With apartheid having left an imprint of spatial fragmentation in the South African urban and rural landscape, there is a major challenge in most places in South Africa to create integrated systems of local governance. Achieving integration of the remnants of selfgoverning territories, independent homelands, old provincial administrations and tricameral structures, is very difficult. The new political dispensation has raised the aspirations and expectations of both the rural and urban areas but more especially poor rural dwellers. Transitional Local Councils, appointed in 1995, inherited the task of integration and service delivery. This was to be achieved, in part, through the fannulation of an Integrated Development Plan for each TLC. This study examines local governance and development planning in the Transitional Local Council area of Greater Louis Trichardt in the Northern Province. The study provides a background to the history of urban planning and changing urban space in South Africa and in Louis Trichardt in particular. Structuration theory, Local Economic Development theory and literature on public participation and local governance, were used to raise questions about the planning and delivery of development in Louis Trichardt. These questions were then answered through an intensive and extensive research process in which both the residents of the TLC area, and the members of the TLC structures, were interviewed about their perceptions. The study found that there are still major constraints to the achievement of effective development, integration and service delivery in the Greater Louis Trichardt Transitional Local Council area. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

Migrant women are often omitted within the migrant discourse/research, with that in mind, the research study brings to the fore migrant women's experiences when accessing public health care services within underdeveloped communities. The study explored Zimbabwean migrant women's experiences in accessing public health care services in Makhado, a small town based in Limpopo, South Africa which has only two public health care services namely, Louis Trichardt Memorial Hospital and Louis Trichardt clinic. To conduct this study, ethical clearance was obtained in November 2018 from the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town. The qualitative research method was adopted in collecting the data. The study conducted in-depth interviews with five Zimbabwean migrant women who had made use of the two public health care services in Makhado. Field notes, diary entry, an impromptu focus group were used to collect the study data. The sample for the study was purposively selected. The study worked with a total of twelve participants, in-depth interviews with five Zimbabwean women, and a focus group with seven health care workers. The collected data was manually transcribed and was analyzed using the framework analysis. Main themes and sub-themes were extracted from the transcribed interview scripts. The study revealed that migrants accessing the two hospitals in Makhado faced challenges such as language barriers, discrimination, and adverse health personnel attitudes based on the patient's citizenship status. Furthermore, the challenges that nurses are faced within their workplace, which include lack of resources, absenteeism, long working hours and overcrowded public health care services within their workplace contributed towards their negative attitude in assisting patients. As a result, migrants bore the challenges faced by the nurses within the public health care services. Therefore, the migrants reverted to having other alternatives such as traditional healers, churches, connections with nurses working in the hospitals, private hospitals and over the counter medication. However, participants underscored that in order for betterment within the public health care services, the following measures ought to be implemented, these include the introduction of independent centres, an increase of mobile clinics, increased number of interpreters, better working environment for the health personnel within the public health care facilities and intensive education training of the health personnel around the awareness migrant issues when accessing public health care services. Foucault's (1980) theory on power and knowledge, played a significant role in understanding the operational systems of public health care services. It also assisted in understanding how public health care services function, to exclude and control migrant patients, through the introduction of fees and required documentation to access public health care services.

Rotavirus infection causes acute gastroenteritis in children younger than five years of age, and commonly occurring human rotavirus strains include G1 - G4 and G9 associated with P[4], P[6] and P[8]. In this study, of 6050 stool samples collected from a Private Pathology Practice in Pretoria, March 2010 - August 2011, 664 tested positive using Coris test-strips. Of these samples, 752 were retested using EIA and, results showed: Coris sensitivity was 93,7% and specificity 99,8%; the winter epidemic peaked in July of both years; more males and children under 30 months of age were particularly vulnerable to infections. Rotavirus-positive samples from Trichardt, Rustenburg and Middelburg were analysed by PAGE and RT-PCR showing circulating strains as mainly G8P[4] (60%) with short electropherotypes, G12P[8] (66%) with long electropherotypes, and G1P[8] at low incidence in the 2010/2011 seasons. These results suggest additional research to monitor the impacts of recently introduced rotavirus vaccines on changing strain profiles in South African communities / Life & Consumer Sciences / M.Sc. (Life Sciences)

Rotavirus infection causes acute gastroenteritis in children younger than five years of age, and commonly occurring human rotavirus strains include G1 - G4 and G9 associated with P[4], P[6] and P[8]. In this study, of 6050 stool samples collected from a Private Pathology Practice in Pretoria, March 2010 - August 2011, 664 tested positive using Coris test-strips. Of these samples, 752 were retested using EIA and, results showed: Coris sensitivity was 93,7% and specificity 99,8%; the winter epidemic peaked in July of both years; more males and children under 30 months of age were particularly vulnerable to infections. Rotavirus-positive samples from Trichardt, Rustenburg and Middelburg were analysed by PAGE and RT-PCR showing circulating strains as mainly G8P[4] (60%) with short electropherotypes, G12P[8] (66%) with long electropherotypes, and G1P[8] at low incidence in the 2010/2011 seasons. These results suggest additional research to monitor the impacts of recently introduced rotavirus vaccines on changing strain profiles in South African communities / Life and Consumer Sciences / M.Sc. (Life Sciences)