The NWU joins the North West Department of Health (NWDoH) in the curb and fight against Coronavirus, Covid-19.
According to a statement by the NWU, Polaki Mokatsane, the Deputy Director-General of the department approached the university and asked for their assistance with strategic information, guidance and support.
This collaboration will occur on two levels.
Firstly, the university will assist with the prediction of the course of the virus within the province. With this information the government can distribute resources adequately.
Secondly, the institution will create a database that is centralised. This will identify areas where symptoms are evident, for the purposes of screening and testing, for and crowd-sourcing solutions.
With the purpose to mobilise public support with personal protective equipment (PPE), like protective eye gear, gloves and masks.
Prof. Petra Bester, Director of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR) from NWU Potchefstroom said it’s a great compliment that the provincial government is using experts to curb the spread of Covid 19.
“Most other universities have medical schools, but even without a medical school yet, we have enough knowledge to play a significant role in limiting and containing the disease,” she said.
The NWU’s multidisciplinary team of experts includes:
- Specialist public health physician – Prof Andrew Robinson,
- Cardiovascular physiologist – Prof Lanthé Kruger,
- Digital health expert – Dr Herman Myburgh,
- Biomedical statistician – Dr Cristian Ricci,
- Geneticist and ethicist – Prof Wayne Towers,
- Molecular virologist – Prof Albie van Dijk,
- Physicist and computational modeller – Mr Bertie Seyffert,
- Environmental virologist – Dr Hazel Mufhandu,
- Information anagement specialist – Mr Tertius Bester,
- Business administrator – Dr Christi Niesing.
The team will also collaborate with two epidemiologists from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases and representatives from MezzanineWare, Britehouse (a division of Dimension Data, as well as with Microsoft South Africa.
“We are excited about the various collaborations and believe it will give us the opportunity to use our expertise to make a significant impact in the province. We have seen that the NWDoH will do everything possible to fight this pandemic.” she said.
