Another string to brilliant man's bow

There seems to be no end to Kumeren Govender's list of accomplishments.

The final-year KwaZulu-Natal medical student, who speaks Turkish, Zulu and Tamil, plays the violin, keyboard and harmonium and swims the Midmar Mile, has just achieved a rare accolade by publishing a paper in a peer-review journal as the first author, while still an undergraduate.

Govender co-authored the paper titled, "Clinical risk factors for in-hospital mortality in older adults with HIV infection - Findings from a South African hospital administrative dataset".

The paper looked at the number of South African adults over 50 with HIV infection who require hospitalisation and risk factors contributing to deaths.

He said the number of these patients was likely to increase.

"We aimed to identify clinical-risk factors associated with in-hospital mortality and the overall contribution towards in-hospital mortality in older adults with HIV infection," said Govender, from Shallcross in Durban yesterday.

Clinical data for 690 older adults with HIV infection at the Hlabisa Hospital in KwaZulu-Natal was reviewed from 2011-2015 and the findings indicated that the cumulative incidence of in-hospital mortality in the study population was 27.1%.

Males were associated with a 67% higher risk of in-hospital mortality compared with females.

The study also found that TB and renal failure were important predictors of a higher risk of in-hospital mortality .

Govender and his co-authors, Fatima Suleman and Yoshan Moodley, recommend the findings be used to develop interventions aimed at reducing the risk of in-hospital mortality in older adults.

Govender, who achieved 12 distinctions in matric, has received the Dean's commendation every year and the vice-chancellor's award, has a passion for maths, science and medical research.

He joined the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in SAand was given the opportunity to interact with international experts in the field of HIV/Aids and TB.