Every year, the Faculty of Health Sciences produces almost half of the University of Cape Town’s research publication output. In acknowledgment of the outstanding contribution of young researchers to this effort, the annual Young Investigator’s Best Publication Award grants five awards to researchers in the clinical, basic laboratory and public health and rehabilitation sciences. 

The award is a cash prize to the value of R15 000, which must be used for research or other academic purposes.  Out of eighteen applications received, five awards were named.

Winner of the Clinical Science category was Suraj Parihar for his article “Statin Therapy Reduces the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Burden in Human Macrophages and in Mice by Enhancing Autophagy and Phagosome Maturation” which was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.  Taking the Basic Laboratory Sciences award was Grant Theron, whose article “Feasibility, accuracy, and clinical effect of point-of-care Xpert MTB/RIF testing for tuberculosis in primary-care contexts in Africa: a multicentre, randomized, controlled trial” appeared in The Lancet.

The Public Health and Rehabilitation Sciences award was jointly won by three researchers:

Tamsin Phillips’ article “Disengagement of HIV-positive pregnant and postpartum women from antiretroviral therapy services: a cohort study” was published in the Journal of the International Aids Society.

Michael Schomaker’s article “Non-ignorable loss to follow-up: correcting mortality estimates based on additional outcome ascertainment” appeared in Statistics in Medicine.

The third recipient was Erin Stern whose paper, “Experiences and conceptualizations of sexual debut from the narratives of South African men and women in the context of HIV/AIDS”, appeared in the African Journal of AIDS Research.