World renowned South African scientists and infectious disease epidemiologists at CAPRISA, Professors Salim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim have been honoured in Vietnam as one of the inaugural recipients of a VinFuture special prize for their ground-breaking research on HIV prevention in South Africa.

Dr Phiwayinkosi Vusi Dludla, a Specialist Scientist within the SAMRC’s Biomedical Research and Innovation Platform (BRIP) has received the Research Excellence Award for Early Career/Emerging Researchers at the recent National Research Foundation (NFR) Awards.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first reported in Wuhan China in December 2019, is a global pandemic that is threatening the health and wellbeing of people worldwide. To date there have been more than 274 million reported cases and 5.3 million deaths (World Health Organisation 2021). South Africa has borne the brunt of COVID-19 on the African continent, registering in excess of 3 million cases and 90 000 officially reported deaths (National Department of Health 2021).

As South Africa concludes the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence against Women and Children Campaign, three early-career scientists from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) are already rolling up their sleeves to turn the spotlight on sexual violence and mental health interventions in higher education institutions (HEIs).

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of alcohol has been a key feature in the trauma setting and has since become particularly prominent during the lockdown. However, there remains a lack of routine and reliable injury surveillance and specifically alcohol-related harm data in South Africa to respond to the related trauma burden. Additionally, research to develop systems or reliable mechanisms to test alcohol-relatedness of trauma and to monitor the impact of interventions, is also lacking.