Charity joins Bok captain to tackle fast-running virus SA scientists harvest live coronavirus
CHARITY organisation PinkDrive has teamed up with the Kolisi Foundation to donate R1 million for Covid-19 testing and screening in identified hot spots across the country.
Siya Kolisi led South Africa to Rugby World Cup glory in Japan a few months ago, and is now helping to fight the Covid-19 pandemic through his foundation.
For more than 10 years, PinkDrive has made the health of the vulnerable a priority and while the organisation’s historical role has been cancer detection, it has now broadened its mission to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.
Citadel chief executive Andrew Möller, who donated the funds on behalf of the Kolisi Foundation, said: “This is a journey that none of us, nor our loved ones, will need to walk alone. As a company, we donated R1 million through the Kolisi Foundation to PinkDrive to assist with Covid19 testing, particularly in vulnerable communities. It is our sincere belief that these funds will go a long way.”
With the help of their sponsors, PinkDrive has so far managed to screen and test 4 282 and 2 873 people in KwaZulu-Natal respectively, screen 1 973 and test 706 in the Western Cape, and screen 64 056 and test 4 705 in Gauteng.
PinkDrive chief executive and founder Noelene Kotschan thanked the Kolisi Foundation for the support.
“We are incredibly humbled by the commitment of the Kolisi Foundation by partnering with PinkDrive. Like all health professionals on the front line of this pandemic, I salute the PinkDrive medical staff and management who have selflessly taken up the challenge to provide these screening services to communities. My biggest regret is that our cancer screening services have come to a grinding halt – but as soon as the laws are relaxed we will be back,” said Kotschan.
The Kolisi family said in a statement that they hoped some good could come out of this difficult period in the form of important lessons that can further aid society.
PinkDrive can be contacted on: janice@pinkdrive.co.za/ 082 557 3079.
RECIPIENTS of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Career Development Award, Professor Bavesh Kana and Dr Bhavna Gordhan have harvested live coronavirus as an additional control for validating Covid-19 tests.
Until recently, Kana, who heads University of the Witwatersrand node of the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence for Biomedical TB Research, and his team have been able to successfully generate naked DNA and safe, non- infectious encapsulated controls. The remaining hurdle was the production of the live virus as an additional control for validating tests.
The process involved multiple teams across institutions, including Professor Maria Papathanasopoulos and her team at Wits, Professor Wolfgang Preiser from Stellenbosch University and Tasnim Suliman of UWC. Once the experts generated the cultured cells required to propagate the virus and were able to provide a sample for chemical/ biological analysis of the live SarsCoV-2 virus, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease, they were taken into the BSL3 lab, led by Kana, for infection and viral propagation.
The first harvest of the virus was then provided to Professor Lesley Scott and Lara Noble at Wits University and the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) for validation of test kits.
“My hand was shaking as we pipetted our first harvest of the live virus,” said Kana, adding this felt like a defining moment as plans to prepare for the validation of new Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction and serology diagnostic kits intensify.
Kana’s BSL3 lab was originally part of the SAMRC/NHLS/Wits Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit. At the time these labs were established, setting up BSL3 labs was challenging as there were not many such laboratories in the country that could be modelled.
“We were able to quickly respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and adapt a BSL3 laboratory geared for dealing with infectious bacteria to carry out work with a highly infectious virus,” said Gordhan, senior medical scientist at the Biomedical TB Research Centre.