Child health features prominently in PHASA’s tenth
newsletter. The inaugural SA Child Health Priorities
Conference (SACHPC) will be held on 3 and 4 December
2007, at Durban ICC. The SACHPC will focus on research
and current evidence informing child health priorities in SA.
Plenaries and abstract-driven sessions will include child
survival in SA; improvement of hospital care of children;
equitable delivery and training for child health services; and
identification of vulnerable children.
We feature two initiatives to reduce the harmful and debilitating
effects of tobacco addiction, and exposure to tobacco smoke
on children and young adults. A law to help reduce nicotine
addiction in children is before the National Council of Provinces
(NCOP). This will protect children in many ways, viz. it will be
more difficult for tobacco companies to get children addicted,
and children will receive more protection from passive
smoking, with associated incidence of asthma, wheezing,
bronchitis and pneumonia.
During early July 2007, representatives from 147 countries
gathered in Bangkok, Thailand for the second session of
the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC COP2). The Parties
favoured decisions on the achievement of the objective
of the Convention, namely to ‘protect present and future
generations from the devastating health, social, environmental
and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and
exposure to tobacco smoke.’
The South African Institute of Health Care Managers
(SAIHCM) honoured the Top 25 Influential Leaders in Health Care
in SA during the SAIHCM Annual Conference in October.
The 2007 Afrihealth Conference on Public Health
Education was held in Pretoria in June 2007. The theme of the
conference, Sustaining Africa’s Development through Public
Health Education, was a follow-up to the findings from the first
phase of the Afrihealth Project, which has a primary objective
of mapping public health care capacity in, and for, Africa.
Oxford University Press has a Special 10% price reduction
for PHASA members for the new release Epidemiology: A
Research Manual for South Africa 2e. Edited by Gina Joubert
and Rodney Ehrlich, it is aimed primarily at undergraduate and
graduate students as well as practitioners of: public health,
community health, primary health care, medicine, nursing and
advanced nursing science. Epidemiology: A Research Manual
for South Africa 2e helps students to evaluate data critically
and to report their findings lucidly and accurately, as well as
providing teachers with a useful resource for introductory
Epidemiology and Research Methods courses.
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) is a network
of experienced and committed researchers, policy-makers,
activists, donors and others, working together to promote
research on sexual violence and to generate empirical data
so that sexual violence is recognised as a priority public health
issue. Sexual violence is an insidious and highly prevalent
crime perpetuated often with impunity against women and
children throughout the world. More than one in five women
report a lifetime experience of sexual assault by an intimate
partner. Sexual violence is a violation of human rights and
a profound public health problem, with severe physical and
mental health impacts, both short- and long-term, which
limit the potential of victims/survivors to achieve an optimum
standard of health and well-being.
Prof. Lynn Morris, Head of the AIDS Virus Research Unit,
NICD, will deliver the James HS Gear Memorial Lecture at
Sandringham on 20th November. She will speak about the
all-important issue: ‘Is a vaccine against HIV possible?’
Finally we promote the Fifth African Population Conference
to be held in Arusha, Tanzania, from 10-14 December 2007.
The theme is Emerging Issues on Population and Development
in Africa, and contact details are provided for those wishing to
attend this conference.
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