At the heart of the nation Ground-breaking medical research at leading learning institutions and world-class hospitals and clinics, and unique expertise developed in response to local challenges, makes South Africa globally important in the healthcare sector Healthcare in SA faces unique challenges. This year WHO declared SA one of the unhealthiest nations in the world and set a target of a 25 per cent reduction in non-communicable heart disease in Africa by 2025. South Africa is home to the world’s largest population of people living with HIV – 17 per cent of the global HIV burden – and it has one of the highest incidence rates of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in the world. Consequently the research opportunities are huge and important. It has one of the largest manufacturing facilities for antiretrovirals in the world and is commissioning one of only 12 vaccine plants in the world. SA also has a growing medical tourism market.
Public health
“Other countries can learn a lot from South Africa. In my research in public health, the equal health approach is holistic, working interdisciplinarily to put health at the centre and understanding it in context; this helps reduce healthcare service costs.” Professor Moses Chimbari Research Professor – Public Health, School of Nursing and Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Equal Health International Association 2020 “This biennial congress will come to Durban in June 2020. Last November we formed the African Chapter of Equal Health and this, together with great support from the NCB, made the Association confident in choosing us as host for the event. We expect 1,500 – 2,000 delegates.”
“We have developed expertise unique to South Africa that is of global interest because of the specific issues we have in obstetrics and gynaecology. Issues include reducing the incidence of HIV through prophylaxis, HIV positive women giving birth to negative babies, cervical cancer, endemic throughout the developing world, and TB which goes together with HIV. We work with many other institutions including the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in London, which has outreach in South Africa, to promote female health. After the success of the FICO 2009 congress in Cape Town, we are bidding for the FICO 2024, which would bring 10,000 delegates from across the world. South Africa is an excellent platform for looking at the problems in the developed and developing world that women suffer from.” Peter de Jong, Consultant Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Chris Barnard Memorial Hospital
viii | OCTOBER 2019 | SOUTH AFRICA
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