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21 June 2018 Photo BackpagePix
KC the countrys best netballer
The impressive Khanyisa Chawane in action as the centre player of the Free State Crinums.

Khanyisa Chawane, centre player for the Free State Crinums and Kovsies netball teams, is officially the best netball player in the country. She was named Player of the Tournament at the conclusion of the Brutal Fruit Netball Premier League (BFNPL) on Sunday (17 June 2018). It is the premier competition on the South African netball calendar. She also earned the award of Best Centre Court Player.

Khanyisa, or simply KC as she is known, was a consistent performer for the Crinums   earning three Player of the Match awards. Although she is the shortest player in the team she impressed with her speed and handling skills on the court.
 
The Free State Crinums, packed with Kovsie players, finished the competition in fourth position. 

The Crinums is a ‘de facto’ Kovsie sports team, with all 15 squad members currently completing a course at the university. All of them will be available to play in the University Sport South Africa (USSA) tournament that is taking place in the first week of July 2018 in Bloemfontein. 

The Crinums, who ended fifth last year after losing a number of key players from the 2016 team, were officially the youngest participating team with an average age of 21 years and five months by the start of the league last month.

News Archive

Chakalaka can have side effects for these patients
2010-06-24

Chakalaka is a sauce many South Africans cannot imagine a meal without, but research at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) has shown that it can have serious side effects and even compromise the treatment of leukaemia patients.

Prof. Vernon Louw from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Faculty says that tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are a new group of drugs providing targeted therapy for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). It vastly contributes to the survival of patients, but it has side effects like vasodilatation. Research has shown that spices like chakalaka may aggravate vasodilatation (widening of veins) with patients on these drugs.

“These spices produce serious oedema (water retention) and headaches. We have found that discontinuing the intake of spices allows some patients to maintain therapeutic doses of TKIs.” Chakalaka contains mainly garlic and chilli.

CML represents up to 20% of all leukaemia patients in South Africa and up to 450 new cases are reported every year.

In the study symptoms of severe headache and oedema disappeared within days of discontinuing the use of chakalaka.

Prof. Louw says it is important for oncologists to ask their patients about their intake of spices and garlic when they are on TKIs. It is also advisable to enquire about the use of complementary alternative medicine as the interaction of these medicines in cancer treatment is not known.

Media Release

Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za
23 June 2010
 

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