Biography

Ms Christine Moremi is a Deputy Director for Occupational Health and Safety, in the Employee Health and Wellness unit of the Department of Public Service and Administration. One of the programmes in this unit is the ‘Management of communicable and non-communicable diseases in Public Service’. Ensuring the reduction of barriers to disease management remains a strategic priority in our department. Ms Moremi has a natural thirst for knowledge. She is aiming to acquire a solid academic, career-related, personal and interpersonal skillset through doctoral-level education; i.e. aptitude for research, critical and creative thinking, academic presentation, intellectual strength, focus, tenacity, stamina and discipline. Through her planned research on malaria in Gwakwani village, Niani, Limpopo Province, she will have an opportunity to impact environmental, economic and social change by proposing solutions to issues related to malaria in South Africa.

Discipline/s

Occupational health and safety, environmental health

Research description

Despite being preventable and treatable, malaria is very complex, and control and elimination of the disease remains a major challenge. The occurrence of malaria in the Gwakwani village in Niani, Limpopo Province has led to the question about the driving forces behind malaria risk in the village. A clear understanding of the contributing factors (environmental, climatic or behavioural) towards malaria risk in Gwakwani is needed to understand this “hotspot”. Her research aims to determine the malaria incidence, risk behaviours, prevailing malaria vectors and environmental factors in Gwakwani that may contribute to the village’s malaria risk. If the incidence of malaria is not eliminated in these small, rural villages, then South Africa will never reach its elimination target.