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10

M U T

S P I R I T

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0

COVID-19 incorporated into

MUT’s Environmental Health

curriculum

Left: Anna Bigara, Lecturer in the department, and

Dr Thobile Poswa, HOD

With COVID-19 having much to do with

the environment and how people behave,

MUT’s Department of Environmental

Health has decided to fully incorporate

the topic into its academic programmes.

The curriculum will be more dynamic,

according to Anna Bigara, a lecturer in the

department, and the department may also

focus on strengthening and integrating

the principles of epidemiology and of risk

analysis and management throughout its

various modules.

This is one of the department’s reactions to COVID-19,

a pandemic that is wreaking havoc across the globe.

“In early March 2020, we recognised that the soon-

to-be pandemic would affect our country. In the

Epidemiology (study of diseases) module, I integrated

COVID-19 into the sections on communicable

diseases, outbreak response and infection control,”

said Bigara, adding that they were now going to use

case studies to enhance critical thinking.

She is already applying current interventions such as

the International Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

programme in water quality management. “But now

the emphasis is on how it should be strictly applied

and maintained because these provide an important

additional barrier to COVID-19 transmission and to

the transmission of infectious diseases in general,”

she said.

The department is guided by the World Health

Organisation’s (WHO) definition of environmental

health, which is the science and practice of preventing

human illnesses and injury, promoting well-being by

identifying and evaluating environmental sources and

hazardous agents such as COVID-19 as a biohazard,

and limiting exposures to hazardous biological,

chemical and physical agents in air, water, soil, food

and other environmental media or settings that may

adversely affect human health.

Bigara applauded the government for taking a bold

step to contain the pandemic, and had some advice.

“The nation-wide lockdown was necessary to disrupt

the chain of transmission and prevent the spread

of the virus while the health care system prepared

the hospitals and other related places for possible

COVID-19 cases,” she said. She added that in

hindsight, authorities could have focused earlier on

prevention measures related to cluster infections in

high-risk areas within communities, and particularly

among vulnerable people, as opposed to the initial

approach of identifying cases and tracing the contacts.