Rochelle Van der Merwe

Rochelle Van der Merwe

South African Society of Travel Medicine, South Africa



Biography

Rochelle is a registered medical practitioner, completed her studies in 2010 at the University of Pretoria. She finished her Diploma in Emergency Medicine in 2017 along with her certificate in Travel Medicine in 2016. She accomplished her dispensing license and have been updated with ATLS, ACLS and PALS in South Africa. She works for one of the busiest, private hospital, Emergency departments in South Africa seeing a multitude of trauma and medical emergencies. She is interested in Family and Travel Medicine practice affiliated with the ED with a special interest in Aesthetic Medicine. She is currently serving on the executive board for the Society of Travel Medicine in South Africa working closely with the NICD with all infectious disease monitoring in SA and submitting interesting case studies to Federation of Infectious Diseases in SA (FIDSSA) on behalf of SASTM

Abstract

Listeriosis is the new and deadly disease emerging after years of being the quiet one sitting in the corner while HIV and Malaria caused havoc and massive outbreaks and mortality rates sky rocketing. Our population is well informed and up to date on most of the diseases and as soon as listeria was mentioned in the same sentence as processed foods, we created mass hysteria in all the emergency departments with worried patients, ill-informed patients and really sick patients, with very little knowledge about listeria. I want to discuss the pathogenicity as a re-emerging disease we have not heard from in a long time with very little information regarding pandemic and epidemics. Being in the midst of the hysteria, I think giving an inside view and up close, first-hand experience on what happened as soon as the outbreak was confirmed leading up to the massive explosion of patients literally running to ED after the source was confirmed as one of our leading manufacturers and producers of processed meat. We have had around 180 deaths in SA due to Listeria especially in the age groups of the very young, elderly, pregnant and immunosuppressed patients. The biggest factor leading to the outbreak initially was that we were not looking for it as we were so focused on Malaria as leading cause of fever and confusion etc. at the time of the outbreak and NICD confirmed that Malaria deaths doubled in 2017 vs. 2016. Listeriosis was monitored and regarded as a minor infection, but, while everyone was focused on travel history, Listeria was silently killing dozens. I would like to include the basic information as to what, where and how as the simple things were missed while we were looking for complicated illnesses