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07 January 2018
Photo Charl Devenish
Dr Anneke van der Spoel van Dijk is invested in contributing
to the global effort of stopping TB by 2035.
The work of Dr Anneke van der Spoel van Dijk investigates the spread of TB in the Free State population using techniques such as next generation sequencing, spoligotyping and MIRU-VNTR typing. Dr Van der Spoel van Dijk, a senior medical scientist in the Department of Medical Microbiology at the University of the Free State (UFS) also looks at drug resistance in her research. This work informs decisions about how best to treat patients with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).
She employs rapid molecular techniques to track one of Africa’s most serious diseases, tuberculosis (TB).
Drug resistance
Scientists assist the National Health Laboratory Service and Department of Health in trying to refine the diagnostic tools to identify these cases earlier. Dr Van der Spoel van Dijk explains: “Until recently, it took up to two years to fine-tune treatment decisions for patients with MDR-TB. Patients get a cocktail of anti-TB drugs, but it takes time to find the right combination. Re-infection and relapse (patients stopping treatment for several reasons) add to the diagnostic and treatment management challenges.
Enormous impact
“Now doctors can reduce the time needed for diagnostic certainty to about seven days, while new drugs allow reduction of treatment from more than 18 to nine months. This can have an enormous impact on the life of many patients.”
Dr Van der Spoel van Dijk’s work forms part of research in the faculty looking at resistance development in TB strains. She is currently also doing her doctoral thesis on the differences and incidence of MDR-TB among adolescents versus adults. Dr Van der Spoel van Dijk says: “It is a complicated picture, but we hope to unravel it to support better diagnostic tools and patient care.”
As part of the National Health Laboratory Service, her department is playing an important role in TB diagnostics and the training of scientists and future pathologists. “Our work is contributing to the global vision to stop TB by 2035,” Dr Van der Spoel van Dijk says.
Translation Day Seminar at UFS
2007-09-21
The Programme in Language Practice at the University of the Free State (UFS) cordially invites all stakeholders in language practice to a translation day seminar:
Subverting the west: Engaging language practice as African interpretation
Date: Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Venue: C.R. Swart Auditorium
Cost: R50
Apart from papers read by Prof. Jacobus Naudé (UFS), Dr Kobus Marais (UFS), Prof. Joan Conolly from the Durban University of Technology (DUT) and Ms Lolie Makhubu (DUT), a full session will be devoted to a panel discussion involving the audience.
Against the background of the cabinet's proposal for language services for all government departments, the seminar day seeks to put up for discussion the African context in which language practice takes place. It will also be exploring an approach to translator education that is engaged in its African context by means of service learning.
The following four focus areas will receive attention:
- engaging translator education by means of a socio-constructivist approach;
- challenging the dominance of Western concepts in translator training and practice;
- exploring African indigenous oral knowledge as an interface for language practice;
- questioning code-switching in African interpreting settings.
Closing date for registrations is 1 October 2007.
For enquiries, registration forms, and programme details, contact Mr Kobus Marais on 051 401 2798.