Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences hosts their first virtual Prestige Research Day

Health and Environmental Sciences CUT News Research and Innovation
Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences hosts their first virtual Prestige Research Day

The Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences carries out research projects that are informed by the need to render critical research and developmental services to the community.

On 28 October 2020, the faculty held their first virtual Prestige Research Day to highlight and showcase the inter-and multi-disciplinary research in line with its Research, Innovation and Engagement (REI) agenda.

In his welcome address, Prof. Samson Mashele, Dean of Health and Environmental Sciences said that one of CUT’s strategic objectives is to develop a strong culture of research and innovation with pockets of excellence. He said that research is not just about producing articles, but it is about coming up with innovative solutions that could shape the future. “Our faculty is not just increasing the number of articles but also striving to solve problems out there.” He also spoke about pockets of excellence within the faculty and how his colleagues strive to ensure that they make an impact in the society.

Guest speaker Prof. Nenene Qekwane, a renowned specialist in Veterinary Public Health registered with the South African Veterinary Council spoke about the impact of COVID-19 on livestock production in South Africa. In his presentation, Prof. Qekwane indicated that during the lockdown period, major food and agricultural economic activities were declared essential, which gave an opportunity for livestock production to continue although in some cases, other sectors related to the livestock industry were declared unessential and that had a negative impact on livestock production in South Africa.

He said that the current pandemic is likely to have severe economic and social consequences for the livestock industry, which may lead to a decrease in food security and increased poverty and inequality. “Livestock supply and distribution chains are likely to be affected. We are likely to see the restructuring of the agricultural livestock sector, re-positioning and diversifying, workforce reduction and business shut-down particularly in response to the harsh conditions and realities that we find ourselves in, however, there are also opportunities, the 4IR farmers needs to think out of the box and embrace these new coming technologies.”

He said that managing the impact of COVID-19 requires human, animal and environmental perspectives. “This collective is needed in identifying the most appropriate intervention strategies. The current outbreak has shown that human health is integral to environmental and animal health. We need collaborations between government, policymakers, non-governmental institutions, and scientists to try and deal with COVID issues. Going forward, everybody needs to put their heads together in dealing with this pandemic,” he said.

He recommended that all stakeholders in the food value chain should develop strategies to ensure uninterrupted livestock production without compromising the human welfare. “Strong collaboration between research institutions and government is needed, to guide control strategies, including policy. We need Private-Public Partners in terms of funding, and we need to develop regional, national, and Pan-African strategies for dealing with pandemics in general. Where possible, ongoing efforts to support farmers must continue adapting farm management strategies. The agricultural sector must embrace the 4IR to minimize labour challenges and enhance the local market.”

In conclusion, he pointed out the key research areas that can be looked at. “I think there is socio-economic studies that need to be done to look into the impact of COVID-19 in livestock production in South Africa, welfare status of farmers and farmworkers in relation to COVID-19, welfare status of livestock during and post COVID and spatial disparities in COVID-19 effect among livestock farmers.”

 Prof. Alfred Ngowi, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research Innovation and Engagement presented on the use of Artificial Intelligence in contact tracing. He said that as the transmission rate increases, the development of innovative means of screening and detecting COVID-19 cases remains imperative. “The adoption of the 4IR technologies, particularly the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big data is expected to make significant contributions towards facilitating contact tracing.  AI-based Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) is a state-of-the-art model for feature identification and selection from AI for medical diagnostics to mobile technology for data collection, to aid in contact tracing, symptom checking and predicting outbreak. Technologies associated with the 4IR offer efficient and effective ways to cope with the speed, scope, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature inspired computing is helpful in feature identification and when combined with AI-based Convolutional Neural Network model, it enhances classification accuracy.”

Uploaded: 30 October 2020
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