From remote Covid-19 testing to exploring African medicines- critical quotes from Blade Nzimande

Minister of higher education Blade Nzimande on Wednesday gave an update on measures implemented by the national system of innovation (NSI) and the department in response to Covid-19.

Here are important quotes from his briefing:

Testing

“To strengthen SA's active case finding strategy, the department of science and innovation with the SA Medical Research Council and the Technology Innovation Agency, issued a call for proposals to SA companies and researchers to develop polymerase chain reaction reagent kits that can be locally manufactured to address bottleneck's in SA Covid-19 testing.”

Remote screening

“Through the SA population research infrastructure network, we responded to the Covid-19 emergency by developing a surveillance protocol that was implemented within a month of the first case reported in our country. The research involves ongoing telephonic interviews to screen for Covid-19 symptoms in more than 600,000 rural households in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.”

African medicines

“We are in the process of implementing multiple interventions, including the use of African Medicines as immune-modulators and anti-coronavirus therapeutics. One of the herbs our team is working on is artemisia afra, umhlonyana in Nguni languages.”

Risk-adjusted strategy at universities

“All public universities have provided plans and are managing the permits for identified students to return. Private higher education institutions have also provided plans. All our universities have provided the dates for the planned return of students in line with their risk-adjusted strategy, linked to the situation in their localities.”

Saving the academic year

“We have been discussing with the department of basic education to determine their plans on the coming to an end of the 2020 school year. It is likely that the intake of first-year university students in 2021 will be later than usual. This will require a change in the normal academic year to ensure that the 2021 academic year finishes within the 2021 academic year.”