An accomplished Durban-based researcher has joined the board of trustees at health and development organisation Population Council.
The Council announced clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist and director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South African (CAPRISA) Professor Salim Abdool Karim’s appointment in a statement this month.
“(Abdool) Karim’s contributions to the global AIDS response spans over three decades – he is widely recognized for his research to prevent HIV infection in women in Africa.”
They said that he and his team were the first to demonstrate that antiretrovirals can prevent sexual transmission of HIV through the CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial, the results of which were presented at the Vienna AIDS Conference in 2010.
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“(They) also demonstrated that tenofovir gel can prevent genital herpes‚ this was the first drug shown to be effective against the herpes simplex type-2 virus. He is co-inventor on patents which have been used in several HIV vaccine candidates and his clinical research on TB-HIV treatment has shaped international guidelines on the clinical management of co-infected patients.”
The New York-based organisation aims to confront critical health and development issues—from stopping the spread of HIV to improving reproductive health.
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In October 2017, Abdool Karim and his wife, Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim, associate scientific director of CAPRISA, received the Institute for Human Virology (IHV) Lifetime Achievement Award for exceptional public service for their contributions to the global Aids response.
“Currently the Chair of the UNAIDS Scientific Expert Panel and the World Health Organization’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee on HIV and Hepatitis, Abdool Karim also serves on the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Scientific Advisory Board and the World Health Organisation’s HIV-TB Task Force. (He) also sits on the Population Council’s Microbicides Advisory Board.”