id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cord-024081-19wk56an	Kalla, Ismail S.	COVID-19: The Concept of Herd Immunity – Is It A Strategy for South Africa?	2020-04-17		.txt	text/plain	1759	102	56	The current outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in January 2020, while the United Nations has described this pandemic as the worst crisis that humanity has faced since the World War II.(1) Our President declared a state of disaster in South Africa on 26 March 2020, enforcing a military-supported national lockdown. The concept of herd immunity was introduced with the widespread use of vaccines to protect against common, but severely debilitating illnesses, such as smallpox and polio, which are spread by human contact and for which humans, are a major reservoir of these viruses. Using mathematical modelling, they postulated a strategy with the aim of achieving herd immunity by allowing the disease to run rampant through their population. However, there are preliminary reports that countries with the widespread use of the BCG vaccine seem to have a lower morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, thus potentially protecting our population.	./cache/cord-024081-19wk56an.txt	./txt/cord-024081-19wk56an.txt