Doctor’s Dayis celebrated on 16 November to acknowledge and thank South African doctors for the exceptional services they deliver on a daily basis. EthiQal is proud to continue to honour this annual tradition of celebrating doctors countrywide, this November.
“The challenges that our medical professionals have confronted and overcome over the last year have been astounding,” says Alex Brownlee, EthiQal executive.
“The pandemic has placed immense pressure on doctors and their families, through the increased personal risk of exposure, the frustration associated with delayed surgeries and erratic schedules, and the emotional trauma of seeing more suffering and fatalities.”
EthiQal’s Doctors’ Day initiative is celebrating its fourth year running in 2021. Through its “This is why we say thank you” campaign, EthiQal calls on the country to express gratitude to its doctors for their bravery and commitment, by sharing their healthcare hero stories on the dedicated Doctors’ Day webpage.
In return, five lucky entrants that share their gratitude stories will each receive R1 000 in cash. What’s more, EthiQal will donate R10 000 to the Healthcare Workers Care Network – a nationwide healthcare worker support network that offers all healthcare workers across the public and private sectors free support, pro bono therapy, resources, training and psychoeducation.
To qualify, participants must submit their stories by visiting www.doctorsday.co.za, before 25 November 2021. Follow the Doctors’ Day stories on social media. (Facebook: @ethiqaldoctor; LinkedIn: EthiQal)
EthiQal proudly also celebrates its 5th birthday on Dr’s Day. EthiQal is the only South African provider of occurrence-based medical professional indemnity insurance for doctors. The dynamic team at EthiQal believes that doctors are national assets and are committed to protecting their well-being and future.
By Orlando Scott Goff – Heritage Auctions, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27530348
A team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge has proven a man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted from Sitting Bull’s scalp lock. This is the first time ancient DNA has been used to confirm a familial relationship between living and historical individuals.
The researchers used a new method to analyse family lineages using ancient DNA fragments, which searches for ‘autosomal DNA’ in the genetic fragments extracted from a body sample. Since half of our autosomal DNA is inherited from the father and half from the mother, this means genetic matches can be checked regardless of whether an ancestor is on the father or mother’s side of the family.
Autosomal DNA from Lakota Sioux leader Sitting Bull’s scalp lock was compared to DNA samples from Ernie Lapointe and other Lakota Sioux. The resulting match confirms that Lapointe is Sitting Bull’s great-grandson, and his closest living descendant.
“Autosomal DNA is our non-gender-specific DNA. We managed to locate sufficient amounts of autosomal DNA in Sitting Bull’s hair sample, and compare it to the DNA sample from Ernie Lapointe and other Lakota Sioux – and were delighted to find that it matched,” said senior author of the study, Professor Eske Willerslev in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, who also developed the new DNA analysis technique.
Lapointe said: “over the years, many people have tried to question the relationship that I and my sisters have to Sitting Bull.”
Lapointe believes that Sitting Bull’s bones currently lie at a site in Mobridge, South Dakota, in a place that has no significant connection to Sitting Bull and the culture he represented. He also has concerns about the care of the gravesite. There are two official burial sites for Sitting Bull – at Fort Yates, North Dakota and Mobridge – and both receive visitors.
Lapointe, with the help of the DNA evidence confirming his heritage, now hopes to rebury the great Native American leader’s bones in a more appropriate location.
The new technique can be used when very limited genetic data are available, as was the case in this study. This could be used to match up long-dead historical figures and their living descendants.
The technique could also be used on old human DNA that might previously have been considered too degraded to analyse – for example in forensic investigations.
“In principle, you could investigate whoever you want – from outlaws like Jesse James to the Russian tsar’s family, the Romanovs. If there is access to old DNA – typically extracted from bones, hair or teeth, they can be examined in the same way,” said Willerslev, who is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.
It took the scientists 14 years to find a way of extracting useable DNA from the 5-6cm piece of Sitting Bull’s hair, which was extremely degraded, having been stored for over a century at room temperature in a museum before it was returned to Lapointe and his sisters in 2007.
In traditional DNA analysis, which searches for a genetic match between specific DNA in the Y chromosome passed down the male line, or, in females, specific DNA in the mitochondria passed from a mother to her offspring. Neither are particularly reliable, and in this case neither could be used as Lapointe claimed to be related to Sitting Bull on his mother’s side.
Tatanka-Iyotanka, better known as the Native American leader and military leader Sitting Bull (1831–1890), led 1,500 Lakota warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and wiped out US General Custer and five companies of soldiers.
“Sitting Bull has always been my hero, ever since I was a boy. I admire his courage and his drive. That’s why I almost choked on my coffee when I read in a magazine in 2007 that the Smithsonian Museum had decided to return Sitting Bull’s hair to Ernie Lapointe and his three sisters, in accordance with new US legislation on the repatriation of museum objects,” said Willerslev.
He added: “I wrote to Lapointe and explained that I specialised in the analysis of ancient DNA, and that I was an admirer of Sitting Bull, and I would consider it a great honour if I could be allowed to compare the DNA of Ernie and his sisters with the DNA of the Native American leader’s hair when it was returned to them.”
Until this study, the familial relationship between LaPointe and Sitting Bull was based on birth and death certificates, a family tree, and a review of historical records. This new genetic analysis lends further credence to his claims. Before the remain can be reburied, they will have to be analysed in the same to ensure a genetic match to Sitting Bull.
Before the remains from the Mobridge burial site can be reburied elsewhere, they will have to be analysed in a similar way to the hair sample to ensure a genetic match to Sitting Bull.
Contrary to widely held gender stereotypes, women are not more emotional than men, say researchers of a new study into emotional differences in gender.
Feelings such as enthusiasm, nervousness or strength are often interpreted differently between the two genders. It’s what being ’emotional’ means to men versus women that is part of a new University of Michigan study that dispels these biases.
For example, a man whose emotions fluctuate in a sporting event is described as “passionate” while a woman whose emotions change in any event, even if provoked, is considered “irrational,” said senior author Adriene Beltz, assistant professor of psychology.
Prof Beltz and colleagues followed 142 men and women over 75 days to learn more about their daily emotions, both positive and negative. The women were divided into four groups: one naturally cycling and three others who used different forms of oral contraceptives.
The researchers detected fluctuations in emotions three different ways, and then compared the sexes. Little to no differences were seen between the men and the various groups of women, suggesting that men’s emotions fluctuate to the same extent as women’s, although likely for different reasons.
“We also didn’t find meaningful differences between the groups of women, making clear that emotional highs and lows are due to many influences – not only hormones,” Prof Beltz said.
These findings could have implications for research, which has historically excluded women partly because ovarian hormone fluctuations result in variation, especially in emotion, which cannot be experimentally controlled, the researchers said.
“Our study uniquely provides psychological data to show that the justifications for excluding women in the first place (because fluctuating ovarian hormones, and consequently emotions, confounded experiments) were misguided,” Prof Beltz said.
An impending legal battle is on the horizon between former Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and President Cyril Ramaphosa over the government’s Digital Vibes scandal. Dr Mkhize has accused both of having a predetermined conclusion about his alleged involvement in the embattled government contractor.
Dr Mkhize has approached the North Gauteng Court to review and set aside findings and recommendations made against him by the SIU. He has also sought to declare the conduct of the SIU unlawful and unconstitutional. This comes after the SIU investigated alleged irregularities in a tender contract awarded by the national Department of Health to Digital Vibes.
In SIU supplementary documents dated September 30 and filed in Pretoria, the SIU claimed that Dr Mkhize had directly benefited from Digital Vibes transactions as the company paid for electrical repair work at his homes, and also that Dr Mkhize’s family and some of his close associates benefited from the tender and another contract worth R150 million.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago confirmed receipt of 800 pages of court documents on Monday, and stated they were ready to oppose them in court.
Dr Mkhize went through some of the SIU’s key findings. alleging that they were markedly different from those put to him during its interrogation.
Dr Mkhize claims he did not derive any personal benefit from Digital Vibes or persons associated with it, and that the SIU failed to address his version of events and withheld evidence he provided to it. Furthermore, he claims he was “ambushed” during questioning as he had no advance warning of the allegations made. He claims some of the key findings by the SIU, in its referral to President Cyril Ramaphosa, were markedly different from those put to him during its interrogation, saying the SIU failed to disclose allegations made against him by his subordinate, the former Health Department DG, Dr Sandile Buthelezi, on which the findings were drawn. Mkhize further said that had his submissions and evidence been taken into account by the SIU, the organisation would have come to a different conclusion regarding his alleged involvement in the appointment of Digital Vibes.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Tyrone Seale, said that the Presidency was aware of the matter, but had not been served with papers.
‘Stereotypical’ gender behaviour differences were exaggerated during the COVID lockdown in Austria, according to a recent study published in Scientific Reports.
Men and women conducted themselves differently in the wake of the COVD lockdown in Austria, with women spending more time on the phone while men returned to crowded and public areas more quickly.
Using mobile phone data from 1.2 million devices in Austria (representing 15% of the population) across the first phase of the COVID pandemic, researchers quantified gender-specific patterns of communication intensity, mobility, and circadian rhythms. They noted the resilience of behavioural patterns with respect to the shock imposed by a strict nation-wide lock-down that Austria experienced in the beginning of the crisis with severe implications on public and private life. They found significant differences in gender-specific responses during the different phases of the pandemic. They found that following lockdown, gender differences in mobility and communication patterns increased massively, while circadian rhythms tended to synchronise.
In particular, women had fewer but longer phone calls than men during the lock-down. Phone calls involving women lasted significantly longer on average, with big differences depending on who was calling whom. After the first lockdown in Austria was imposed on March 16, calls between women were up to 1.5 times longer than before the crisis (140% increase), while calls from men to women lasted nearly twice as long. Conversely, when women called men, they talked 80 percent longer, while the duration of calls between men rose only by 66 percent.
“Of course, we don’t know the content or purpose of these calls,” says Georg Heiler, a researcher at CSH and TU Wien, who was responsible for data processing. “Yet, literature from the social sciences provides evidence — mostly from small surveys, polls, or interviews — that women tend to choose more active strategies to cope with stress, such as talking with others. Our study would confirm that.”
Mobility declined massively for both genders, however, women tended to restrict their movement stronger than men. Women also showed a stronger tendency to avoid shopping centres and more men frequented recreational areas.
After the lockdown, males returned back to normal quicker than females; and young and adolescent age-cohorts returned much quicker. An age stratification highlights the role of retirement on behavioural differences. They found that the length of a day for men and women is reduced by one hour.
In the latest development of the R150 million Digital Vibes tender fallout, Health department director-general Dr Sandile Buthelezi has been placed on precautionary suspension
On Sunday, health ministry spokesperson Foster Mohale confirmed Buthelezi’s suspension following a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report into the alleged tender fraud. Deputy DG Dr Nicolas Crisp will take over as acting DG until the completion of Buthelezi’s hearing process. Buthelezi had previously been on leave.
Mohale said that while the R150m Digital Vibes communications contract was already secured when Buthelezi assumed the DG role, it was his inaction in his role as heady of accounting authority regarding the contract that led to the suspension, said Mohale.
The tender process was rife with irregularities, involving fictitious companies and doctoring scores of bidding companies.
“The procurement process was … a sham, designed and conducted to reach the predetermined result that Digital Vibes would be appointed,” lead investigator Rajendra Chunilall said in the SIU’s founding affidavit.
Former health director-general Precious Matsoso told the SIU that Tahera Mather, a friend of Dr Mkhize’s and a beneficial owner of Digital Vibes, began work at the department straight after Dr Mkhize’s appointment as minister. Matsotso had been pressured by Dr Mkhize to ensure that Mather was hired. Instead of a public tender for the National Health Insurance (NHI) communications contract as advised by the Treasury, it was issued as a closed tender to ten companies.
Two of these companies did not exist and six of which, including a computer equipment supplier and a graphic design company, did not respond as the tender was out of their scope, according to forensic accountant Hesti le Roux’s investigation.
Mather is also alleged to have created a fraudulent profile for Digital Vibes with the relevant skills and experience, including a fake team some of whom never worked for Digital Vibes and were not paid.
Due to this rigging, only Digital Vibes and Brandswell responded; the latter had the upper hand as its R69m quote was far cheaper than Digital Vibes’ R141m,
However, the department then inexplicably issued a second RFP, amending the requirements.
Brandswell was “irregularly and irrationally” marked down by the department’s five-member tender evaluation committee (TEC), which included deputy director-general Anban Pillay and head of communications Popo Maja. This was despite Brandswell being a “long-standing and reputable communication solution service provider”, Le Roux said.
“Clearly, the recommendation by the TEC to award the contract to Digital Vibes was invalid in terms of the provisions [of] the constitution, because the procurement process was not fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and/or cost-effective. Therefore, the service level agreement that was concluded with Digital Vibes should be declared invalid,” Le Roux concluded.
Hayley Arcenaux, seated furthest left, is the Medical Officer for the Inspiration4 flight. She is a survivor of childhood cancer and works as a physician assistant at St Jude’s Children’s Hospital, for which the flight is raising funds and awareness.
The first chartered spaceflight into orbit, scheduled for launch on September 15, will have a crewmember who is both a childhood cancer survivor and physician assistant as part of the crew.
The three-day long mission aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was chartered by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman. Dubbed Inspiration4, the flight is in fact also raising money and awareness for St Jude Children’s Hospital, which was given two of the four seats on the spacecraft. The funds raised for the hospital are believed to have exceeded the cost of the flight.
Isaacman offered the first seatto 29 year-old Hayley Arceneux, who works as a physician assistant at St Jude’s and will be the medical officer for the flight. She was also a patient at the very same hospital. At age 10, she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, the most common primary paediatric bone malignancy. In addition to a dozen rounds of chemotherapy, she had a limb-sparing operation which replaced her knee and inserted a titanium reinforcing rod in her femur. This will make her the first person with a prosthetic in space. Such a medical history would have immediately disqualified her for astronaut selection with any of the government-run space agencies like NASA.
In an interview with The Cut, she described her work as a physician assistant at St Jude’s: “I work inpatient… with leukaemia and lymphoma patients specifically. The majority of them received their cancer diagnoses pretty recently, so a big part of my role is helping to educate and support families through the beginning of treatment. I help them understand, What is cancer? What does the treatment process look like? What should I expect?
“We also manage the kids while they are in treatment. If they get an infection or if they get a fever, we take that really seriously. So I’ll manage their IV antibiotics or other treatment-related complications that can occur.. I check on patients, assess labs, order tests, update families on the results, order meds for outpatients. It is a lot of coordinating and educating. It’s hard, but it’s the greatest job in the world.”
St Jude’s held an auction for the other crew seat that Isaacman offered. The winning bidder declined the seat and gifted it to data engineer Christopher Sembroski. The final seat was won in an entrepreneurial competition by Dr Sian Proctor, a geologist and pilot who narrowly missed out on being chosen as a NASA astronaut.
Speaking about the auction, Richard C. Shadyac Jr, president and chief executive of American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, which raised fund for St Jude’s, said: “The impact of the Inspiration4 mission has been immeasurable, serving as an incredible platform to educate and engage millions in the movement to find cures and deliver care for childhood cancer and other catastrophic diseases through accelerated research and treatment. The auction is a critical component of the overall campaign as it enables us to reach new audiences and supporters as we work to fulfill our mission.”
So far, $100 million has been raised for St Jude’s.
While in space, the crew will conduct experiments such as examining fluid shifts in zero gravity using ultrasound, as well as other medical experiments including measuring blood glucose levels — in order to help expand space travel to those with diabetes.
A documentary has been made of the crew’s training, and is available to stream on Netflix.
This day, the first of its kind, is aimed at recognising and raising awareness of the invaluable role Field Epidemiologists play.
As health systems face increasingly complex threats, training workers in field epidemiology is even more important.. The NICD, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, embarked on a joint collaboration more than 15-years ago in establishing the South African Field Epidemiology Training Programme (SAFETP). To date the program has trained 98 epidemiologists with the majority located in the public service in South Africa.
Field Epidemiologists, or ‘disease detectives’ are considered the cornerstone of public health preparedness and response. They undertake arduous, time-consuming tasks that include contact tracing, case investigations, community engagement, data collection and analysis.
One such ‘disease detective’ is Alain Musaka Abera, whose team was deployed to Equateur province in the DRC in response to an outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD). “The health zone of Ingende had already reported seven confirmed cases, including two deaths in the community,” said Abera, describing his work. “I had to set up the different pillars of epidemiological surveillance (management of alerts, active research, investigation, follow-up of contacts) and, at the same time, support coordination of the response in the health zone.
“The task was tough; the means of transport insufficient; communication almost non-existent. It was necessary to travel long distances in the forest on motorcycles that sometimes broke down and to cross the river in a canoe to search for and investigate suspects. It took courage, determination, and will to face these constraints.”
The Daily Maverick interviewed Dr Ridhwaan Suliman, a senior researcher at CSIR who has entered the spotlight by posting his concise, easy-to-understand COVID numbers graphs on Twitter.
Trained as a mechanical engineer and with a PhD in applied mathematics, he develops computational tools to model and simulate physical systems and processes. Equations in real-world contexts and how they govern physical systems are the relationships he translates into code. And from the code and modelling he can find solutions to make things work more optimally.
As a boy, he took apart his brothers’ old toys to see how they worked, and he took the same approach with COVID data to make sense of it. He started tracking the data in early 2020, and wanted to contribute in some way amidst all the growing uncertainty.
“When I started seeing the raw numbers that were being fed to us daily I couldn’t quite make sense of it myself because the raw numbers in isolation don’t show what’s happening, actually.”
As he tweeted his analyses, he drew attention for his concise summaries of the situation, and praise for helping people to understand the trends. However, he stresses that this is all unpaid, with nobody else’s agenda and that he is not a medical expert.
“I’m just comfortable with the numbers.” He gratefully turns to the science experts he engages with on Twitter because “there’s so much more to learn”, he says. That, and a lot of background reading, which he readily dives into.
Dr Suliman’s tracking of the data let him identify gaps and to add to the call for open data, better data collection and smarter analysis. This allows for the factoring in of more variables and laying out of better parameters. “Sure, data can be manipulated to fit a certain narrative, but the benefits outweigh the risks,” he says.
Even in the polarising, easily toxic world of Twitter, Dr Suliman’s interactions show a great empathy.
“We’ve all had numerous moments in this pandemic when things have been depressing and that’s probably something that doesn’t come out on Twitter because you’re generally only sharing things when things are hunky-dory, you don’t share when you’re not okay. There have been many times when I’ve just wanted to stop tweeting, but I get drawn back by people who reach out and say ‘you’re helping me’ – and that’s good enough reason to continue.”
Since he first started on Twitter, he has since appeared numerous times on television to explain the data behind COVID numbers.
Despite his newfound fame however, he looks forward to the time when he can travel again. “I’ll trade the followers any day for our lives to go back to some sense of normality,” he says.
An article by the Daily Maverick reveals that a wave of suspensions in the Department of Health are impending as a result of the investigation into the Digital Vibes contract, which prompted the resignation of Dr Zweli Mkhize.
Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla said that he received a letter from the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) which he would have to act on.
Dr Phaahla said that “in the next few days and weeks there will unfortunately be some action and that will have some impact also on our capacity as a department”, adding that “when wrong things have happened and investigations have led to findings, then people have to be held answerable”.
However, Dr Phaahla said it was regrettable since “it will have an impact on our capacity, because from what I have seen, a number of people will have to be on suspension, pending charges.” He said it would be difficult for the vaccination programme as management staff were already stretched thin, but “it’s a consequence which must follow”.
Drs Buthelezi and Pillay denied any knowledge of suspension, though the Daily Maverick has found out that referral for disciplinary action have been sent to the presidency.
The details of the SIU’s investigation have not been made public yet, although the Daily Maverick was able to tease out some details from an affidavit to set aside the Digital Vibes contract and to seeks to reclaim up to R150 million that was paid for the contract.
The affidavit further reveals that Dr Mkhize allegedly pressured the previous Director-General, Precious Matsoso, to employ Tahera Mather to be contracted for communication.
Precious Matsotso was replaced after an unblemished ten years by Dr Anban Pillay, who had been Deputy DG. Dr Pillay then became the active facilitator for the Digital Vibes contract, the affidavit suggests — a matter in which the DIU has also referred to the National Prosecuting Authority.
The current DG, Dr Sandile Buthelezi, who replaced Dr Pillay, is also noted as approving payments to Digital Vibes, though the DIU states it is not seeking any relief against him other than setting aside of relevant agreements.
The situation still has a way to run, with disciplinary inquiries, the Special Tribunal hearing and NPA investigations all ongoing.
However, the Daily Maverick warns that it is clear that this critical government department is in “freefall” and will not have the capacity to deal with South Africa’s health challenges in the months and years to come.
