COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa: impacts on vulnerable populations and sustaining home-grown solutions

© 2020, The Canadian Public Health Association. This commentary draws on sub-Saharan African health researchers’ accounts of their countries’ responses to control the spread of COVID-19, including social and health impacts, home-grown solutions, and gaps in knowledge. Limited human and material resources for infection control and lack of understanding or appreciation by the government of the realities of vulnerable populations have contributed to failed interventions to curb transmission, and further deepened inequalities. Some governments have adapted or limited lockdowns due to the negative impacts on livelihoods and taken specific measures to minimize the impact on the most vulnerable citizens. However, these measures may not reach the majority of the poor. Yet, African countries’ responses to COVID-19 have also included a range of innovations, including diversification of local businesses to produce personal protective equipment, disinfectants, test kits, etc., which may expand domestic manufacturing capabilities and deepen self-reliance. African and high-income governments, donors, non-governmental organizations, and businesses should work to strengthen existing health system capacity and back African-led business. Social scientific understandings of public perceptions, their interactions with COVID-19 control measures, and studies on promising clinical interventions are needed. However, a decolonizing response to COVID-19 must include explicit and meaningful commitments to sharing the power—the authority and resources—to study and endorse solutions

Selection of Clostridium spp. in biological sand filters neutralizing synthetic acid mine drainage

In this study, three biological sand filter (BSF) were contaminated with a synthetic iron- [1500 mg L-1 Fe(II), 500 mg L-1 Fe(III)] and sulphate-rich (6000 mg L-1 SO2/4-) acid mine drainage (AMD) (pH = 2), for 24 days, to assess the remediation capacity and the evolution of autochthonous bacterial communities (monitored by T-RFLP and 16S rRNA gene clone libraries). To stimulate BSF bioremediation involving sulphate-reducing bacteria, a readily degradable carbon source (glucose, 8000 mg L-1) was incorporated into the influent AMD. Complete neutralization and average removal efficiencies of 81.5 (±5.6)%, 95.8 (±1.2)% and 32.8 (±14.0)% for Fe(II), Fe(III) and sulphate were observed, respectively. Our results suggest that microbial iron reduction and sulphate reduction associated with iron precipitation were the main processes contributing to AMD neutralization. The effect of AMD on BSF sediment bacterial communities was highly reproducible. There was a decrease in diversity, and notably a single dominant operational taxonomic unit (OTU), closely related to Clostridium beijerinckii, which represented up to 65% of the total community at the end of the study period.Web of Scienc

Contextual and Psychosocial Factors Influencing the Use of Safe Water Sources: A Case of Madeya Village, uMkhanyakude District, South Africa

Background: Schistosomiasis is a public health problem that affects over 240 million people worldwide. It is mostly prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical areas among communities with limited access to clean water and adequate sanitation. This study was conducted in uMkhanyakude District in rural South Africa, where water resources are limited. In this community, individuals frequently come into contact with freshwater bodies for various reasons. The objective of the study was to identify critical contextual and psychosocial factors for behaviour change to reduce risk of schistosomiasis transmission in Madeya Village, uMkhanyakude district. Methods: Structured household interviews were held with 57 primary caregivers to assess their thoughts and attitudes towards collecting water from a safe source. We used the Risk, Attitude, Norm, Ability, and Self-regulation model (RANAS) to estimate the intervention potential for each factor by analysing differences in means between groups of current performers and nonperformers who use safe water sources. Results: The subscale vulnerability belonging to the risk factor on the RANAS was scored as low. Furthermore, attitudinal factors towards the use of safe water sources were found to be low. Ability factors (confidence in performance and confidence in recovery) towards the use of safe water sources were low as well, indicating that these factors should be the target of the intervention in the study area. Discussion: Based on this study, it is recommended that a community-based empowerment intervention strategy it appropriate. The strategy should prompt behavioural practice and public commitment, use persuasive language to boost self-efficacy and target younger low-income caregivers between 18 and 35 years of age

Minds-on practical work for effective science learning

This chapter, based on a longer and more detailed account of practical work (Abrahams & Millar 2008), considers the role of practical work in the teaching of scientific knowledge. What the two quotes above, separated by just over twenty years, illustrate is how opinion-based views regarding the role of laboratory-based practical work, however self-evidently true those views might appear, are being challenged by the findings from educational research that has increasingly questioned the role and effectiveness of laboratory-based practical work. The term practical work is used here to refer to any work in which pupils are involved in manipulating and/or observing real (as opposed to virtual) objects and materials

Reporting on the Independence of the Belgian Congo: Mwissa Camus, the Dean of Congolese Journalists

Many individuals were involved in the Belgian Congo’s attainment of independence. Born in 1931, Mwissa Camus, the dean of Congolese journalists, is one of them. His career sheds light on the advancement of his country towards independence in June 1960. By following his professional career in the years preceding independence, we can see how his development illuminates the emergence of journalism in the Congo, the social position of Congolese journalists, and the ambivalence of their position towards the emancipation process. The road taken by Mwissa Camus – as an actor, witness, extra, and somehow instrument of the events that shook his country – helps understand the Congo’s move towards independence from a particular perspective. History – that of a hurried independence, blatantly unprepared, on which a small elite failed to agree – is revealed through his words and the unveiling of his ‘world.’ This paper is essentially based on interviews with Mwissa Camus and on Congolese newspaper articles from 1959, 1960 and 1961.http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SmnqCiRRE9e2yeePUSwA/fullSCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe