MUSA’s extensive national and international collaborative networks are of prime importance in facilitating its access to different practice-related data and facilities and significantly improved the quality of our research outputs.

National research partners and collaboration

• Mediscor PBM (Pty) Ltd is a pharmaceutical benefit management company that, for the last 18 years, has provided MUSA (formerly the subject group, Pharmacy Practice) with medicine claims data for drug utilisation, epidemiological, pharmacoepidemiological, and pharmaceutical cost analyses.

• The long-standing collaboration with the SAPC has led to the implementation of an extensive research and community engagement project consisting of four sub-projects with the primary aim of improving the equitable provision of pharmaceutical services in South Africa (2019-2025).
• Prof J.R. Burger and Dr J.M. du Plessis collaborated with the Department of Surgery at Potchefstroom Hospital on a breast cancer research project during 2019-2021, which led to the publication of two articles.
• The current research partnership involves various university researchers, namely NWU’s Prof N.V. Motaze, Prof N. du Plessis, and Prof T. Avenant of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Pretoria (UP), and the Kalafong Provincial Tertiary Hospital, respectively. Additionally, it includes Dr A.H. Mazanderani of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health of the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, and the National Health Laboratory Service in Johannesburg. This collaboration has resulted in a study focusing on Hepatitis A virus seroprevalence among children and adolescents in a high-burden HIV setting in urban South Africa.
• Prof N.V. Motaze is investigating the adjusting rubella immunoglobulin G titres in South Africa in a research group consisting of Prof J. Dushoff (MacMaster University, SA), Prof J. Pulliam (Director of SACEMA and Professor of Applied Mathematics, South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis, Stellenbosch University (US) and Dr M. Suchard (School of Pathology, WITS).
• Prof Motaze also collaborated with Prof P. Nyasulu (Department of Global Health, US) to investigate the epidemiology of ESKAPE pathogens and Clostridioides in patients with COVID-19 who were admitted at a tertiary hospital in Gauteng province, South Africa. Other researchers include Ms V. Ngah (US) and Ms R. Mapuroma (WITS).
• From 2014 to 2022, MUSA cooperated with other Pharmacy Schools in the SADC region in the postgraduate training of personnel of Pharmacy Schools (e.g., the National University of Lesotho, University of Botswana, and the University of Eswatini).

International research partners and collaboration

• On an international level, Prof J.R. Burger, Dr R. Joubert, Mrs A Naudé, Prof M.S. Lubbe collaborate with various international researchers from Sweden, Brazil, Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Hungary and the US to investigate the challenges facing drug utilisation research in the Latin American and African regions (refer to Annexure A, section 11 and 14).
• On the international level, Prof N.V. Motaze collaborates with researchers of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr P. Relan, Dr O. le Polain, and Dr B. Kumar of the George Institute for Global Health, New Delhi, India, to investigate the severity of the Omicron variant compared to Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus.
• Prof N.V. Motaze collaborates with Prof H. Fomundam (Howard University, USA and Public Health Palliative Care Institute [PHPCI], SA), Mr H. Nyambi (PHPCI, SA), and Prof F. Hyera (Walter Sisulu University, SA) to investigate the impact of Long Covid in the specific context of South Africa’s mining sector.
• Prof N.V. Motaze is working as part of a team of researchers from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (Dr L. Kuonza and Mrs H. Mdose), the WHO (Ms C. Tshabane) investigating the shedding time in laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Africa.