Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2003. / This study investigated the perceptions of high school learners about HTV7AIDS preventive strategies. The study reveals that the age of the learner, their gender, grade level, and the school they attend influences their perceptions. The study also reveals that the learners hold positive perceptions about abstaining from sex, delaying sex until marriage as well as knowing the HIV/AIDS status of potential partners as of paramount importance while those who do not hold positive perceptions about abstinence hold positive perception about practicing safe sex. The study reveals that there was no relationship between religion and the acceptance of circumcision as a cultural practice through which infection could be avoided; but racial grouping and age greatly influence the acceptance of this alternative strategy.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfilment requirement for the Degree of Master of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2001. / This study investigated the attitudes of teachers towards sexuality "and HIV/AIDS education in Mthatha schools. The objectives were threefold. First, the study intended to determine the attitudes of educators towards the inclusion of sexuality education. Second, it investigated whether the attitude of educators has an impact on their teaching of sexuality education. Third, it wanted to determine if there are gender-related differences in the attitudes of educators towards the inclusion of sexuality education in the curriculum. A purposive sampling method was used and 56 (27 female and 29 male) Mthatha teachers were selected. Permission to conduct the research was requested and obtained from the District Director of the Department of Education in Mthatha. A questionnaire was used to collect data. It was delivered to the targeted respondents together with a request and short briefing about the study. The researcher also provided them with information to ensure that ethical guidelines were followed. The questionnaires were collected after a week for some and two weeks for others. With the help of a statistician the analysis was made. The cases showed mixed feelings and inconsistencies on certain issues, but were generally supportive of the idea of teaching sexuality and related aspects in schools. That is, teachers held positive attitudes. However, while females seemed to have assumed that good courses would be delivered when introduced, men provided a critique based on past experience. The males were concerned that past development programmes did not live up to expectations, they were ineffective but expensive, and did not contain the relevant topics. They suggested that any HIV and AIDS and sexuality education programmes developed should be conducted with more purpose and should be effective.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MASTER OF EDUCATION (EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY) UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 2007. / This study investigates the perceptions of South African Police Service officials towards HIV/AIDS at Mthatha Central Accounting Police Station towards HIV/AIDS. Selection of the respondents was done through stratified random sampling. Data was obtained from a sample of 115 police officials. These officials were of different ranks from the level of Constable up to that of the Director of the South African Police Service. Male respondents were in the majority, and Grade 12 was the dominant highest qualification amongst the police officials. The main research instrument was a questionnaire. The questionnaire had three sections: the first was compiling profile, the second poses closed-ended questions generally requiring "yes/no" responses, and the third asks open-ended questions requiring perceptions about HIV/AIDS. Collection of data was done through semi-structured interview schedule. Data were analysed using Excel where tables and graphs were used for closed-ended questions, while themes were formed in the analysis of open-ended questions. The findings of the study revealed that the police officials had different impressions about HIV/AIDS Furthermore, police officials indicated that they would treat cases of HIV/AIDS differently and generally believe that condoms are not reliable

The purpose of this study is to compare the Fonix Type 5000 Hearing Aid Test Set to the B&K system by testing the same hearing aids with both systems in order to determine whether there are any important differences between the measurements obtained using the two systems. Frequency response has been chosen as the measure on which the comparisons will be made.

Student Number : 0318625T - MSc dissertation - School of Molecular and Cell Biology - Faculty of Science / Genetic variation in haptoglobin, a plasma protein, has been reported to be associated with susceptibility to and the rate of HIV/AIDS progression. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of haptoglobin polymorphism on HIV/AIDS in black South Africans. Polymorphism in the coding region of the haptoglobin gene was detected by direct DNA and allele-specific amplification. Polymorphism in the coding region of the gene was detected by amplification of DNA and by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of plasma protein. A statistically significant association was observed between allele -61C and resistance to HIV infection. The Hp0 phenotype, in which no haptoglobin protein is detected, was associated with HIV status and some promoter genotypes. Since in our study population there were a few samples with usable clinical data , further investigations need to be done to confirm the association of the -61C allele and the Hp0 phenotype with the risk of HIV infection.

A thesis submitted to the School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2016 / Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) infects approximately two million people annually, highlighting the need for a preventative vaccine. An effective HIV-1 vaccine will likely need to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), which arise naturally in some infected individuals and recognize the envelopes (Env) of multiple HIV-1 strains. Understanding the molecular events that contribute to bNAb development during infection may provide a blueprint for vaccine strategies. Here we investigated the development of a V1V2-directed bNAb lineage in the context of viral co-evolution in an HIV-1 superinfected participant (CAP256). For this, clonally-related monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), with a range of neutralization breadth, were isolated. We determined their developmental pathway from strain-specificity towards neutralization breadth and identified viral variants responsible for initiating and maturing this bNAb lineage. MAbs were isolated by memory B cell culture or trimer-specific single B cell sorting and extensively characterized by Env-pseudotyped neutralization, cell surface-expressed Env binding, electron microscopy and epitope-predictive algorithms. Antibody next-generation sequencing (NGS) at multiple time-points enabled the inference of the unmutated common ancestor (UCA) of this lineage. Viral co-evolution was investigated using Env single genome amplification and V1V2 NGS. A family of 33 clonally-related mAbs, CAP256-VRC26.01-33, was isolated from samples spanning four years of infection. The UCA of this lineage possessed an unusually long heavy chain complementarity determining region 3 (CDRH3), which resulted from a unique recombination event. Surprisingly, this UCA potently neutralized later viral variants that had evolved from the superinfecting virus, which we termed bNAb-initiating Envs. Viral diversification, which peaked prior to the development of neutralization breadth, created multiple immunotypes at key residues in the V1V2 epitope. Exposure to these immunotypes allowed adaptation of some mAbs to tolerate this variation and thus mature towards neutralization breadth. Based on these data, we proposed a four-step immunization strategy which includes priming with bNAb-initiating Envs to engage rare B cells with a long CDRH3; followed by three sequential boosts (including select V1V2 immunotypes) to drive antibody maturation. In conclusion, this study has generated a testable HIV-1 vaccine immunization strategy through the delineation of mAb-virus co-evolution during the development of neutralization breadth. / MT2017

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