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OCCUPATIONALhealth SOUTHERN AFRICA Vol 26 No 4 JULY/AUGUST 2020 Official Journal of SASOM, SAIOH, SASOHN and MMPA • The South African Society of Occupational Medicine • Southern African Institute for Occupational Hygiene • South African Society of Occupational Health Nursing Practitioners • Mine Medical Professionals Association An accredited journal of the Department of Higher Education and Training (RSA) Occupational Health Southern Africa www.occhealth.co.za Vol 26 No 4 July/August 2020 1 2 Vol 26 No 4 July/August 2020 Occupational Health Southern Africa www.occhealth.co.za Vol. 26 No. 4 July/August 2020 Front cover photograph Dr Botembetume Maboso, occupational health practitioner in Lesotho, stands OCCUPATIONAL outside the Mafeteng District Hospital health Occupational Health Service Centre. SOUTHERN AFRICA Source: Katiso Simon Motopi EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Gill Nelson, PhD (Occupational Health): University of the Witwatersrand, SA. Affiliations: University of the Witwatersrand, SA; MMPA Life Member e-mail: [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR Ntombizodwa Ndlovu, PhD (Occupational Health): University of the Witwatersrand, SA. Affiliation: University of the Witwatersrand, SA e-mail: [email protected] The South African Society of Occupational Medicine (SASOM) EDITORIAL BOARD Jaco Botha Kevin Beaumont, MA (English): University of Natal, SA. Affiliation: MettaMedia, Publisher’s Representative Tel: +27 (0)12 803 7418 Fax: +27 (0)11 507 5085 Michelle Bester, M Tech Nursing Science: Tshwane University of Technology, SA. Affiliations: Tshwane University of Technology, SA; SASOHN Member e-mail: [email protected] website: www.sasom.org Natalie Copeling, B Tech (Occupational Health Nursing): Stellenbosch University, SA. Affiliations: Cape Peninsula University of Technology, SA; SASOHN Member Johan du Plessis, PhD (Occupational Hygiene): North-West University, SA. Affiliations: North-West University, SA; SAIOH Member Deon Jansen van Vuuren, BSc Hons (Industrial Physiology): North-West University, SA. Affiliations: SAIOH General Manager Spo Kgalamono, FCPHM (Occ Med): CMSA, SA. Affiliations: National Institute for Occupational Health, SA; University of the Witwatersrand, SA; SASOM Member Daan Kocks, MD: Medical University of Southern Africa, SA-FCPHM (Occ Med): CMSA, SA. Affiliations: Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, SA; SASOM President Dipalesa Mokoboto, MBCHB: University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA; MPhil (Medical Law and Ethics): University of Pretoria, SA. Affiliations: Department of Mineral Resources and Energy, SA; University of Pretoria, SA; MMPA Deputy President Vusumuzi Nhlapho, DOccMed: RCP, London, UK. Affiliations: South African Medical Association; MMPA Member Southern African Institute for Occupational Hygiene (SAIOH) EDITORIAL ADVISORY PANEL Kate Smart Tel: +27 (0)71 672 4916 Tom Fuller, ScD (Industrial Hygiene/Work Environment): University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA; MSPH (Radiological Hygiene): The Fax: +27 (0)86 631 6117 University of North Carolina, USA; MBA (Finance): Suffolk University, USA. Affiliations: Occupational Hygiene Training Association, e-mail: [email protected] Board member; IOHA, President-elect website: www.saioh.co.za Jim Phillips, PhD: Leeds University, UK. Affiliation: University of Johannesburg, SA André Rose, MBBCH, MMed (Community Health), FCPHM, PhD: University of the Free State, SA. Affiliation: National Institutes of Health, USA Mary Ross, MBBCH: University of the Witwatersrand, SA; Fellowships in Occupational Medicine (SA and UK), Public Health (UK), Travel Medicine (UK), Tropical Medicine (Australasia). Affiliations: University of the Witwatersrand, SA; Faculty of Occupational Medicine, UK; Journal of the Society for Occupational Medicine, UK; International Commission for Occupational Health; World Health Organization; SASOM Honorary Life Member; MMPA Honorary Life Member PRODUCTION BY TECHNEWS PUBLISHING PUBLISHER Michelle Perry and Bev Logan Kevin Beaumont, Cell: +27 (0)82 774 2210 South African Society of e-mail: [email protected] PO Box 210, Tulbagh, 6820 Occupational Health Nursing e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] Audit Bureau of Practitioners (SASOHN) Circulations of Kareen Willers ADVERTISING SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES South Africa Tel: +27 (0)861 727646 Tracy Wolter, Cell: +27 (0)82 331 2440 Kevin Beaumont, Cell: +27 (0)82 774 2210 Fax: +27 (0)86 263 8757 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] website: www.sasohn.co.za © Copyright Material appearing in this issue may not be reproduced without the permission of the editors or publishers in any form whatsoever. Disclaimer: The publishers, editors, SASOHN, SASOM, SAIOH and MMPA are not liable for any damages or loss incurred as a result of any statement contained in this journal. Whilst every effort is made to ensure accuracy in this publication, neither the publishers, editors, SASOHN, SASOM, SAIOH nor MMPA accept any responsibility for errors or omissions in the content and reserve the right to edit all contributions. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers, editors, SASOHN, SASOM, SAIOH or MMPA, neither do these societies, publishers or editors endorse, or guarantee the products or services advertised, or claims made by the manufacturers. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain the neces- sary permissions to publish articles. This Journal is on the Department of Higher Education and Training’s list of Approved South African Journals; authors of peer-reviewed papers thus qualify for subsidies for their affiliated tertiary institutions. It is also listed in African Index Medicus; and is on the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) website list of Journals Following the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Mine Medical Professionals Also published online at www.occhealth.co.za Association (MMPA) Use your personal login details to access past issues. Should you have any queries, e-mail [email protected]. Mbalenhle Buthelezi Tel: +27 (0)11 568 2054 e-mail: [email protected] How to subscribe website: www.mmpa.org.za Join SASOHN, SAIOH, SASOM or MMPA and receive a premier subscription to Occupational Health Southern Africa as a benefit of Society membership. PUBLISHED BY Alternatively, subscribe directly to the Journal via our website: www.occhealth.co.za. MettaMedia Click on the ‘Subscribe’ button and follow four simple steps to activate your annual subscription. Occupational Health Southern Africa www.occhealth.co.za Vol 26 No 2 March/February 2020 3 From the Editor . As I write this editorial for data sharing. Since 2003, the USA’s National Institutes of Health the third of our online issues, (NIH) has stipulated that applicants for large grants include their President Cyril Ramaphosa has data sharing plans for timely release for use by other researchers.3 just announced that we will be The concept of data sharing is accompanied by the premise moving to level 2 lockdown. I that data will be stored in a secure and accessible format. But how echo the caution given by health much thought do we really give to data storage? We have moved experts to continue to be vigilant from storing data using punch cards in the 1800s to the mid-1900s, about keeping ourselves and to magnetic tapes and magnetic disk storage in the latter part of others safe, in anticipation of a the 1900s.4 Some of you might remember the 8 inch, 5¼ inch and, second wave of COVID-19. later, the more rigid 3½ inch ‘floppy disks’ of the 1980s and 1990s. The lockdown resulted in us Then we moved to CDs and DVDs and, in 2000, we started using working from home and missing flash drives or USB drives. Now, thanks to the Internet, we can Gill Nelson, out on socialising with friends, store our data in the Cloud. Everyone knows about security risks Editor-in-chief and visiting our families. It also to data, and the (high) possibilities of laptop theft, crashed hard had a profound effect on research. Suddenly, we could no longer drives, and misplaced flash drives. So we (hopefully) back up our brainstorm ideas face to face, and were limited to e-mail exchanges data regularly and frequently until the final thesis is written or the and video meetings that come with many frustrations. Students and paper is published. independent researchers alike, were affected. Those who were in the In addition to data security, accessibility is important – beyond process of collecting data, or had planned to start doing so this year, the published paper. How would you access data that were were ethically and physically not able to progress – study sites were collected using punch cards in the 1940s? Does your laptop or PC shut down, study participants were off limits, and data collection have a disk drive to open a dataset stored on a floppy disk or CD? was postponed indefinitely. For data sharing to be possible, it is essential to transfer data to new Many students had to change their research topics and find storage media and readable formats as they become available. In datasets to analyse instead. But this ‘solution’ has several draw- addition, data that can be extracted from a dataset by only one backs, including the difficulty of identifying appropriate datasets. person, using complex programming language, are also not truly Fortunately, during the last decade, researchers have been encour- accessible. We have long moved away from the lone researcher aged (and sometimes instructed) to share their data – to make it avail- to more collaborative research teams, where people with varied able for others to validate their original analyses and, as importantly, skills play equally important roles. Just as all authors of a paper are to allow others to analyse the data to answer new research questions. responsible for research submitted to a journal for publication, so Data sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed too are all members of the research team responsible for ensuring healthcare workers, policymakers and entire governments to make that the data are securely and appropriately stored, and accessible evidence-based decisions.