The Health Ministry has congratulated globally acclaimed bioinformatics scientist, Professor Tulio de Oliveira, on his continued recognition for his sterling genomic sequencing work that led to the discovery of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“Prof De Oliveira was praised by speaker after speaker at the World Health Summit currently underway in Berlin, Germany,” said the Health Ministry on Sunday.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, who led the country’s delegation to the 2022 summit, said the country is fortunate to have scientists like De Oliveira, whose work continues to break new ground and put the country on the map.
“We are so thrilled to have such globally recognised scientists like De Oliveira, whose great work helped our country and the World Health Organisation to detect new variants, and also understand their circulation to adapt our response strategies accordingly, and to anticipate the new waves,” said Dhlomo.
Dhlomo believes that the successful management of the pandemic in South Africa is attributed to strong collaboration between government, the scientific community, the private sector and other stakeholders.
The Deputy Minister also expressed his gratitude to another local scientist from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, Dr Natalie Mayet, for her great presentation that summarised the role and excellent work of Ministerial Advisory Committees during the peak of the pandemic.
The World Health Summit is a strategic forum for global health, which strengthens exchange and stimulates innovative solutions to health challenges. It also fosters global health as a key political issue and promotes the global health debate in the spirit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This year’s conference focuses on “making the choice for health” by reflecting on the most pressing topics.
These include investment in health and well-being, climate change and planetary health, architecture for pandemic preparedness, digital transformation for health and global health for peace.
On the sidelines of the summit on Monday, Dhlomo will deliver a presentation on sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing in Africa (towards the global procurement of African-manufactured medical products). – SAnews.gov.za
