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UFS Lifts its COVID-19 Regulations and Required Vaccination Policy with immediate effect

15 July 2022 | Story Lacea Loader

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) approved the lifting of the institution’s COVID-19 Regulations and Required Vaccination Policy with immediate effect.

“Since the declaration by the Government on 22 June 2022 that the COVID-19 regulations will be repealed, the UFS has conducted a risk assessment to determine the risk of exposure to staff and students. From the assessment, it was clear that the university’s COVID-19 infections are currently a low risk,” said Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.

Factors that contributed to this low risk include the following:

No COVID-19 positive cases among UFS staff and students have been reported in the past month.
The high number of vaccinations among UFS stakeholders. In addition, the current national immunity level of the total South African population is high.
Certain faculties and postgraduate students are currently proceeding with hybrid/online learning, which minimises the risk of possible COVID-19 infections on the university’s three campuses.
In its correspondence of 23 June 2022, the UFS urged all staff and students to continue wearing masks should they have comorbidities and/or symptoms of illness, thus safeguarding other stakeholders.

“We believe that COVID-19 no longer poses an immediate threat to the safety of our staff and students, and that the pandemic is at a stage where they should take responsibility for their own safety. This can be mainly ascribed to the success of the implementation of the policy. Staff and students who still wish to wear masks are urged to do so at their own discretion. Those who have not yet been vaccinated against the virus and have no

known condition preventing them from doing so, are advised to get vaccinated for their own safety and protection,” said Prof Petersen.

The UFS COVID-19 Regulations and Required Vaccination Policy was approved by the University Council on 26 November 2021 and implemented on 6 December 2021. The university commenced restricting unvaccinated individuals from accessing its campuses as of 14 February 2022.

“If the national regulatory environment with respect to COVID-19 is changing to such an extent that the policy needs to be re-implemented, the university’s executive management will act accordingly, and hence the COVID-19 Regulations and Required Vaccination Policy remains a policy of the university as approved by the UFS Council on 26 November 2021.” said Prof Petersen.

Uplifting of the COVID-19 vaccination policy - mitigation strategies of the University of the Free State.

News Archive

Death may come in adorable little packages

2015-03-23

The main host of the Lassa virus is the Natal Mulimammate mouse.

Photo: Supplied

Postdoctoral researcher, Abdon Atangana, of the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the university recently published an article online about the Lassa Haemorrhagic fever in the Natural Computing Applications Forum. In addition to the terminal transmissible sickness recognised as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, there is another strain called Lassa haemorrhagic fever.

The disease is classified under the arenaviridae virus family. The first outbreaks of the disease were observed in Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic. However, it was first described in 1969 in the town of Lassa, in Borno State, Nigeria.

The main host of the Lassa virus is the Natal Mulimammate mouse, an animal indigenous to most of Sub-Saharan Africa. The contamination in humans characteristically takes place through exposure to animal excrement through the respiratory or gastrointestinal tracts.

Mouthfuls of air containing tiny particle of infective material are understood to be the most noteworthy way of exposure. It is also possible to acquire the infection through broken skin or mucous membranes that are directly exposed to the infective material.

“The aim of my research was to propose a novel mathematical equation used to describe the spread of the illness amongst pregnant women in West Africa. To achieve this, I used my newly-proposed derivative with fractional order called beta-derivative. Since none of the commonly used integral transform could be used to derive the solution of the proposed model, I proposed a new integral transform called Atangana-Transform, and used it, together with some iterative technique, to derive the solution of the model.

“My numerical simulations show that the disease is as deadly amongst pregnant women as Ebola,” Abdon said.

Abdon’s research was submitted to one of Springer’s top-tier journals with an impact factor 1.78. The paper was accepted and published February 2015.