Dr Nicole Wolter
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Nicole Wolter is a Senior Medical Scientist in the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), and holds a joint appointment as a Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand. She received her PhD in 2007 from the University of the Witwatersrand.
In her position at the NICD, she leads a team of scientists in research focused on the epidemiology and molecular biology of respiratory bacteria. She is integrally involved in research programmes such as national surveillance for pneumonia, invasive bacterial infections causing pneumonia, and serves as the laboratory lead for Legionella. She has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers.
Dr Jocelyn Moyes
Jocelyn Moyes is a medical epidemiologist in the Centre for Respiratory Disease and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa. She qualified as a medical doctor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She also obtained a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and a MSc (Med) in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of the Witwatersrand. In her position at the NICD she is actively involved in setting up and managing various surveillance programmes, including a surveillance national programme for pneumonia. In addition she has been involved in a number of research projects nested in the surveillance programme including working on the specific risk factors for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in a high HIV prevalence setting. She has been actively involved in international groups including the RSV Global Epidemiology Network network to estimate RSV burden globally and the World Health Organisation working group to set up global surveillance for RSV.
She has a joint appointment as a lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersand and has co-supervised Msc Students in the field of epidemiology. She has published a number peer-reviewed papers.
Dr Sarona Lengana
Sarona Lengana is a medical officer in the epidemiology unit of the Centre for Respiratory Disease and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa. She qualified as a medical doctor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She obtained a postgraduate diploma in HIV management from the College of Medicine of South Africa. In her position at the NICD she helps to plan, execute and monitor different CRDM surveillance programmes and related projects that help guide policy with regards to the control and management of respiratory and meningeal diseases. She trains nurse surveillance officers across multiple sites around the country on procedures and data collection related to different surveillance and research studies. Key projects that she has worked on include routine pneumonia and meningitis surveillance programmes, a pneumococcal case-control study, a maternal influenza vaccination study and an infant burden study.
Cheryl Cohen is Associate Professor in epidemiology at the University of the Witwatersrand and co-head of the Centre for Respiratory Disease and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa. She qualified as a medical doctor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and is a Fellow of the College of Pathologists of South Africa in the discipline of Microbiology. She obtained an MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom and a Phd from the University of the Witwatersrand. In her position at the NICD she works closely with the South African Department of Health to generate evidence to guide policy with regard to the control and management of respiratory diseases. She led the establishment of a national surveillance programme for severe acute respiratory infections in South Africa in 2009 and is the epidemiology lead for national surveillance for pneumonia and invasive bacterial infections causing pneumonia. She heads up a team with an active research agenda in the field of respiratory diseases with a focus on burden of disease and risk groups for severe illness, as well as assesment of the impact and effectiveness of interventions to reduce respiratory disease burden. She is a member of several national advisory committees as well as several international World Health Organisation working groups mainly related to influenza and other respiratory viruses. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers.
Florette Treurnicht has a background as a medical scientist in the field of medical virology and has acquired experience in various classical and molecular diagnostic techniques for virus detection and characterization through over the years working and training in diagnostic and research laboratories in South Africa and abroad. Since obtaining her PhD degree in 2010 she had been working as a medical scientist at the NICD focussing on diagnosis and charcterisation of influenza A and B viruses as well as other respiratory viruses in cases recruited through the national influenza-like illness and pneumonia surveillance programs. She also completed a management programme in 2011, actively participates in compiling research proposals and operational budgets and currently manages the Virology laboratory within the Centre for Respiratory Disease and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa and is the Director for the WHO designated National Influenza Centre. In this position she works closely with the stakeholders from the National Department of Health and the WHO Collaborating Centres on monitoring of the emergence of novel,emerging or resistant influenza virus strains as well as emergence of other highly pathogenic respiratory viruses of zoonotic origin. Current focus is to establish a sustainable surveillance system at the animal-human interface to monitor potential transmission events of avian/swine influenza viruses to humans in South Africa. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers and assisted with training/mentoring of several students and scientists.
Anne von Gottberg is currently co-head of the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa and Associate Professor within the School of Pathology, Faculty of the Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; and Honorary Professor, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town. She leads a laboratory team responsible for reference diagnostics for respiratory and meningeal pathogens nationally and regionally. Her laboratory is the regional reference laboratory for the World Health Organization (WHO) Vaccine-preventable Invasive Bacterial Diseases (VP-IBD) Coordinated Global Surveillance Network for the southern African region. Her main interests include surveillance for meningitis and respiratory pathogens and improving vaccine uptake. She has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals, the majority of them on issues around pneumococcal and meningococcal disease and immunisation. In addition, she supervises a number of Masters and PhD students. Dr von Gottberg obtained her MBBCh and PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand, and trained for her specialisation in clinical microbiology (FC Path[SA] MICRO) at the National Health Laboratory Service (former South African Institute for Medical Research) and at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Mignon du Plessis is a medical scientist in the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa, and holds a joint appointment as lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She has a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand. In her position she manages the molecular laboratory which includes the detection and characterisation of bacterial respiratory pathogens for surveillance, diagnostics and research. Her research interests include the molecular epidemiology of bacterial respiratory pathogens and exploring new molecular diagnostics. She is actively involved in the teaching and training of postgraduate students and serves on the Medical Science Committee of the Medical and Dental Board of the Health Professions Council of South Africa.
Sibongile Walaza is a medical doctor with a post graduate degree in Epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Witwatersrand. She is currently employed as a medical epidemiologist for the Centre for Respiratory Disease and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa. In this position she is responsible for the implementation of the surveillance programmes within the centre, in particular she has been responsible for developing the protocols for the expanded surveillance for severe respiratory illness and the pneumonia surveillance, training of the surveillance teams and implementation of the protocols. In addition she is the principal investigator in the protocol for surveillance for hospital acquired respiratory infections in South Africa. In her position as an epidemiologist she interacts closely with different stake holders including site investigators, infection control practitioners and Department of Health. She has a joint appointment as a lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersand and has co-supervised Msc Students in the field of epidemiology. She has published a number peer-reviewed papers..jpg)
Ziyaad Valley-Omar is an academic staff member in the division of Medical Virology at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and a medical scientist in Centre for Respiratory Disease and Meningitis (CRDM) at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa. He received a Ph.D in Molecular Biology from UCT specialising in the field of molecular virology. Subsequently doing Post-doctoral research in the field of HIV diversity (phylogeny) in the UCT Division of Medical Virology. He joined the NICD-CRDM in 2011 as a medical scientist and manages a satellite NICD-CRDM laboratory based at the UCT Department of Pathology charged with the Pneumonia and Viral Watch surveillance programs in the Western Cape.