S. Mehtar

About: Stellenbosch University is recognized as one of the four top research universities in South Africa. It takes pride in the fact that it has one of the country’s highest proportions of postgraduate students of which almost ten percent are international students. Since its beginning in 1866 when it first opened its doors with about 500 students and 39 lecturers, the University has grown into an internationally recognized institution with more than 23 000 students, 800 lecturers and some 50 research and service bodies. According to Prof. Jimmy Volmink, Research Director at the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), "its research vision is to be recognized as an indispensable leader in the field of health sciences in Africa and for the contribution it makes internationally." GHDonline Member Patrick McVay adds that “during the past year considerable progress has been made towards realizing this vision. The trend in the number of journal articles, books or book chapters produced by the FHS staff in recent years has been consistently upwards. During 2007, members of the Faculty published cutting edge research in a number of high priority areas which has already had an impact on health policy and practice locally, as well as globally. Examples include work on the molecular mechanisms of XDR-TB, methods for detecting drug-resistant HIV strains, the use of antiretroviral therapy in infants and the incidence of disseminated BCG disease in HIV infected infants, to name only a few.”