scholarly journals BURN VICTIMS AND SKIN DONATIONS: A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Magda Slabbert ◽  
Bonnie Venter
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Burn Wound ◽  
Legal Requirements ◽  
Tissue Donors ◽  
Burn Wounds ◽  
Burn Victims ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
The Ideal

This article highlights the need for skin donations to treat burn wounds. South Africa has an exceptionally high number of burn wound victims per annum. The ideal way to treat burn wounds is to transplant skin from another part of the patient’s body to the affected areas (autografts). Unfortunately, this is not always possible or feasible and in those cases skin from cadavers (allografts) should be used, but this can only be done if the deceased has indicated a wish during his or her lifetime that tissue be donated for transplantation use after death. If the deceased has not indicated his or her wish to be a tissue donor, family members could be asked to consent to a donation. The article looks at the legal requirements in South Africa for a valid skin donation as well as the requirements should skin be imported owing to a lack of enough tissue donors in the country. This position is contrasted to the position in the United Kingdom with a view to establishing whether South Africa can learn from another jurisdiction concerning the procurement of skin for transplantation. The possible reasons that people do not donate skin are also touched upon.

scholarly journals RIC in COVID-19—a Clinical Trial to Investigate Whether Remote Ischemic Conditioning (RIC) Can Prevent Deterioration to Critical Care in Patients with COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean M. Davidson ◽  
Kishal Lukhna ◽  
Diana A. Gorog ◽  
Alan D. Salama ◽  
Alejandro Rosell Castillo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Clinical Trial ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Inflammatory Cytokines ◽  
In Vitro Cytotoxicity ◽  
Cytokine Storm ◽  
Remote Ischemic Conditioning ◽  
Ischemic Conditioning ◽  
The United Kingdom

Abstract Purpose Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has, to date, been diagnosed in over 130 million persons worldwide and is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Several variants of concern have emerged including those in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil. SARS-CoV-2 can cause a dysregulated inflammatory response known as a cytokine storm, which can progress rapidly to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), multi-organ failure, and death. Suppressing these cytokine elevations may be key to improving outcomes. Remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) is a simple, non-invasive procedure whereby a blood pressure cuff is inflated and deflated on the upper arm for several cycles. “RIC in COVID-19” is a pilot, multi-center, randomized clinical trial, designed to ascertain whether RIC suppresses inflammatory cytokine production. Methods A minimum of 55 adult patients with diagnosed COVID-19, but not of critical status, will be enrolled from centers in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa. RIC will be administered daily for up to 15 days. The primary outcome is the level of inflammatory cytokines that are involved in the cytokine storm that can occur following SARS-CoV-2 infection. The secondary endpoint is the time between admission and until intensive care admission or death. The in vitro cytotoxicity of patient blood will also be assessed using primary human cardiac endothelial cells. Conclusions The results of this pilot study will provide initial evidence on the ability of RIC to suppress the production of inflammatory cytokines in the setting of COVID-19. Trial Registration NCT04699227, registered January 7th, 2021.

scholarly journals A cross-sectional survey assessing the influence of theoretically informed behavioural factors on hand hygiene across seven countries during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Schmidtke ◽  
K. G. Drinkwater
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Hand Hygiene ◽  
Behaviour Change ◽  
Surface Cleaning ◽  
Behaviour Change Techniques ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Surface Areas ◽  
The United Kingdom

Abstract Background Human hygiene behaviours influence the transmission of infectious diseases. Changing maladaptive hygiene habits has the potential to improve public health. Parents and teachers can play an important role in disinfecting surface areas and in helping children develop healthful handwashing habits. The current study aims to inform a future intervention that will help parents and teachers take up this role using a theoretically and empirically informed behaviour change model called the Capabilities-Opportunities-Motivations-Behaviour (COM-B) model. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was designed to measure participants’ capabilities, opportunities, and motivations to [1] increase their children’s handwashing with soap and [2] increase their cleaning of surface areas. Additional items captured how often participants believed their children washed their hands. The final survey was administered early in the coronavirus pandemic (May and June 2020) to 3975 participants from Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Participants self-identified as mums, dads, or teachers of children 5 to 10 years old. ANOVAs analyses were used to compare participant capabilities, opportunities, and motivations across countries for handwashing and surface disinfecting. Multiple regressions analyses were conducted for each country to assess the predictive relationship between the COM-B components and children’s handwashing. Results The ANOVA analyses revealed that India had the lowest levels of capability, opportunity, and motivation, for both hand hygiene and surface cleaning. The regression analyses revealed that for Australia, Indonesia, and South Africa, the capability component was the only significant predictor of children’s handwashing. For India, capability and opportunity were significant. For the United Kingdom, capability and motivation were significant. Lastly, for Saudi Arabia all components were significant. Conclusions The discussion explores how the Behaviour Change Wheel methodology could be used to guide further intervention development with community stakeholders in each country. Of the countries assessed, India offers the greatest room for improvement, and behaviour change techniques that influence people’s capability and opportunities should be prioritised there.

The global effectiveness of fact-checking: Evidence from simultaneous experiments in Argentina, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (37) ◽  
pp. e2104235118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Porter ◽  
Thomas J. Wood
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Analytic Procedure ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Fact Checking ◽  
Checking Experiments

The spread of misinformation is a global phenomenon, with implications for elections, state-sanctioned violence, and health outcomes. Yet, even though scholars have investigated the capacity of fact-checking to reduce belief in misinformation, little evidence exists on the global effectiveness of this approach. We describe fact-checking experiments conducted simultaneously in Argentina, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, in which we studied whether fact-checking can durably reduce belief in misinformation. In total, we evaluated 22 fact-checks, including two that were tested in all four countries. Fact-checking reduced belief in misinformation, with most effects still apparent more than 2 wk later. A meta-analytic procedure indicates that fact-checks reduced belief in misinformation by at least 0.59 points on a 5-point scale. Exposure to misinformation, however, only increased false beliefs by less than 0.07 points on the same scale. Across continents, fact-checks reduce belief in misinformation, often durably so.

scholarly journals Identification and Characterization of Persistent Human Erythrovirus Infection in Blood Donor Samples

2004 ◽  
Vol 78 (22) ◽  
pp. 12169-12178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Candotti ◽  
Nermin Etiz ◽  
Armen Parsyan ◽  
Jean-Pierre Allain
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Persistent Infection ◽  
Parvovirus B19 ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Genotype 1 ◽  
Genotype 3 ◽  
Real Time Quantitative Pcr ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Sub Saharan

ABSTRACT The presence of human erythrovirus DNA in 2,440 blood donations from the United Kingdom and sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa) was screened. Sensitive qualitative and real-time quantitative PCR assays revealed a higher prevalence of persistent infection with the simultaneous presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) and viral DNA (0.55 to 1.3%) than previously reported. This condition was characterized by a low viral load (median, 558 IU/ml; range, 42 to 135,000 IU/ml), antibody-complexed virus, free specific IgG, and potentially infectious free virus. Human erythrovirus genotype 1 (formerly parvovirus B19) was prevalent in the United Kingdom, Malawi, and South Africa. In contrast, only human erythrovirus genotype 3 (erythrovirus variant V9) was prevalent in Ghana. Genotype 3 had considerable genetic diversity, clustering in two probable subtypes. Genotype 1-based antibody assays failed to detect 38.5% of Ghanaian samples containing antibodies to genotype 3 virus but did not fail to detect cases of persistent infection. This study indicates a potential African origin of genotype 3 human erythrovirus and considerable shortcomings in the tools currently used to diagnose erythrovirus infection.

The Global Scholar

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Postgraduate Studies ◽  
Globalising World

In our rapidly globalising world, “the global scholar” is a key concept for reimagining the roles of academics at the nexus of the global and the local. This book critically explores the implications of the concept for understanding postgraduate studies and supervision. It uses three conceptual lenses – “horizon”, “currency” and “trajectory” – to organise the thirteen chapters, concluding with a reflection on the implications of Covid-19 for postgraduate studies and supervision. Authors bring their perspectives on the global scholar from a variety of contexts, including South Africa, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Germany, Cyprus, Kenya and Israel. They explore issues around policy, research and practice, sharing a concern with the relation between the local and the global, and a passion for advancing postgraduate studies and supervision.

Introduction The Birth and Growth of Judicial Review in the Civil Law World

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
The United Kingdom

This book is about the stunning birth and growth of judicial review in the civil law world, since 1945. In Volume I of this two-volume series, I showed that judicial review was born and grew in common law G-20 constitutional democracies and in Israel primarily: (1) when there is a need for a federalism or a separation of powers umpire, (2) when there is a rights from wrongs dynamic, (3) when there is borrowing, and (4) when the political structure of a country’s institutions leaves space within which the judiciary can operate. The countries discussed in Volume I were the following: (1) the United States, (2) Canada, (3) Australia, (4) India, (5) Israel, (6) South Africa, and (7) the United Kingdom....

A Multicentre General Practice Evaluation of Syndol in Tension Headache

1977 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
J F Donald ◽  
M S Gatley ◽  
G Kagan ◽  
G B Leslie ◽  
R H G McKay ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
General Practice ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
General Population ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
Tension Headache ◽  
Common Side Effect ◽  
Codeine Phosphate ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Highly Effective

In a multicentre evaluation in general practice involving 104 patients, Syndol, a formulation containing paracetamol, codeine phosphate, caffeine, and doxylamine succinate, was shown to be highly effective in treating the organic and psychogenic symptoms of Tension Headache in 81·7% of patients. The evaluation was performed in six widely differing practices in the United Kingdom. The result confirms the findings of other investigators in South Africa both in the efficacy of the drug and the incidence of Tension Headache in the general population. Drowsiness was the most common side-effect, indicating that the formulation provided sufficient calmative activity, especially in those patients where tension was a major component of their symptoms.

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