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07 January 2018
Photo Charl Devenish
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.
Graduation excitement hits Qwaqwa
2016-05-06
More than 700 degrees, diplomas and certificates will be conferred to deserving Kovsies when the graduation season hits the Qwaqwa Campus on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 May 2016.
On Friday, Dr Mafu Rakometsi, the CEO of Umalusi, will address graduands from the Faculties of Education and of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. Umalusi is the Council for Quality Assurance in General and Further Education and Training.
The following day, Prof David Dickinson, a visiting academic, researcher and sociologist from the University of the Witwatersrand who is currently based on the Qwaqwa Campus, will speak to the graduands from the Faculties of the Humanities and of Economic and Management Sciences.
Among the degrees to be conferred will be five PhDs and seven Master’s degrees in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. One of the PhDs will be conferred posthumously