We, at Cochrane South Africa, are extremely proud and congratulate Prof Jimmy Volmink, the founding Director of the South African Cochrane Centre who was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ku Leuven University for his devotion to evidence-based medicine. To learn more about why he is called the 'father of evidence-based medicine in Africa' and his strong devotion to Cochrane click here

The South African Medical Research Council will be represented by Charles Wiysonge, who has been appointed to the GloPID-R Board.

What is the best way to support resilience and mental well-being in frontline healthcare professionals during and after a pandemic? What' is resilience? Working as a 'frontline' health or social care professional during a global disease pandemic, like COVID-19 can be very stressful. Over time, the negative effects of stress can lead to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, which, in turn, may affect work, family and other social relationships.

Cochrane's work must be relevant for the healthcare needs of all countries and populationsAn Interview with Tamara Kredo on her appointment to the Cochrane Governing Board

Dr Olabisi Oduwole has been announced as the 2020 winner of the prestigious Aubrey Sheiham Leadership for Evidence-Based Healthcare in Africa Award by Cochrane. The award is managed by Cochrane South Africa (SA) and presented annually to an African researcher to support the conduct of a Cochrane Review focusing on a priority topic with impact on the health of people living in low- and middle-income countries.

The Centre for Evidence-based Health Care, Stellenbosch University is offering a eight week online short course to provide participants with the understanding of the principles to conduct and interpret qualitative systematic reviews. For more information click here

Duduzile Ndwandwe has published 31 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact factor journals and is the team lead for clinical trial registration and vaccine implementation research projects at Cochrane South Africa, where she shares her vaccinology expertise with colleagues. 

Cochrane is in the final year of its seven-year strategic plan, Strategy to 2020. You can watch the first in a new video series looking back over the last seven years and forward to the challenges and opportunities that remain for Cochrane on the Community website.

Cochrane systematic reviews can help us to make healthcare decisions based on up-to-date research evidence. Each systematic review answers a specific healthcare question by gathering all the relevant studies, assessing the reliability of these studies, then summarising their results to produce a summary of all the available evidence.One type of systematic review is a diagnostic test accuracy (DTA) review.

The authors looked at the effect of community-level interventions to improve access to nutritious food in low- and middle income countries on people, households and communities.