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11 March 2022 | Story NONSINDISO QWABE | Photo Supplied
Dr Ralph Clarke
Dr Ralph Clark, Director of the Afromontane Research Unit.

The African Mountain Research Foundation (AMRF), in association with the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) of the University of the Free State (UFS), and the Global Mountain Safeguard Research Programme (GLOMOS), is hosting the first-ever Southern African Mountain Conference (SAMC2022). The theme of the conference is Southern African Mountains – their value and vulnerabilities.

The conference will bring relevant people together into one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity and academic outputs that feed into policy and action. 

The conference will take place from 14 to 17 March 2022 in the majestic Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and Lesotho. 

According to the SAMC2022 website, this is a truly Southern African regional mountain conference, targeting the African region south of the Congo rainforest (DRC) and Lake Rukwa (Tanzania), but including Madagascar, the Comoros and the Mascarenes (i.e., Angola, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo [southern mountains], Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, La Réunion, South Africa, southern Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).

Dr Ralph Clark, ARU Director, said the conference would be a high-level international event with UNESCO patronage and very valuable sponsors.

“The programme will have six parallel tracks (one being dedicated to postgraduate students), with about 200 papers being delivered. In addition, we have some very high-profile special sessions, such as an MRI special session on long-term monitoring activities and associated data availability for climate change-related applications across Africa’s mountains, as well as a UNESCO special session on regional collaboration. We also have Prof Julian Bayliss, described as the man who discovered an unseen world, as the guest speaker at the closing event.”

The conference will bring together relevant people in one space for networking and information sharing, leading to more robust regional and international collaborations and comparative mountain studies, with an increase in research activities, student capacity, researcher capacity, and academic outputs that feed into policy and action.

The GLOMOS team, one of the long-term partners of the ARU, spent the week of 8 to 11 March 2022 on the Qwaqwa Campus to strengthen collaboration and pave the way for new research opportunities in Phuthaditjhaba and the Maloti-Drakensberg.
GLOMOS represents an interface between the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and Eurac Research. Postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stefano Terzi, said: “It’s very interesting for us to look at the Maloti-Drakensberg area because of its diversity. We are in the process of really exciting collaborations.”
Their projects include an understanding of the root causes of land degradation and improving decision-making processes for current water management within the context of water scarcity in the Maloti-Drakensberg.
• For more information on the speakers and the programme, click here 


News Archive

UFS researcher explores the future cost of cancer
2017-01-10

 Description: 001 Dr Alicia Sherriff Tags: 001 Dr Alicia Sherriff

Dr Alicia Sherriff, Head the Department of Oncology
at the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences, co-authored
an article in the South African Medical Journal.

Photo: Charl Devenish

Cancer is on an exponential rise globally, and the cost of treatment is a growing international problem. South Africa alone is expected to see a 78% increase in cancer cases. Dr Alicia Sheriff, Head of the Department of Oncology, collaborated on and co-authored a research paper for the South African Medical Journal on the future of oncology treatment in the country, along with doctors from various universities across South Africa. The article, titled "The future cost of cancer: interdisciplinary cost management strategy", looks at the prognosis of cancer management in the country.

Cancer is on the rise

There is a visible growth of the cancer disease in the developing world. Rapidly changing lifestyles, uncontrolled urbanisation, pollution, and population ageing are some dynamics that provide a lethal cocktail of infectious and lifestyle risk factors that leave people at a higher risk of developing cancer.

The simultaneous increase in cancer incidence has increased the cost of treatment exponentially. The cost of cancer treatment is multitiered, making the provision of care for cancer patients a high-risk business. A combination of treatment delays, limited resources, differently skilled personnel, high patient volumes and advanced disease stage on presentation all place a bigger burden on the delivery of optimal cancer care outcomes.

Adoption of new strategies

According to the doctors, innovative thinking to embrace technology, combined with a preventive approach, as well as lowering the cost of treatment drugs should be prioritised. So should the commercialisation of new technologies that will diagnose and treat cancer in its early stages. They also encourage interdisciplinary research funding in South Africa as a way to better understand the demographic and molecular dynamics of cancer in the country, along with retaining more oncologists in the public health sector.

Efficient solutions to curb cancer mortality

The doctors assert there is a need to continue to look for more efficient measures to best treat the disease, and hopefully bring about a change in mortality levels in South Africa.

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