Joburg sports doctor to speak at symposium

JOHANNESBURG sports physician Dr Lervasen Pillay will be among the medical experts who will deliver presentations when the South African Football Association (Safa) hosts its first medical symposium at Safa House on May 19.

Pillay, who was the club doctor for defending Absa Premiership champions Bidvest Wits from 2008 to 2017, will share his expertise with local and international sports medicine professionals at the symposium, which is organised under the theme “Football Medicine: Where are we?”

Led by Safa’s chief medical officer, Dr Thulani Ngwenya, who is also the Bafana Bafana team doctor, the one-day gathering will deal with various topics which include football-related injuries (diagnosis and management), emergency football medicine (sudden cardiac arrest), concussion management new trends, travel medicine (jet lag, fatigue and disease risk assessment), Fifa medical rules and regulations, rehabilitation and recuperation, medical ethics and doping control, football nutrition (match day meal) and football psychology.

Pillay will share the platform with Dr Joseph Kabungo (Confederation of African Football and Fifa), Professor Efraim Kramer (CAF and Fifa) and Dr Yacine Zerguini (CAF and Fifa). Participants will include football medical staff, Safa and PSL coaches and referees, who will be informed about updated pre-match, postmatch and match time care in the game.

The symposium will be held in collaboration with the PSL, Cosafa (Council of Southern Africa Football Associations), CAF and the Fifa Medical Commission.