Prerequisites for National Health Insurance in South Africa: Results of a national household survey

Background. National Health Insurance (NHI) is currently highon the health policy agenda. The intention of this financing system is to promote efficiency and the equitable distribution of financial and human resources, improving health outcomes for the majority. However, there are some key prerequisites that need to be in place before an NHI can achieve these goals.Objectives. To explore public perceptions on what changes inthe public health system are necessary to ensure acceptabilityand sustainability of an NHI, and whether South Africans areready for a change in the health system.Methods. A cross-sectional nationally representative surveyof 4 800 households was undertaken, using a structured questionnaire. Data were analysed in STATA IC10.Results and conclusions. There is dissatisfaction with bothpublic and private sectors, suggesting South Africans are ready for health system change. Concerns about the quality of public sector services relate primarily to patient-provider engagements (empathic staff attitudes, communication and confidentiality issues), cleanliness of facilities and drug availability. There are concerns about the affordability of medical schemes and how the profit motive affects private providers’ behaviour. South Africans do not appear to bewell acquainted or generally supportive of the notion of risk cross-subsidies. However, there is strong support for income cross-subsidies. Public engagement is essential to improve understanding of the core principles of universal pre-payment mechanisms and the rationale for the development of NHI. Importantly, public support for pre-payment is unlikely to be forthcoming unless there is confidence in the availability of quality health services

A review of shaped carbon nanomaterials

Materials made of carbon that can be synthesised and characterised at the nano level have become a mainstay in the nanotechnology arena. These carbon materials can have a remarkable range of morphologies. They can have structures that are either hollow or filled and can take many shapes, as evidenced by the well-documented families of fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. However, these are but two of the shapes that carbon can form at the nano level. In this review we outline the types of shaped carbons that can be produced by simple synthetic procedures, focusing on spheres, tubes or fibres, and helices. Their mechanisms of formation and uses are also described

Water as the Pore Former in the Synthesis of Hydrophobic PVDF Flat Sheet Membranes for Use in Membrane Distillation

Although PVDF flat sheet membranes have been widely tested in MD, their synthesis and modifications currently require increased use of green and inexpensive materials. In this study, flat sheet PVDF membranes were synthesized using phase inversion and water as the pore former. Remarkably, the water added in the casting solution improved the membrane pore sizes; where the maximum pore size was 0.58 µm. Also, the incorporation of f-SiO2NPs in the membrane matrix considerably enhanced the membrane hydrophobicity. Specifically, the membrane contact angles increased from 96° to 153°. Additionally, other parameters investigated were mechanical strength and liquid entry pressure (LEP). The maximum recorded values were 2.26 MPa and 239 kPa, respectively. The modified membranes (i.e., using water as the pore former and f-SiO2NPs) were the most efficient, showing maximum salt rejection of 99.9% and water flux of 11.6 LMH; thus, indicating their capability to be used as efficient materials for the recovery of high purity water in MD

Cyclodextrin-Based Nanofibers and Membranes: Fabrication, Properties and Applications

Cyclodextrin (CD)-based electrospun nanofibers have become critical role players in the water treatment arena due to their high porosities, small diameters, high surface area-to-volume ratio and other unique properties they exhibit. Investigations demonstrate that nanofibers containing CD molecules can be facially blended with other polymeric species and/or photocatalytic and magnetic nanoparticles to enhance their rates of adsorption, inclusion complexation and selective photodegradation. These properties make them excellent candidates for the removal of water pollutants. On the other hand, the electrospinning process has become the method of choice in the fabrication of various types of CD nanofibrous mats due to its versatility, cost-effectiveness and its potential for the mass production of uniform nanofibers. CDs and CD-derivatives have also found application in membrane technologies, particularly in mixed matrix and thin film composite membranes. CD-blended membranes display improved performances in terms of selectivity, rejection, permeation and flux with reduced fouling propensities and can be used for drinking water purification and removal of emerging micropollutants. This chapter critically reviews CD-based electrospun nanofibers looking at their production, characterization methods and various applications. The use of CDs as membrane materials and how they can be fully explored in water treatment are also investigated

COVID-19 vaccine uptake, confidence and hesitancy in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa between April 2021 and April 2022: A continuous cross-sectional surveillance study

High COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in South Africa limits protection against future epidemic waves. We evaluated how vaccine hesitancy and its correlates evolved April 2021-April 2022 in a well-characterized rural KwaZulu-Natal setting. All residents aged >15 in the Africa Health Research Institute's surveillance area were invited to complete a home-based, in-person interview. We described vaccine uptake and hesitancy trends, then evaluated associations with pre-existing personal factors, dynamic environmental context, and cues to action using ordinal logistic regression. Among 10,011 respondents, vaccine uptake rose as age-cohorts became vaccine-eligible before levelling off three months post-eligibility; younger age-groups had slower uptake and plateaued faster. Lifetime receipt of any COVID-19 vaccine rose from 3.0% in April-July 2021 to 32.9% in January-April 2022. Among 7,445 unvaccinated respondents, 47.7% said they would definitely take a free vaccine today in the first quarter of the study time period, falling to 32.0% in the last. By March/April 2022 only 48.0% of respondents were vaccinated or said they would definitely would take a vaccine. Predictors of lower vaccine hesitancy included being male (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.70, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.65-0.76), living with vaccinated household members (aOR:0.65, 95%CI: 0.59-0.71) and knowing someone who had had COVID-19 (aOR: 0.69, 95%CI: 0.59-0.80). Mistrust in government predicted greater hesitancy (aOR: 1.47, 95%CI: 1.42-1.53). Despite several COVID-19 waves, vaccine hesitancy was common in rural South Africa, rising over time and closely tied to mistrust in government. However, interpersonal experiences countered hesitancy and may be entry-points for interventions

Re-Generating Research Partnerships in Early Childhood Education: A Non-Idealized Vision

This chapter provides a challenge to positivist notions of partnership in early childhood education, and instead proposes a re-generative posthumanist perspective, based on relationality of partnerships. Specifically, the chapter addresses the troubles and struggles inherited in research partnerships through a non-idealized vision of research partnerships. It experiments with the notions of regenerating ‘change’ and regenerating ‘relationality’. It also addresses the multi-layered aspects of knowledge-in-the-making; non-innocent relations; difficulties of thinking change in research; and the potentialities of conflict and dissension. However, no certainties and closures about research partnerships are provided

The Capaciousness of No: Affective Refusals as Literacy Practices

© 2020 The Authors. Reading Research Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Literacy Association The authors considered the capacious feeling that emerges from saying no to literacy practices, and the affective potential of saying no as a literacy practice. The authors highlight the affective possibilities of saying no to normative understandings of literacy, thinking with a series of vignettes in which children, young people, and teachers refused literacy practices in different ways. The authors use the term capacious to signal possibilities that are as yet unthought: a sense of broadening and opening out through enacting no. The authors examined how attention to affect ruptures humanist logics that inform normative approaches to literacy. Through attention to nonconscious, noncognitive, and transindividual bodily forces and capacities, affect deprivileges the human as the sole agent in an interaction, thus disrupting measurements of who counts as a literate subject and what counts as a literacy event. No is an affective moment. It can signal a pushback, an absence, or a silence. As a theoretical and methodological way of thinking/feeling with literacy, affect proposes problems rather than solutions, countering solution-focused research in which the resistance is to be overcome, co-opted, or solved. Affect operates as a crack or a chink, a tiny ripple, a barely perceivable gesture, that can persist and, in doing so, hold open the possibility for alternative futures

The establishment and rapid spread of Sagittaria Platyphylla in South Africa:

Sagittaria platyphylla Engelm. (Alismataceae) is a freshwater aquatic macrophyte that has become an important invasive weed in freshwater systems in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and recently China. In South Africa, due to its rapid increase in distribution and ineffective control options, it is recognised as one of the country’s worst invasive aquatic alien plants. In this paper, we investigate the spread of the plant since its first detection in 2008, and the management strategies currently carried out against it. Despite early detection and rapid response programmes, which included chemical and mechanical control measures, the plant was able to spread both within and between sites, increasing from just one site in 2008 to 72 by 2019. Once introduced into a lotic system, the plant was able to spread rapidly, in some cases up to 120 km within 6 years, with an average of 10 km per year. The plant was successfully extirpated at some sites, however, due to the failure of chemical and mechanical control, biological control is currently being considered as a potential control option