Browsing by Author "Leisegang, Rory"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Leadership and early strategic response to the SARS-CoV- 2 pandemic at a COVID-19 designated hospital in South Africa
    (Health & Medical Publishing Group, 2020-04-23) Parker, A.; Karamchand, S.; Schrueder, N.; Lahri, S.; Rabie, H.; Aucamp, A.; Abrahams, R.; Ciapparelli, P.; Erasmus, D. S.; Cotton, M. F.; Lalla, U.; Leisegang, Rory; Meintjes, J.; Mistry, R.; Moosa, M. R.; Mowlana, A.; Koegelenberg, C. F. N.; Prozesky, H.; Smith, W.; Van Schalkwyk, M.; Taljaard, J. J.
    While many countries are preparing to face the COVID-19 pandemic, the reported cases in Africa remain low. With a high burden of both communicable and non-communicable disease and a resource-constrained public healthcare system, sub-Saharan Africa is preparing for the coming crisis as best it can. We describe our early response as a designated COVID-19 provincial hospital in Cape Town, South Africa (SA).While the first cases reported were related to international travel, at the time of writing there was evidence of early community spread. The SA government announced a countrywide lockdown from midnight 26 March 2020 to midnight 30 April 2020 to stem the pandemic and save lives. However, many questions remain on how the COVID-19 threat will unfold in SA, given the significant informal sector overcrowding and poverty in our communities. There is no doubt that leadership and teamwork at all levels is critical in influencing outcomes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mobile health technology for enhancing the COVID-19 response in Africa : a potential game changer?
    (American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2020) Nachega, Jean B.; Leisegang, Rory; Kallay, Oscar; Mills, Edward J.; Zumla, Alimuddin; Lester, Richard T.
    The WHO Africa Region is experiencing an increase in the number of novel COVID-19 cases. As of May 20, 2020, 63,521 cases with 1,796 deaths (2.8% case fatality) have been reported from 45 countries.1 Although these numbers are small compared with those in United States or Europe, the WHO recently estimated that up to 190,000 people could die of COVID-19 in Africa if the pandemic is not controlled.2 These projections are threatening the already overstretched health services in Africa, where governments have been implementing mitigating strategies to flatten epidemic curves at manageable levels. These include education, personal hygiene practices, social distancing, travel bans, and partial or total lockdowns.3 However, as lockdowns and social distancing measures are currently being lifted in stages by most African countries, governments will need to ensure that public health infrastructure and needed resources are put in place for community surveillance to identify cases and clusters of new infections through active case finding, large-scale testing, and contact tracing.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mobile Health Technology for Enhancing the COVID-19 Response in Africa: A Potential Game Changer?
    (2020-05) Nachega, Jean B; Leisegang, Rory; Kallay, Oscar
    Disclosure: J. B. N. is also a coprincipal investigator of TOGETHER, an adaptive randomized clinical trial of novel agents for treatment of high-risk outpatient COVID-19 patients in South Africa; supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and a member of COVID-19 Scientific Committee of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. R. T. L. is an infectious disease specialist and global health researcher with support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Michael Smith Foundation, for Health Research and Grand Challenges Canada, and is cofounder of the WelTel (www.weltelhealth.com), as well as a member of the roster of experts for the WHO Task Force for Digital Health. He served on the front lines of the 2003 SARS epidemic and led a consortium on the Ebola outbreak response in 2014. Sir Zumla is co-PI of the Pan-African Network on Emerging and Re-Emerging Infections (PANDORA-ID-NET: https://www.pandora-id.net/) funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. Sir Zumla is recipient of a National Institutes of Health Research senior investigator award.