Air pollution dispersion over Durban is studied using satellite, reanalysis and in situ measurements. This coastal city of 4 million people located on the east coast of South Africa contributes 29 million T/yr of trace gases, mostly from transport an...
This study investigated how metal concentrations and microplastic abundance co-vary temporally and spatially in sediments in Durban Harbour, South Africa. The effects of sediment contamination on the amphipod Grandidierella lignorum was additionally...
Thyroid dysfunction and type 2 diabetes melittus (T2DM) are two of the most common endocrine disorders, and the emerging condition of prediabetes necessitates additional research to better understand the complex interactions between thyroid hormones,...
1 June 2022
Triclosan (TCS) and triclocarban (TCC) are antimicrobial agents that have been used in personal care and consumer products in the past decades. In this study, influent, effluent, and sludge samples collected in selected wastewater treatment plants ac...
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic metabolic disorder that significantly increases the risk of stroke, with prediabetes serving as an intermediate stage marked by similar pathophysiological mechanisms such as inflammation and vascular dysfu...
Background: Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on individuals, education, and the economy. During its peak, the pandemic forced school closures. Although there is currently no cure for corona virus, non-pharmaceutical measures...
Durban Port in South Africa is the largest container port and the busiest shipping terminal in sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 60% of the country’s containerised cargo and 40% of break-bulk cargo transit through Durban. The port is near the c...
Once in the environment, preproduction plastic polymers between 2–5 mm in size, also known as pellets, can cause physical harm to animals that mistake them for food as they have been reported to accumulate toxic substances, including on their s...
27 July 2020
Multiple land use regression models (LUR) were developed for different air pollutants to characterize exposure, in the Durban metropolitan area, South Africa. Based on the European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects (ESCAPE) methodology, conc...
The unprecedented regional urbanization has brought great pressure on the ecological environment. Building an ecological security pattern and guide regional land and space development is an important technique to ensure regional ecological security a...
Within sustainability development paradigms, state governance is considered important in interventions to address risks produced by the industrial society. However, there is largely a lack of understanding, especially in the Global South, about the n...
Subsidized, decent, and durable housing is a persistent issue for South Africa’s urban areas. Social housing is one of the most important instruments for addressing the situation, yet structural barriers such as land prices, bureaucracy, and go...
The Global Virus Network (GVN) is a voluntary consortium of virology laboratories and affiliated scientists that seek to prevent and control global viral threats. The meetings of the GVN are characterized by academic, health center, government, and i...
The restoration of degraded forests to enhance biodiversity, ecosystem services, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation is now a major priority in cities around the world. This study evaluated the success of the Buffelsdraai Landfill Sit...
10 July 2015
Ayurvedic medicines have been gaining in popularity around the world in recent decades, but have also been associated with lead contamination and poisoning. In 2012 in Durban, South Africa, a lead poisoning outbreak among adolescents was associated w...
29 December 2022
Background: Research shows a growing attentiveness to the role of social and environmental influences on HIV risk behaviours. Moreover, the understanding of HIV risk behaviours has moved from an earlier consideration of individual risk, to ecological...
11 October 2022
Informal waste pickers in cities across the Global South divert significant amounts of tonnage from landfills. This diversion contributes towards a sustainable environment and better public health practices. Informal workers globally derive livelihoo...
This study investigated the living conditions of the eZakheleni informal settlement, Durban metropolis of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. The utilized data were collected with the use of a well-structured questionnaire through a multistage sampling of 2...
Conserving and restoring biodiversity is central to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The need to curb biodiversity loss through the mainstreaming of biodiversity considerations within land-use planning is consistently highlighted...
Urban rivers are regarded as unnatural because they drain catchments characterized by impervious surfaces. The present study explored macroinvertebrate communities in relation to water and habitat quality along the longitudinal gradient of an urban P...
Using educational data-mining (EDM) approaches, this study examines the evolution and efficacy of entrepreneurship education at Durban University of Technology (DUT) from 2010 to 2020. The student enrollment and performance data were analyzed using r...
Growing urban centres have been attracting ever higher numbers of rural migrants, including small-scale farmers, looking for better opportunities due to the rise of large-scale farming, loss of land and climate change. Consequently, there has been an...
The growing population in informal settlements expedites alterations in land use and land cover (LULC) over time. Understanding the patterns and processes of landscape transitions associated with informal settlement dynamics in rapidly urbanizing cit...
16 November 2023
Melasma is a common skin disorder of acquired hyperpigmentation that appears commonly on the face. Although asymptomatic, melasma causes psychosocial and emotional distress. This study aimed to assess melasma’s severity on people with darker sk...
30 August 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the mental health of individuals globally, and primary healthcare (PHC) nurses play a critical role in providing mental healthcare services. However, limited research has explored the experiences of P...
This research report investigated the impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on CO, SO2, and NO2 trends in Durban from 2019 to 2021. The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions proved to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally; however, the de...
Background/Objectives: Although children’s playgrounds foster physical, cognitive and emotional health, sandpits can harbour antibiotic-resistant bacteria, representing a health concern for kids. Therefore, this point prevalence study investiga...
12 February 2020
Waste management has become pertinent in urban regions, along with rapid population growth. The current ways of managing waste, such as refuse collection and recycling, are failing to minimise waste in cities. With urban populations growing worldwide...
Recent coastal storms in southern Africa have highlighted the need for more proactive management of the coastline. Within the southern and eastern African region the availability of coastal information is poor. The greatest gap in information is the...
Poor and inadequate sanitation systems have been considered not only a human health issue, but also an environmental threat that instigates climate change. Nine heavy metals—arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), iron (Fe), man...
Consumption of aphrodisiacs is a common practice in South Africa. Hence, determining the levels of trace metals as potential pollutants is necessary to protect consumers’ health. The current study reports a health risk assessment due to metals...
31 December 2025
Inadequate hygiene knowledge and poor sanitation practices remain key challenges to safe learning environments in South Africa, with 462 million learners attending schools without basic handwashing facilities and many schools failing to meet sanitati...
29 October 2022
South Africans consume a significantly high amount of sodium from salty snacks. The study aimed to evaluate savoury snacks (ready-to-eat savoury snacks, flavoured potato crisps and flavoured ready-to-eat, savoury snacks and potato crisps—salt a...
This article is based on field research in two South African host cities of the Men’s Football World Cup 2010 (eThekwini and Johannesburg). The discussed work is part of the research project “Festivalisation” of Urban Governance: The Production of So...
Extreme rainfall associated with mid-tropospheric cut-off low (COL) pressure systems affected the entire east coast of South Africa during April 2022, leading to flooding and destruction of homes, electricity power lines, and road infrastructure, and...
The prediction of out-of-sample values is an interesting problem in any regression model. In the context of penalized smoothing using a mixed-model reparameterization, a general framework has been proposed for predicting in additive models but withou...
Patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) may show mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The neurological functions affected remain unclear. The aims were to: (1) Characterize the neuropsychological alterations in NAFLD patients; (2) assess t...
Patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) may show mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The mechanisms involved remain unclear. The plasma concentrations of several cytokines and chemokines were measured in 71 NAFLD patients (20 with and 51...
This article introduces the R package pspatreg, which is publicly available for download from the Comprehensive R Archive Network, for estimating semiparametric spatial econometric penalized spline (P-Spline) models. These models can incorporate a no...
Cirrhotic patients may experience alterations in the peripheral nervous system and in somatosensory perception. Impairment of the somatosensory system could contribute to cognitive and motor alterations characteristic of minimal hepatic encephalopath...
Today’s world is becoming increasingly urbanised, with populations concentrated in cities. This trend underscores the need to monitor urban growth and its potential adverse effects. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the European Urba...
Diabetes is a very complex condition affecting millions of people around the world. Its occurrence, always accompanied by sustained hyperglycemia, leads to many medical complications that can be greatly mitigated when the disease is treated in its ea...
Bacterial respiration of nitrate is a natural process of nitrate reduction, which has been industrialized to treat anthropic nitrate pollution. This process, also known as “microbial denitrification”, is widely documented from the fundame...
Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is associated with changes in the immune system including an increased pro-inflammatory environment and altered differentiation of CD4+ T lymphocytes. The mechanisms remain unknown. Changes in extracellular vesicl...
Background and Objectives: Aspirin (ASA) is a commonly used antithrombotic drug that has been demonstrated to reduce venous thromboembolism. The aim was to analyze if geriatric COVID-19 patients undergoing a 100 mg/day Aspirin (ASA) treatment prior t...
Background: Anxiety is highly prevalent among individuals living with disability, chronic illness, or hospitalisation, yet it often remains insufficiently addressed in healthcare settings. Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) has been proposed as a compleme...
18 August 2015
In this study, we evaluated the impact of treated wastewater effluent from two wastewater treatment plants on the physicochemical parameters and Salmonella spp. load of receiving rivers. Presumptive Salmonella spp. were obtained at all sampled points...
21 September 2022
The South African traditional medicine sector is estimated to accommodate millions of citizens, despite it being informal. The existence of such a healthcare system embodies the dual system of both primary and traditional healthcare, with some prefer...
Power generation is becoming an increasing problem in South Africa. South Africa produces approximately 90% of its electricity from coal-fired power stations and only 5% from hydroelectric power stations and pumped storage. Durban has a very steep to...
10 February 2012
The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation in patients who were tested for HIV-infection and whether along with their HIV status, age and gender influenced their risk for suicidal ideation. The sample consisted of 189...
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