Welcome to the Faculty of Health Sciences. The faculty is recognised nationally and internationally as an outstanding institution for the training of health care workers, research and clinical service.
The Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP) in the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health has been working in several different ways in an effort to address the devasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown in South Africa for mothers and their children. Although this segment of the population appears relatively protected from disease related to COVID infection, they are particularly vulnerable to the adverse social, economic and psychological consequences of the pandemic.
Around 250 student volunteers from the Faculty of Health Sciences are assisting with the province’s response to the pandemic. Meet the Head Coordinator of the COVID-19 Volunteer initiatives and President of the UCT Surgical Society, Savannah Verhage (5th Year MBChB).
News last week that AIDS-related deaths in South Africa are on a downward trajectory since the early 2000s is a victory for the country and proves that antiretroviral (ARV) treatment is powerful and effective, said the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Professor Linda-Gail Bekker.
“A burgeoning epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) threatens to derail global control efforts [of the disease],” and countries like South Africa must shift gear to actively search out drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cases, renowned researcher Professor Keertan Dheda wrote in a recent paper published in the leading medical journal Nature Medicine.