material.

According to Marcel Adams, founder of this program and member of the ESC, the group designed these activity packets for Grades R – 9 to provide curriculum-relevant activities that can help teachers who are unable to teach during the national lockdown period.

“We realised that teachers couldn't get through the first term's curriculum with the lockdown regulations in place. We also realised that not everyone has internet access, so we decided to help out," explains Adams.

Adams says the packets include activities for the subjects Afrikaans, English and Mathematics. It has been put together in such a way that it can be shared via WhatsApp, since most people have access to this platform.

Linmari Matthee, a fourth-year student who is also part of the project, mentions that these packets have been requested as far as the Eastern Cape and Namibia.

“Being part of this initiative really warms my heart as I have experienced first-hand how grateful people (in Oudtshoorn) are for help. It also gives me a glimpse of what I might have to do as a beginner teacher next year and I am thankful for that experience. I enjoy taking on this project with people who have the same goal in mind. It gives me hope for what the youth can still achieve," says Matthee.

According to Adams, they would also like to address social issues through the program by visiting schools and by bringing awareness to environmental conservation in order to emphasise their part as future educators and leaders.

Adams says that many of their projects fell through because of Covid-19 and the national lockdown, but they are keeping busy with another initiative in the meantime. This one will specifically encourage matriculants in the form of a manual that will be filled with various tips and motivational messages.

“We were supposed to visit a school in the new term to address the class of 2020 and to motivate them for their final exams. Instead, we set up an electronic matric survival guide and sent these out in the same way we did with the activity packets," Adams explains.

Prof Michael Le Cordeur, Chair of the Department of Curriculum Studies at SU's Faculty of Education says forms of e-learning, like the activity packets compiled by the Beyond Education group, could be the new normal.

“This country will never be the same again. Covid-19 asks for new solutions and ideas to be set in place. E-learning definitely forms part of the future, but as a country we are far from being prepared for it. The Department of Education, but also us as a university, still have a lot to do in order to close the gap," Le Cordeur says.

Anyone who wants to get involved or who would like to contribute to this project can contact Adams by email: 23240806@sun.ac.za .

​ 

Original article source: Die Matie                                                                      ​Translated by Elise Groeneveld

​​The article with the title The case for avoiding price controls in times of crisis: they don't work, written by Prof Willem Boshoff, Co-Director of the Centre for Competition Law and Economics at Stellenbosch University, was published by The Conversation on 6 May 2020:

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the initial stockpiling of food and other items, government regulation of the prices of basic food and medical goods has received significant attention.

In South Africa, the trade and industry minister introduced regulations to strengthen competition and consumer law enforcement against so-called excessive or unfair pricing during this period of national disaster.

The pricing regulations do not regulate prices explicitly but seek to limit the extent to which prices respond to demand and cost factors during the disaster period. This has given rise to a flood of consumer complaints and a number of investigations by the competition authorities.

Tighter price regulation is popular in periods of extraordinary economic stress, such as war and following natural disaster. Edwin Cannan, who studied the efficacy of price controls during the first world war, described social views during disaster periods as follows:

(People) are perfectly convinced that the rise with which they have to contend for the moment is unnatural, artificial, and wholly unjustifiable, being merely the wicked work of people who want to enrich themselves, and who are given the power to do so not by the economic conditions… This has been so since the dawn of history… but no amount of historical retrospect seems to be of much use. The same absurdity crops up generation after generation.

Basing pricing policy on such sentiments will be counterproductive in the current context, as price is a signal of underlying demand and cost.

Price control is an ancient form of regulation. Adam Smith was the first to criticise price regulation from an economics perspective, in his famous book The Wealth of Nations. Smith's insight – which forms the basis of modern economists' views of price control – was that attempts to arrest price increases during periods of scarcity (due to war or drought) are not helpful and lead to famine. Freezing price changes – or seeking to reduce prices below market-determined levels – is likely to maintain demand at levels which supply cannot meet.

Put differently, prices regulate demand and supply, resulting in smaller shortages.

Supply and demand

When COVID-19 hit South Africa, the country saw an unprecedented surge in demand for basic food and other essential items. This surge often resulted in empty shelves in grocery stores. But shortages were short-lived, as grocery supply chains responded, resulting in increased frequency and volumes of products supplied. There has also been an increased supply of certain essential items, such as hand sanitisers, because of the temporary entry of other manufacturers.

This swift supply response to the surge in demand explains why prices have not accelerated across the board. It is true that some retailers in selected markets, enjoying market power, have been able and willing to significantly increase prices. Yet the fear of prosecution by competition authorities may well have dampened these incentives.

More important, given current economic conditions, broad-based demand-driven price increases are not likely to persist.

This would support the government's strategy to cooperate with the agricultural, food processing and grocery retail sectors, to ensure that supply chains for food and other essential household items remain functional. This is the surest way to guard against significant price increases during the crisis.

What about the future?

One could still ask whether price controls would not be merited in future. What if the pandemic causes greater supply stress in the coming months, perhaps damaging supply chains for critical products – such as medical products?

A key insight of Adam Smith is that enforcing lower prices in markets experiencing surging demand and stagnant supply does little to support consumers. Price control cannot address scarcity. Fixing prices at lower levels will merely enforce existing demand patterns. This will result in worse shortages for many consumers down the line.

Indeed, Adam Smith directly linked famine, during times of drought, to price controls limiting increases in the price of basic foodstuffs.

If supply should become severely constrained, at least partly because of sharp increases in the cost of inputs acquired via international supply chains, it is also not clear how controlling prices would provide suppliers with incentives to increase output.

The government appears to accept this. The regulations on excessive pricing view cost-based price increases as justified.

Even so, whether because of interaction with the competition authorities or because of uncertainty around enforcement of the regulations, many firms have committed to halt price increases.

Yet prices are the signals on which the market economy relies to direct resources. Supply pressures and hence costs may well increase as the lockdown continues. It is critical that price signals be allowed to encourage a supply response. Longer-term constraints on price increases will not help consumers or alleviate shortages.

• Photo by Boris Dunand on Unsplash
  
  

​​Researchers at Stellenbosch University (SU) this week launched the Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (CRAM), a collaborative research project across three universities which will track the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 in South Africa.

The study will survey a nationally representative sample of 10,000 South Africans every month for the next six months using telephone surveys, focusing on unemployment, household income, child hunger and access to government grants. 

The aim of the researchers is to inform policy-makers and help direct relief efforts to where they are most needed, and to determine if those relief efforts are working as intended

“Our number one aim in all of this is to help policy-makers make the best decisions in these difficult times," says the Principal Investigator of the study, Dr Nic Spaull of the SU Economics Department. “Encouragingly, all data emerging from the project will be made freely available to download on the DataFirst platform immediately as it becomes available."

He explains the rationale of the study and the collaborative nature of the work: “We know that the coronavirus pandemic is the largest shock of our generation and it's already having profound social and economic impacts on our country. When we started seeing the data coming out of China, Italy and Spain we knew this was going to devastate our economy and trigger a global recession."

This prompted Spaull and NRF Research Chair in the SU Department of Economics, Prof Servaas van der Berg, to take action. “I mean, we were all asking ourselves what can we do to help? What is the role of researchers when faced with a global pandemic and economic catastrophe? And maybe it's just because we're economists and when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like nail, but we kept coming back to the same thing, we need good data! Practically all surveys have stopped because enumerators can't go into the field and collect data…There won't even be CPI data this year" said Spaull.

In order for the study to be nationally representative, the researchers realised they'd need to use telephone surveys and to link the new study to a pre-existing survey. That would allow them to use the mobile phone numbers of existing sample participants.

“In order to be nationally-representative we wanted to link into one of the existing surveys targeting income and social dynamics. So I reached out to colleagues at the University of Cape Town (UCT) to find out about the possibility of extending the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) which is a nationally representative panel survey focusing on income and social dynamics. We wanted to include a mobile phone 'update' of NIDS to see how things are changing on the ground. Long story short, the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency were incredibly helpful with facilitating permissions to use the data, as well as all the researchers at the Southern African Labour Development Research Unit (SALDRU) who are the implementing agent of NIDS and now also co-investigators on the project and the implementing agent of NIDS-CRAM. It's really been incredible to see how collaborative everyone has been."

Fortuitously for the project, the Dean of the SU Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Professor Ingrid Woolard, was one of the Principal Investigators of the NIDS study at UCT before she moved to Stellenbosch.

“NIDS has been collecting data on the same 28,000 people for more than a decade so we have very rich data on the life courses of these individuals prior to the COVID crisis," says Woolard. “The CRAM data is going to provide a statistically rigorous picture of the devastation created by the virus in order to inform timeous and targeted policy interventions. It's been tremendously encouraging to see how quickly DPME agreed to making the sample available for this important work."

Areas of work

Spaull is joined by eight co-investigators across SU, UCT and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits): Professor Dori Posel (Wits), Dr Gabrielle Wills (SU), Dr Nwabisa Makaluza (SU), Professor Reza Daniels (UCT), Professor Ronelle Burger (SU), Professor Rulof Burger (SU), Professor Servaas van der Berg (SU), Professor Vimal Ranchhod (UCT) and David Carel (SU) who each head up different areas related to Sampling, Social Welfare, Labour and Firms, Health and COVID-19 and the NIDS operations.

“I think the project is really exciting. It's the first nationally-representative survey and it helps us get at important things that internet surveys can't. From its launch going forward, the survey will be able to provide close to real-time updates on whether health system capacity constraints, fears about contracting the virus and disruption to transport networks are affecting access to healthcare. We'll also be able to see the interactions between access to healthcare, receipt of grants and employment. That's really important for policymakers, to adapt and adjust policy responses in this uncertain environment," says Burger of the SU Economics Department and expert on health economics.

Dr Nwabisa Makaluza, a researcher in the Research on Socioeconomic Policy Group (RESEP) in the SU Economics Department, comments: “Given the extreme inequalities we have in South Africa, it's critical that we are also capturing what is happening at the lower end of the income distribution – those that don't have jobs. Internet surveys under-report the poor and therefore miss out on what I think is the most important question at the moment: how is COVID-19 affecting the lives of the most marginalized people in South Africa? I think CRAM can help us answer that question."

Adds Van Der Berg: “It was clear from the beginning that a telephone survey would create new challenges. One of those was finding a good sampling frame with telephone numbers. Fortunately we could use the NIDS sample. Another challenge is to keep the survey short, much shorter than for a fieldwork questionnaire. There are so many things we would like to know, but we had to focus on priorities. Our main concern is what information it could provide to assist policy making."

The project quickly gained momentum and added collaborators from other departments and universities, concludes Spaull. The group of CRAM researchers is now made up of more than 30 researchers across five universities.

The CRAM study will include six waves, one wave per month for the next six months. Wave 1 of CRAM began this week and will continue until the end of May 2020. The results of Wave 1 are expected mid June and will be available on the CRAM website: www.cramsurvey.org/

• The project has received formal endorsement by the National Planning Commission, the National Treasury and the Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency and is funded by three donors: the Allan and Gill Gray Philanthropy, the FEM Education Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.
  
• Photo supplied by CRAM.
  

​Would you like to help Stellenbosch University (SU) to make a positive difference during this COVID-19 pandemic? The University has identified five priority areas where staff, alumni, donors and friends of the University could lend a helping hand.

Says Karen Bruns, Senior Director: Development & Alumni Relations: "Even during these unprecedented times for all of our internal and external stakeholders - we are looking to highlight how everyone can continue to support our essential work through their philanthropic giving - especially now that we're all confronted with the added impact of COVID-19.

"We in the Development & Alumni Relations Division at Stellenbosch University are hopeful that, as the world recovers from the impact of this pandemic, we will all have a stronger sense of solidarity as staff, students, alumni and donors."

The priorities identified are as follows:

Digital Access for SU students  

We have decided to focus on digital access for our students to give them the tools to complete online learning and teaching. A recent survey indicated that around 880 students urgently require support in order for us to successfully move into online teaching and learning. Each laptop costs up to R8 000 per student. Can you lend a hand to address this challenge and stand with our students during this period and make a gift to support this urgent priority?

• Click here to make a contribution.

#Move4Food

We will be enhancing our support for our student-led #Move4Food campaign to curb student hunger.  Not knowing where the next meal will come from is a reality for many South Africans, including our SU students. The bleak reality is that a lack of access to affordable and nutritious food on South African campuses is rife and Stellenbosch University is no exception. Your support of the #Move4Food campaign not only touches our students' lives every day, it is also a powerful and exemplary demonstration of your commitment to transforming the lives of young people.

• Click here to make a contribution.

Support for SU Healthcare workers

 Our SU healthcare workers are working on the frontlines of this pandemic and also need our support. This would include personal protective equipment, food stations, anything related to reducing the risk of contamination (separate tea and coffee stations, for instance) and logistical support. Can you make a difference here?

• Click here to make a contribution.

Research & Innovation Response

In line with our strategic framework and the focus on research for impact, we remain committed to supporting the global pursuit to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. SU is involved in a range of efforts to fight this pandemic - from developing a method for preventing and treating microbial growth on manufactured products including packaging materials, to a synthetic pharmaceutical in the test phase as a supportive agent for the treatment of Acute/Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. The list goes on!  At a time like this we're reminded how much the world needs science – of all types – and how the production of knowledge is in everyone's best interests.

• Click here to make a contribution.

#StellenboschUnite

Stellenbosch University has partnered with the wider Stellenbosch community under the umbrella of #StellenboschUnite. Through this partnership, we are working on procuring and distributing food and provision parcels to vulnerable community members.  The project aims to procure and distribute a minimum of 2 500 food and provision parcels per week to vulnerable community members. To secure the 2 500 parcels, the initiative requires a minimum of R250 000 per week. Your support would ensure that we can make a contribution to this cause.

• Click here to make a contribution.

Also visit the new COVID-19 Relief Funds website for more information: https://www.matiesalumni.com/covid-19/

​​​​​The impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on historically disadvantaged groups was recently highlighted in a two-part interactive digital discussion which was aimed at assisting government in designing responses to COVID-19.

The roundtable discussions around COVID-19 was presented by Law Trust Social Justice Chair at Stellenbosch University's (SU) Faculty of Law, Prof Thuli Madonsela.

Madonsela said the intervention had been motivated by concern over the global health threat posed by COVID-19 and the implications of this pandemic and policy responses to it for social justice, as reflected in equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms, the rule of law and peace.

The dialogue helped to identify, review and assess the policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, noting what has worked, has not worked and why, and to emerge with proposals designed to engage key sectors of society for more socially just responses and outcome.

The discussions around the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off with discussions on the interconnectedness of issues surrounding the pandemic. Issues highlighted included the effect of lockdown and social distancing on the poor and marginalised groups and how government could be assisted in drafting responses to the pandemic.

“In designing responses to COVID-19 and planning, government should be conscious of the particular impact of the virus on vulnerable and marginalised groups and ensure that their needs and experiences are fully accounted for in the plans and strategies," said Madonsela.

She added that they were mindful that stringent measures were necessary to contain the spread of COVID-19, but policy responses were bound to have an unequal impact across diverse contexts, and that due to pre-existing socio-economic fault lines, the exacerbation of poverty and inequality was inevitable unless consciously addressed.

The second discussion, which took place on 23 April 2020, focussed on finalising a general statement to be handed to government in an attempt to be more inclusive and relook some of the restrictions as opposed to a one-size-fits all approach.

Madonsela said crisis had a way of tearing people apart, and oftentimes leadership determined that. However, she commended the South African government and president for uniting the people and reminding everyone of the challenge at hand.

“We acknowledge with deep gratitude and applause, the swift policy and relief responses by government, business, civil society and the international community to COVID-19, and note the underlying goodwill," she said.

“We need to commend government for the response and their efforts during this tough time, but we cannot be blind to the gaps which could cause new social injustices," she added.

The general statement suggesting policy changes was a result of seven working groups in areas such as Economy and Economic Rights, Food Security and Other Social Rights, Education, Poverty Mapping and Data, Health and Mental Health, Rule of Law and Policy Tracking and Gender – Cross-cutting Issues.

Facilitators of the digital discussions included Marna Lourens, Project Manager at the Law Trust Chair in Social Justice; Prof Sandra Fredman, Professor of Law at Oxford University; Dr Pali Lehohla, the former Statistician-General; documenter of the lived experiences of black women, Nokwanda Sihlali; Prof Jason Bantjies from the Psychology Department at SU; and Motsoari Nthunya, student activist.

To read the full statement, click here.

Photo: Unsplash

​Is the lockdown an authoritarian creep or a 'proportionate response' to the COVID-19 pandemic? This is the question Prof Steven Robins from the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology tried to answer in an opinion piece published by Daily Maverick on Monday (4 May).

• Click here to read the article.
  

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I believe that love and empathy can indeed help us survive the wave of 

despair surging through society right now.

In rural Namibia, the community of Sonder Water now has tippy taps to wash their hands

without having to touch a communal tap and risk spreading the disease as well as enough food to 

make it through their 21 day lockdown.

I study at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, but returning home to Namibia ahead of the lockdown, 

I was struck by the reality of what many of my friends and family in the township would be facing during these

unprecedented time. Without access to running water, the instruction to “wash your hands for 20 seconds at least 10 times a day” is useless. 

Without the ability to earn an income during this time, many would go without food.

Friends and I started fundraising and managed to raise nearly R20 000 overnight. 

We bought food and soap in bulk to provide for a community of about 100 people for the lock down and built two tippy taps.

Coronavirus is indiscriminate. Only by having compassion on others are any of us safe. 

I’d like to challenge you to consider how you can help other people during this time.​

Community members collect vital provisions ahead of Namibia’s 21 day lockdown.

For instructions on how to build your own tippy tap, click here.

_______________________

* Reinhold​ is currently pursuing an Mphil in Sustainable Development, under the supervision 

of Dr Rika Preiser​ at the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST).

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across the world, many countries have gone into lockdown, with only essential service businesses and workers allowed to operate and move around. Most businesses have closed their offices and employees who are able to, are now working from home. The impact on economies have been devastating.

The world as we know it has changed dramatically.

According to Dr Morné Mostert, Director of the Institute for Futures Research (IFR), this new world shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic will force business leaders “to ask new questions" to remain sustainable.

“The first kind of shift that we've seen with the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, is the rapid acceleration in digitisation. Everything that wasn't online before the outbreak from a business perspective has now become digital. From the customer perspective, many of their transactions with businesses have moved online."

The IFR was established at Stellenbosch University in 1974, and is the first and only institute of its kind on the African continent to focus on futures thinking in decision-making, and futures research. Its main purpose is to investigate longterm risks and opportunities, specifically for business and large organisations, and work with senior decision makers to help them “anticipate risk and sense opportunities early for their businesses in order to make better decisions".

“Our belief is that businesses should use this very difficult time to be creative and not just to freeze and hope for the pandemic to pass. Part of that creativity entails using this time for experimentation."

“Businesses have to ask themselves, what experimentation could we do as a business so that when we get out of this crisis, we are not trying to start the world as it was before corona, but we are leading a new world."

Many experiments are already unknowingly taking place.

Working from home, says Mostert, has essentially become “a global experiment in the efficacy of working remotely". All universities and those schools that are able to afford it, have replaced face-to-face teaching and learning with online alternatives.

“The point is, that in the 400 000 years that we have existed, we have never experienced a crisis of this proportion. This will be the first generation of managers, students, and learners that are now forced to learn and work in this way, and the truth is we don't really know how best to do it."

“The best way, based on the IFR's experience and expertise, is to treat this as an experiment. In other words, find something you are curious about, develop and test around it and then decide if what you have discovered is useful for the future of your business."

“Part of making better decisions, is to test some of the old assumptions about your business. It invites an intellectual approach that requires you to respond creatively to the previous business-as-usual, not so that you can change everything, but so you can be discerning in the kind of decisions you now make for the future."

All of these changes, says Mostert, will lead to new research about things we have never had to think about before.

“While we are in the age of technology, the pandemic is forcing us to ask new questions about the dynamics of interpersonal relationships like: What is the power of meeting with someone face-to-face? It's a question we've never had to answer in a scientific way because we've had the luxury of doing it before."

People are also now painfully aware of the unsustainability of limitless growth and consumption.

“A pandemic like this also makes us question the idea of limitless growth and whether a new type of balance is possible, especially with regards to the relationship between business and the environment. This pandemic is another nudge for business to revisit the relationship it has with the environment and whether the exploitation of nature is a sustainable strategy to keep the myth of limitless growth alive."

“We are a creative species, and the notion of development appears innate. But crude, ill-considered, one-dimensional growth at all costs will not solve our complex problems, and has created many others. Creative and systemic solutions are needed for a more balanced planetary trajectory."

Ironically, the establishment of the IFR came about thanks to the same discussions happening in society today around limitless growth and the impact on the environment. In the early 1970s, representatives who would establish the IFR attended the first meeting of The Club of Rome, which aims to address the multiple crises facing humanity and the planet by tapping into the “unique, collective know-how" of scientists, economists, business leaders and former politicians globally.

Mostert was recently appointed as a member of the  organisation.“The organisation is focused on five themes – firstly, how to reclaim and reframe economic systems in order to move beyond. GDP as the exclusive measure of economic growth. Secondly, we are focusing on the new emerging civilisation, which includes the implications of the well-being economy. The third is the climate emergency. During the worldwide lockdown, we have seen what is possible in the amazing reductions in our carbon footprint."

“The fourth focus is about rethinking how we provide people with access to finance so they can create employment for themselves and others. This requires that we rethink our models of financing. Lastly, we focus on the youth, including the requisite skills to address these themes in future. Interestingly, these five themes respond to many of the challenges we are facing in the pandemic today."

Photo: Dr Morné Mostert, Director of the Institute for Futures Research. (Supplied) 

​

Stellenbosch University (SU) is calling on researchers to apply for once-off limited Subcommittee A special funding for COVID-19 research projects.

Full-time permanent staff in the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, Education, Law, Theology, Economic and Management Sciences and Military Science are eligible to apply for funding. Well-motivated applications from staff in the professional support divisions will also be considered.

As limited funding is available for this call, only small projects can be supported. Seed funding for larger projects, that will have a reasonable chance of raising further funding from other sources, may also be considered.

A total of R300 000 has been set aside for this call and a maximum of R30 000 will be awarded per grant.

Applicants must make sure that their research project is directly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, has outstanding quality and can have an impact beyond academia.

Researchers are required to give an abstract of the research project, details of the research, research budget and attach a CV focused on their research track record over the past five years, to the application.

The closing date for applications is 22 May 2020. Unfortunately, the processing of applications and the amount of time required for evaluation by the committee make it impossible to accept late applications. Results will be made available by 3 June 2020.

Successful applicants will have access to the funds immediately after approval by the committee and projects must be completed by December 2021.

Application forms are available and must be submitted by email to Mrs Shannon Faro at sbrooks@sun.ac.za.

By choosing the right cultivars and adapting their irrigation regimes in young vineyards, winegrowers may mitigate the expected effect of climate change in coming years. This is according to Dr Hanlé Theron, who recently obtained her doctorate in viticulture from Stellenbosch University.

She studied under the supervision of Dr Kobus Hunter at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) Infruitec-Nietvoorbij in Stellenbosch.

"Recent research indicates that the total area where wine grapes can be grown in South Africa in future may quite possibly shrink as a result of climate change. The wine industry is an important part of the South African economy, and therefore it is important to do research that can help the industry to alleviate the impact of climate change," explains Dr Theron, a lecturer at the Department of Agriculture at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

It is expected that wine grape production will in particular be affected by rising levels of atmospheric CO₂, higher average temperatures and a decrease in rainfall.

"Most of our winegrowing areas already experience lower rainfall than in the past and this is already not enough to provide in the needs of the vineyards," she says.

"It is an expensive exercise to establish a vineyard and farmers want it to grow well and get into full production as soon as possible," continues Dr Theron. "The initial growth of a newly planted vineyard has a direct effect on the long-term vineyard performance and lifespan of the block. Young vine growth is extremely sensitive to environmental conditions and it is expected that future climatic conditions will influence vegetative growth in the first growing season."

She says that viticulturalists have already studied the effect of elevated CO₂ levels and temperature on the growth of vines for many decades. Dr Theron contributed to existing knowledge by studying the overall effect of a combination of environmental factors (CO₂, temperature and water provision) on the growth and functioning of young vines. In her research, Dr Theron focussed on the first few months after young Merlot and Shiraz vines are planted.

Shiraz was chosen because it has thus far done well in warm, drier wine production regions, while Merlot is considered more sensitive to extreme conditions, especially water stress and high temperatures.

To do this, she potted a total of 1296 Shiraz (SH 470) and 864 Merlot (MO 348) scions with 101-14 Mgt as rootstock (generally seen as sensitive to water stress) and let it grow in a glasshouse for twelve weeks in glasshouses situated at ARC-Nietvoorbij. Among other things, she closely studied the physiological activity of the young vines, their initial growth, the extent to which they take up and transport minerals and their production and internal translocation of metabolites.

Young vines exposed to higher CO₂ levels and limited water were still able to photosynthesise well and used the available water and nitrogen efficiently - as long as the water deficit was not excessively severe.

"The detrimental effect of the water deficit on the physiological activity of the plants was countered to some extent by elevated CO₂ levels," she explains.

This may be good news in terms of climate change, with its expected rising CO₂ levels and declining amount of water available for irrigation.

Dr Theron also found that young Merlot vines were more sensitive to water deficit than young Shiraz vines. In contrast, Merlot responded better to elevated CO₂ levels than Shiraz.

"Therefore, we cannot expect that all scion and rootstock cultivars will in all cases respond the same to climate change," she reasons.

According to Dr Theron, with smart choices in terms of scions and rootstock cultivars, winegrowers could reduce the effect of climate change on their farming activities and especially on newly planted vineyards.

She also offers the following advice:

• Vineyard soils must be prepared as deeply as possible. In this way, plant roots can penetrate as deeply into the subsoils in search of moisture. It will help to buffer vineyards in times of drought.
• Irrigation practices must be adapted to promote deeper and wider root growth and denser root distribution in young vines. This can be done by scheduling irrigation cycles further apart and then using greater volumes of water per irrigation.
• It is worthwhile to re-evaluate cultivation practices, especially in young vineyards. It would, for example, be better if cover crops did not unnecessarily compete with growing vines for water and nutrients.
• In future, farmers will have to reconsider the amount of nutrients they currently typically apply to especially young vines in newly planted vineyards. A vine will, for instance, only take up a certain amount of nitrogen from the soil while the remainder will then leach out, possibly to pollute water sources.​
  

Over the past weeks, purposeful partnerships between Stellenbosch University (SU) and several others have brought relief to thousands of people who are experiencing need due to the national lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic.

During this time, which has been characterised by compassion to help people, SU has had to react swiftly to adapt the institution's processes in order to continue making an impact on society. With the realisation that although not everyone is in the same boat, we have been hit by the same storm, various relief efforts have been actioned.

Some people are experiencing a food shortage, or do not have shelter or mattresses and blankets, while volunteers are needed at health care facilities and new research on COVID-19 is welcomed.

The SU's Division for Social Impact, which strives to forge relationships with the community through cooperation, usually interacts and networks directly with the community but this has been hampered by the current state of lockdown.

Dr Leslie van Rooi, Senior Director: Social Impact and Transformation at SU, says his division had to overcome several new challenges in order to continue their work during the lockdown period. “All our work has to comply with the requirements of social distancing and mitigating the spreading of the virus. But we remain in contact with all our partners," he says.

When the national lockdown was announced, the division immediately joined forces with StellenboschUnite, an aid action group that was founded when the COVID-19 pandemic started, to assist people affected by the situation. 

“A food crisis developed among people in different socio-economic classes. This made us realise that 'although we might not all be in the same boat, we are weathering the same storm'," says Ms Jeanneret Momberg, manager at the VisitStellenbosch tourism organisation. StellenboschUnite is created in collaboration with Visit Stellenbosch because many people lost their income and needed help for the first time.

These people include home workers, tradesmen, businesses owners and other workers.

So far, StellenboschUnite has received R1,6 million in financial donations from SU, individuals and businesses. This money was used to buy 61 367 kg of food, while volunteers worked 1 729 hours to pack 5 622 food parcels that were distributed among 3 500 people (families of four). An estimated 16 000 people are being fed with these food parcels.

Except for SU, the other StellenboschUnite partners are Stellenbosch Municipality, Visit Stellenbosch (tourism organisation), SCAN (Stellenbosch Civil Advocacy Network that represents the non-profit organisations) and the Greater Stellenbosch Development Trust (administrators).

SU has also cemented its ties with the campus radio station, MatieFM (MFM). Van Rooi expressed his appreciation for the role MFM played to improve communication with the community, students and staff.

According to Mr Tim Zunckel, acting station manager at MFM, the station broadcasts relevant information about health care, important contact numbers and lifestyle tips to control the coronavirus. MFM, which is licensed at the University, also broadcasts communication received from the national government, the Western Cape Health Department, SU and Stellenbosch Municipality to keep communities in and around Stellenbosch informed.

“In times of need, radio remains an important source of news and information. Radio is a reliable medium, it is easy to activate and it can reach people wherever they are. It also has an immediate impact," says Zunckel.

Some of the operations that SU is involved in include:

• Some 60 mattresses and 40 blankets were donated to the temporary shelter for the homeless which has been set up in the Van der Stel hall in Stellenbosch. Security guards from Stellenbosch Municipality protect the residents daily, while the Department of Community Development provides meals on a daily basis. The department of Social Services and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide additional assistance when needed.
• A group of 360 Matie students from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) on the Tygerberg campus are working as volunteers at Tygerberg Hospital to assist in the battle against COVID-19. Seventy students are working in the hospital's triage area; 20 students are guarding the entrance to the hospital and provide hand sanitiser to visitors, and 15 students are assisting to locate positive COVID-19 cases telephonically. Approximately 115 students are volunteering at the national COVID-19 helpline and 70 students assist with day-to-day functions in hospital wards. Students are also collecting data and processing statistics for the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, while other data is being collected for the Division of Medical Virology.
• SU also forms part of Stellenbosch Municipality's Joint Operational Centre (JOC). Partnerships and cooperation between various public and private stakeholders in the areas of health, security and disaster manager form part of JOC.
• The Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences collaborated with Spier Wine Estate to donate food parcels to 450 farmworker families. The faculty also provided solar power to residents of Enkanini, an informal settlement. Click here for more information.
• SU's Facilities Management Division is collaborating with provincial authorities and will provide quarantine and isolation facilities if necessary.

• The department of Food Science at the Faculty of AgriSciences has turned bread into hand sanitiser to help curb the spreading of COVID-19.
• FMHS researchers are part of the CrowdFight COVID-19 initiative, which comprises a diverse team of researchers worldwide who is analysing the COVID-19 virus to try and alleviate the suffering caused by the virus.
• FMHS and a local biotech company are working together to test a synthetic pharmaceutical as a supportive agent for the treatment of Acute/Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), which has been cited as one of the major reasons that COVID-19 patients become critically ill and/or die. 
  
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Adine Gericke, a textile specialist from Stellenbosch University's Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, has developed a standardised test for use by the clothing and textile manufacturing industry to evaluate the effectiveness of textile fabrics and filter materials used in fabric face masks.

The test method is based on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) guidelines published on 29 March 2020 and relies on the latest evidence that the virus appears to largely exit through the mouth of an infected individual in micro-droplet form during talking, coughing or sneezing. It is therefore believed that fabric masks can play in important role in reducing the community transmission of the virus.

Adine, one of only a handful of textile specialists in South Africa, was directly involved in updating the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition's guidelines for fabric masks, published online on 29 April 2020. In South Africa, it is now compulsory to wear a face mask in public.

She says the effectiveness of fabric face masks can be greatly improved by the selection of an optimum combination of fabric layers: “Masks typically consist of two to three layers or fabrics, which could include a filter layer in the middle. Each layer contributes to the performance properties of the end product. Fabrics can be tested in single layers or in combinations according to the design of a specific mask." 

But while a mask should act as a barrier, it must not block airflow: if a person cannot breathe normally while wearing the mask, this will lead to the mask being removed or frequently touched by the wearer, she warns. 

Since the lockdown, she has been working around the clock to test a range of textiles and nonwoven materials for the industry: “Textiles are deceptive. One cannot just assume that one material will perform better than another only because it is, for example, thicker than another."

For home sewers, her advice is as follows:

• In order to stop micro-droplets, use two but preferably three layers of fabric;
• Try to include a “filter layer" in the middle (such as interfacing or any lightweight stiff fabric), as it will have a huge impact to increase barrier efficiency;
• The mask must be comfortable, especially if it is going to be used in the workplace. Some fabrics have good barrier efficiency, but might have very low air permeability.  Test your design by wearing the mask for at least 30 minutes (a five minute test is not enough) to make sure your combination of fabrics does not  restrict breathability, build up heat or cause irritation to the extent that you need to remove the mask;
• Lastly, experiment with different fabrics until you find the right combination.

She says it was hugely gratifying to do research with an immediate and practical benefit to society: “Most of the manufacturers I've worked with are committed to manufacturing face masks that are functional and made from locally-produced fabrics, and taking care to select the best fabrics for the masks."

​

Stellenbosch University's Prof Thuli Madonsela has received yet another prestigious accolade.

Madonsela was recently included in Forbes Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women list, a first-of-its-kind Pan-African unranked compilation of the continent's leading women.

The Forbes Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women list is a compilation of women drawn from business, politics, media, science, sports and public life who are challenging the status quo by reshaping history, closing inequalities and pioneering for social justice.

“Being included in the Forbes Africa Powerful Women list is a humbling experience that suggests continued recognition of and support for my efforts in promoting democratic governance in pursuit of a better governed and more peaceful world," says Madonsela.

Among the other South African women included in the Forbes Africa list are Graca Machel (former UCT Chancellor), Charlize Theron (Oscar-winning actress), Caster Semenya (Olympic champion), Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Executive Director, United Nations Women), Wendy Ackerman (Executive Director, Pick 'n Pay), Glenda Gray (President and CEO, South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)) and Yvonne Chaka Chaka (award-winning musician).

As South Africa's former Public Protector, Madonsela has been hard at work as Chair in Social Justice in the Law Faculty of Stellenbosch University (SU), since she took the position in 2018.

Last year she hosted the first inaugural Social Justice Summit and International Conference and has since developed the Social Justice M-Plan (Mosa-Plan for Social Justice). The Social Justice M-Plan is a social justice accelerator programme that aims to catalyse the process of ending poverty and equalising life opportunities by 2030 as envisaged in the National Development Plan (NDP) read with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to Madonsela, being part of the Forbes Africa list will provide a platform for marketing her research work as the Chair in Social Justice at SU and help pave the way for enhanced stakeholder buy-in for the Social Justice M-Plan.

She recently also launched an "action-oriented digital platform" for social justice, which is a think-tank to help assess the impact of COVID-19 and policy responses to it from a social justice perspective, focusing on poverty, inequality and mental health.

Madonsela believes the African continent will not only beat the current global COVID-19 pandemic but must also embrace the new “lens it offers for seeing our reality and opportunities available" for tackling poverty and inequality.

“My greatest hope is that Africa with great leadership and unity in action will use the COVID-19 disruption to arrest underdevelopment, corruption and extreme poverty and inequality within constituent states," says Madonsela.

To see the full list of Forbes Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women click here. ​

​Each year on the 10th of May the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology at Stellenbosch University gathers to remember the person and work of Dr. Beyers Naudé. We normally do this in person and invite a speaker to present a lecture on an aspect of Dr. Naudé's legacy and witness. However, since we are currently in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa we cannot meet in person. 

So, we asked Prof Nico Koopman, the Chair of the Management Committee of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology to share a message with us on this 105th Anniversary of the Birth of Beyers Naudé.

Students and alumni from the healthcare fields at Stellenbosch University (SU) and other South African universities have come together to fight back against the COVID-19 pandemic through five initiatives they believe can make the biggest impact right now.

“As a doctor in training one does feel a sense of responsibility to contribute in any way you can as we fight this pandemic. Being a doctor does not start on the day you receive your degree, but much earlier based on the commitment you make to do this work. It also feels like the right thing to do," says Luné Smith, a fifth-year medical student at SU's Tygerberg campus and one of the coordinators of We Fight Back COVID.

We Fight Back COVID consists of volunteers that provide mothers and babies in lockdown in the kangaroo mother care (KMC) wards and lodger areas at Tygerberg Hospital with essential items during their stay; assist with the manufacturing of face shields for healthcare workers at Tygerberg hospital and other healthcare centres; and make, distribute and educate the public on how to safely use and take care of face masks. Volunteers are also involved in making homemade spacers to use with metered dose inhalers (MDIs) for patients who have bronchospasms (in other words, a tight chest or are feeling breathless) and need to take aerolised medication during the COVID-19 pandemic; and are sharing scientific-based information on the virus on the organisation's Facebook and Instagram pages.

While Smith drives the We Fight Back COVID initiatives with support from volunteers, they are guided by Dr Suretha Kannenberg from the Division of Dermatology in the Medicine Department at SU, who acts as liaison between the Tygerberg students and SU.

As part of their support to mothers in the KMC wards and lodger areas, students at Tygerberg campus distribute donated toiletries, baby clothes, and snacks, and provide mothers with examples of educational activities they can do to aid their babies' development. Occupational Therapy students have also created a journal for the mothers to record their babies' milestones.

“These moms are dealing with a lot emotionally and are often alone with nothing to do, so this helps alleviate their stress."

Volunteers also assist the Orthopaedic Surgery Department under the guidance of Dr Rudolph Venter, a lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and an orthopaedic surgeon, to 3D print visors to protect those on the frontline of fighting the pandemic from getting infected. The first 140 visors were delivered to the Occupational Health Department in early April in order for it to be distributed at Tygerberg Hospital.

“We also delivered another 55 visors to our screening area and Orthopaedics Department, a further 110 visors to the Occupational Health Department, as well as 20 visors to the ICU at the hospital."

According to Smith, the mask making initiative has led to 40 masks being distributed to mothers in the KMC and lodger areas and 60 to campus security.

“Love starts at home and what would be the point if we try to save the world, but our home is falling apart. Our security personnel keep us safe on campus, so this is the least we can do for them."

Another critical and potentially lifesaving initiative that volunteers are involved in, is the production of spacers using plastic bottles.

“COVID-19 is a disease that is spread through droplets and has the potential to become aerolised when a person with bronchospasms uses a nebuliser. The medical industry is therefore moving away from nebulisation in all healthcare settings as it carries a theoretical risk of aerosolising and spreading the virus," explains Smith.  

Metered dose inhalers (MDIs) such as asthma pumps, which administer aerolised medication in measured amounts, along with spacers will instead be used. Spacers are tubes that are attached to MDIs and helps medication get into the lungs much easier as it contains the ejected aerosolised medication, allowing the user more time to breathe it in while they are unable to control their breathing properly during the bronchospasm.

“There is concrete evidence that home-made spacers using a bottle with a hole cut in it is just as effective as commercially available ones and seeing that we'll soon have a massive demand for these, we have started collecting these bottles and turning them into spacers. The community is also decorating these bottles with a message of hope to promote a spirit of camaraderie amongst people."

You can follow the group on Facebook (We Fight Back COVID) and Instagram  (@we.fight.back.covid). 

Photo 1:  Student volunteers and two nurses outside a COVID-19 screening facility where the students dropped off the 3D printed visors they made to help keep healthcare workers safe. At the back from the left are students Venuchka Vermeulen, Nicola Duvenhage, and Abdul Baasit Isaacs, with Luné Smith kneeling in the front. (Photo: Sokwanda Njeza)

Photo 2: Student volunteers ready to deliver packages to moms in the KMC wards at Tygerberg Hospital. From the left are Jemma Kent, Anandi De Witt, Iza-Mari Gaybba, Luné Smith, and Sangeun Lee. (Photo: Sokwanda Njeza)

​While much of the scientific and medical community rushes to develop therapeutic agents for COVID-19 based on clinical data, getting a better understanding of the brand-new virus remains crucial. That's why it's so important that South Africa obtained its very first known laboratory isolate of SARS-Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on 1 April 2020, courtesy of the collaborative efforts of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and Stellenbosch University (SU).

“Having a pure culture of the virus opens doors for research in South Africa," says Dr Tasnim Suliman of UWC. “Currently, much of the data that exists on this novel virus is based on detecting the genetic material, which is still possible after the virus is 'dead', and does not confirm whether the virus is viable and able to cause infection. Now we can experiment on the live virus and observe how it actually behaves in the lab."

Dr Suliman is a post-doctoral research fellow working under Professor Megan Shaw, an influenza expert who recently relocated from the USA to join UWC. Using the biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) laboratory at SU's Division of Medical Virology – with the support of Division Head, Professor Wolfgang Preiser – Suliman was able to inoculate cell cultures with samples from COVID-19 patients and succeeded in growing the virus.

"We didn't *create* the virus, or modify it in any way," Dr Suliman notes. “All we have done is provided the virus with the right conditions to grow, in a space where we are able to harvest a large amount of virus to perform research. And strict safety protocols were followed."

An immediate and indispensable blessing of having an isolate is being able to supply diagnostic labs with large amounts of virus genetic material that is identical in genetic makeup and concentration. This achievement offers numerous valuable opportunities for further research and provides an indispensable reference material for standardising diagnostic tests across multiple platforms between laboratories.

For example, the virus can be used in experiments to test new antiviral compounds in vitro (Latin, "in glass" - meaning in the laboratory) and if they show an effect against the virus without harming the cells, they could become candidates for clinical trials.

“Although South Africa is the leading African country in science and technology, we remain a resource-limited setting by developed world standards," Suliman says. “Therefore, it is a tremendous advantage for us to make this virus available and guide others on how to safely handle the virus locally."

Cultivating Coronavirus: The Art And Science of Virus Culture

Dr Suliman obtained clinical samples from COVID-19 positive patients at Tygerberg Hospital, in Cape Town, and inoculated these samples onto live cells that were cultured in the laboratory.

If the virus is present in the clinical sample, the virus infects the cells and it grows. This provides a pure culture of the virus – an essential resource for all research laboratories, as well as clinical laboratories who can use it as a positive control in their diagnostic tests. 

“Virus culture was previously used routinely in diagnostic procedures, which has now been replaced with rapid, sophisticated and high-tech molecular techniques with greater capacity and accuracy, and faster turnaround times,' Prof Shaw says. “Inevitably, virus culture became a dying technique, and the skill is rapidly fading from the scientific community."

Unlike bacteria that can be grown quite simply in nutrient-rich media, viruses require living cells for their proliferation. Viruses need to be able to attach to and enter cells, before redirecting the cells' machinery to produce the proteins and molecules required to assemble new virus particles. The cells themselves have their own growth requirements, and finding a combination of lab-adapted cells that are also compatible with virus growth, is a highly delicate process.

“We have to literally synchronize two naturally-occurring biological systems to work together to yield a desired result," Dr Suliman explains. “Fortunately, the growth requirements of SARS-CoV-2 appear to be very similar to that of SARS-CoV-1, which gave us some sort of a roadmap."

And fortunately also, she was well-equipped to follow that roadmap.

There are seven known human coronaviruses, three of which cause severe disease. And as it happens, Dr Suliman has worked with all three to varying extents, as well as one milder disease-causing CoV.

During her PhD (supervised by UWC coronavirus expert, Professor Burtram Fielding) she investigated viral proteins of SARS-CoV-1 from the 2002-2003 outbreak. Cloning and culturing of this potentially dangerous virus made up a large portion of her work, for which she spent four years at the University of Bonn, Germany, with Professor Christian Drosten, a world-renowned coronavirus expert.

She subsequently joined SU's Division of Medical Virology for a post-doctoral research fellowship, hosted by Professor Wolfgang Preiser. There she researched coronaviruses found in bats, and their potential transmission to humans, while also managing the division's BSL-3 lab. As of this year, Dr Suliman had begun to expand her virology experience to the field of influenza viruses in the Shaw Lab, when COVID-19 took everyone by surprise.

“Since I have worked extensively with SARS-CoV during the 2002/3 outbreak, and given the similarities between SARS-CoV-1 and -2, I was already familiar with what other non-virologists and virologists outside of coronavirology may need time to figure out," Suliman says. “And with a pandemic like this, time is of the essence."

Lockdown in the Lab: Working With a Live Killer

On 11 March 2020 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), a week after the first infection with SARS-CoV-2 - the virus that causes COVID-19 - had been diagnosed in South Africa. Two weeks later, South Africa entered a national lockdown to attempt to flatten the curve, with stay-at-home orders for all non-essential personnel.

That's when Dr Suliman emailed an inundated Prof Preiser, simply asking her former mentor: “Prof, you know what I can do. Do you need help?"

One of the greatest limitations in growing SARS-CoV-2 is the absolute requirement of a BSL-3 lab, and the scarcity of these labs and trained personnel throughout the country. In South Africa, most BSL-3 labs lack the setup for dealing with respiratory viruses as they are often directed towards tuberculosis, which is caused by bacteria.

Dr Suliman is the only known South African who has ever grown a BSL-3 coronavirus, and is arguably the best-trained person to undertake the isolation of the virus responsible for COVID-19, so it was an obvious decision for her to take on this task. She is now training other scientists from the University of Cape Town.

“It was scary at first," Dr Suliman says. “I was acutely aware that all it would take is a suit malfunction and a badly-timed mishap to become infected. But with training and regularly working in the BSL-3 lab, an automatic sense of hyper-alertness develops. You get used to it."

To gain access to the workspace of the BSL-3, one needs to enter through three doors in succession – each preparing you for the next phase. The multiple doors, together with the outward airflow called negative pressure, prevent any aerosols from escaping into general spaces.

“After the first door closes behind you when entering the BSL3, the door to stage 2 is released - a room where protective gear is worn: two pairs of gloves, boots, a back-closing gown or overalls, sleeve covers, and my personal favourite, the powered respirator that filters the air you inhale," Dr Suliman comments. “The battery pack and filter are worn around the waist and a pipe connects it to the headpiece that fits snugly around the head and face. You are now ready to enter the third door to slay coronaviruses!"

And slay them she did.

“I worked day and night, and struggled with the lack of some essential materials, because by then South Africa had entered lockdown and there were airfreight bottlenecks," Suliman recalls. “Finally, two weeks after I began, I looked through the microscope and saw dead cells – a sign that my virus was growing. I sat smiling in that isolated high-security lab, with only the whirring of the respirator to punctuate the silence, as I considered the potential of what I held in my hands."

The team has already begun sharing the isolate with multiple researchers and institutions for diagnostic and research purposes. They're also sharing their expertise with TB research groups, who have the infrastructure to study respiratory infections on a molecular and clinical scale, but are not skilled in handling a virus of this nature.

“This disease is very new, and despite amazing progress on many fronts, so much is still unknown. So, new aspects emerge every single day, and that's why it's so important that we conduct as much research as we can," Prof Preiser notes. “Because of the urgency, much of what normally happens 'behind the scenes' is playing out in the open, and it may feel overwhelming. But this is a wonderful example of how we can work together to achieve what any one on their own would not have been able to - and in a time of great need. That's something to be proud of."

Picture caption: UWC's Dr Tasmin Suliman working at the biosafety level-3 laboratory at Stellenbosch University's Division of Medical Virology.  

Author: Nicklaus Kruger (University of the Western Cape)