/ 30 September 2008

Joining the fight against TB

Professor Hoosen “Jerry” Coovadia from the University of KwaZulu-Natal has been appointed to the board of the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, an international organisation that is developing vaccines against tuberculosis.

Coovadia is director of Biomedical Science and the Centre for HIV/Aids Networking at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He also holds the Victor Daitz chair in HIV/Aids. Coovadia is a paediatrician and an expert on paediatric HIV. Aeras is testing three vaccines in human clinical trials in the Western Cape.

Sight for sore eyes
A Cataract Blitz will take place in October as part of a campaign to cele­brate National Eye Care Awareness Month. Cataracts are clouding of the crystalline lens of the eye and are the most common cause of blindness in South Africa. According to the South African National Council for the Blind more than 160 000 people are waiting for surgery to remove their cataracts, with another 10 000 being added to the list each year. As part of the campaign the Eersterivier Hospital will perform 50 cataract operations on patients from the surrounding rural areas on October 6. The event is being sponsored by Metropolitan Health Group. Patients will be screened and pre-selected for the procedure, which will takes just 30 minutes.

The sound of music
Music may be a form of communication between couples where one person has dementia, according to researchers at the universities of Queensland and Melbourne in Australia. Researchers from the school of music say that while people with dementia lose their ability to communicate verbally, along with their short-term memory, they still respond to music because it taps into automatic memory. Listening to music from the past can stimulate memories associated with that time, which can provide a point for partners to reminisce and communicate. — Mail & Guardian reporter