CAPRISA director praises SA science progress
South Africa has made significant strides in science over the past decade, CAPRISA director, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, told the country's inaugural science forum held in Pretoria. In his keynote lecture for the Science Forum South Africa, held at the CSIR International Convention Centre, Abdool Karim highlighted the challenges that remain in HIV and AIDS research—in order turn the epidemic around. Each day, he said, 1000 people in South Africa become infected with HIV. Science has been a vital component in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
He presented encouraging data showcasing South Africa’s scientific progress over the past ten years. For instance, he said, the number of black Africans graduating with a PhD in the country has more than tripled since 2004. In 2013, black graduates outnumbered their white counterparts for the first time.
The number of publications in internationally-indexed journals produced by South African researchers has also seen a healthy growth in the last decade, he said. So has the country's share of world publications: From around 0.5% in 2004 to just under 0.8% in 2013.
And in HIV research, around half of the research papers published on HIV globally in 2012 had contributors from South Africa.