Page 124 - A Widening Idea of Health and Health Research - The South African Medical Research Council from Creation to COVID

Slimmer, but Not Lacking Gray Matter: The MRC, 2012–2021

path-breaking results. The Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit at UCT laid
bare the aerobiology of the bacterium when sneezed, coughed, propelled by speech
and even just by tidal breathing, as its very recent research suggests, thereby adding
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further ways to curb its transmission. The tidal breathing discovery ‘potentially forces
the medical community to rethink decades of containment strategy focusing on
coughing alone’, judged one medical journalist.
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For its part, the intramural TB Platform’s focus on preventing TB in pregnant
women led it to determine that the widely used anti-TB drug isoniazid was safe for
them to use. In KwaZulu-Natal the HIV–TB Pathogenesis and Treatment Research
Unit based at CAPRISA innovatively recorded genetic variations among individual
DRTB patients so that the clinical outcomes of their therapy could be individually
monitored. It anticipated that this would ‘revolutionize healthcare through precision
public health medicine in guiding appropriate drug regimen using gene-derived
signatures.’
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Preparing to cultivate sputum
samples for the presence of TB
bacteria in 2021, using the
mycobacteria growth indicator
tube in the background. The
two technologists are Awelani
Mutshembele (left) and
Jeannette Brand (right),
both of the MRC Platform
in Pretoria. They are fully
masked to avoid inhaling TB
bacteria or the Covid-19 virus
in particular.

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