A new research centre for the purpose of studying infectious diseases was opened last week by the University of Capetown (UCT) and the Medical Research Council of South Africa (MRC). An MRC spokesman described the new centre and a similar medical imaging centre which it recently helped found at UCT as "the incubators of our future scientists and researchers".

The new Infectious Diseases Research Unit will study such illnesses as tuberculosis, sleeping sickness and helminth (worm) infections, all of which are identified by the World Health Organisation in it list of 10 most serious diseases.