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DUT SIGNS DATA SHARING AGREEMENT WITH OXFORD UNIVERSITY

DUT SIGNS DATA SHARING AGREEMENT WITH OXFORD UNIVERSITY

To gain access to global clinical data for research purposes, a proposal was submitted by Dr Delene Heukelman on behalf of the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), to a COVID-19 Data Platform, based at University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Dr Heukelman who is an Honorary Research Associate, Information Technology, Faculty Office-Accounting and Informatics, comes from a faculty that is always breaking new boundaries with its impressive research output.

Dr Heukelman along with her son, Dr Cobus Heukelman, a Medical Officer at the Brackengate Intermediate Care Facility in Cape Town, are in charge of this Data Sharing Agreement with the University of Oxford, on behalf of DUT.

She explained that the COVID-19 Data Platform is a global data sharing initiative, with partners all over the world, including South Africa, for submission of clinical data to the platform, which aims to reduce the impact of COVID-19 through rapid access and responsible reuse of clinical data.

“The Platform is led and administered by the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO, www.iddo.org) and the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infections Consortium (ISARIC, www.isaric.org) which provides a collaborative platform through which global, patient‐oriented clinical studies can be developed, executed and shared,” she stressed.

She conveyed that the research proposal was reviewed and approved by the Data Access Committee, an independent group of experts appointed to review and make decisions regarding applications for access to data stored on the Platform by researchers and institutions such as DUT.

Dr Heukelman indicated that the Data Share agreement was signed by Prof Oludayo O. Olugbara from the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics and the Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, with the aim to form a partnership, going forward.

She further mentioned that the clinical patient data requested were on age, admission date, body mass index, cardiac pacing, comorbidities, coronavirus test result, high flow oxygen nasal cannula, heart rate oxygen saturation, pulse rate, respiratory rate, supportive care, signs and symptoms, temperature, weight, white blood cell (Wbc) count and blood pressure.

She conveyed that access to the requested data was given on 21 July 2022. She further added that access to this clinical data allows the researchers to use data science methods (e.g. principal component analysis data science method, SVM, RF, LR, Deep Learning or Ensemble Learning) to analyse the data with the aim of identifying a particular set of clinical characteristics to enable the prediction and early identification of patients to be hospitalised, to an acceptable level of accuracy, by reducing the number of clinical characteristics used.

“The reduced set of clinical characteristics will be compared to what is currently measurable by wearable technology. Should the current wearable technology be able to predict the need for hospitalisation of infected patients to a reasonable degree of accuracy, it could greatly reduce the burden on medical facilities and prevent patients from waiting too long before seeking hospital admission,” she said.

Speaking more on this partnership, Prof Olugbara said:I sincerely appreciate the effort of Dr Heukelman in initiating the data access engagement with Oxford University in the United Kingdom. The opportunity created by this timely engagement will allow researchers within the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics and the University at large to extend their scope of research.”

He further commented that the data access will support the development of efficient and reliable analytics around the coronavirus pandemic that may be extended to further outbreaks.

“Access to such valid and reliable data will encourage transdisciplinary research that would help resolve important social issues affecting humankind. The faculty will take advantage of what comes with such a dataset to conduct high-quality research and publish the results in high-impact open-access journals as demanded by the agreement.,” he said.

Pictured: Dr Delene Heukelman along with her son, Dr Cobus Heukelman, who are at the forefront of the project, on behalf of the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics at the Durban University of Technology (DUT).

Waheeda Peters

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