Inside Education Reporter
Leading TB expert and eminent research scientist Professor Kogie Naidoo has been elected as a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society in South Africa for her seminal research over three decades in TB-HIV co-infection and multidrug-resistant TB.
Naidoo is among South Africa’s highly accomplished medical scientists playing a leading role in tuberculosis research, the leading cause of death in people living with HIV (PLWH) and has made significant contributions to the global understanding of TB-HIV treatment integration.
The Royal Society of South Africa, a “learned society composed of eminent South African scientists and academics,” announced last week, following “rigorous consideration by the Society’s Adjudication Committee” and approval by the Council and current RSSAf Fellows.
Naidoo, the Deputy Director and leads the HIV-TB treatment programme at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of South Africa (CAPRISA), said she was “honoured and deeply humbled by the recognition.”
“My passion is to save lives through medical research and change the lives of vulnerable, marginalised populations most affected by tuberculosis, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and HIV.”
Born in Durban, she obtained her MBChB and PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she is an honorary associate Professor in the College of Health Sciences and was among the first to implement public antiretroviral therapy (ART) services for people living with HIV over 25 years ago.
Her research with her colleagues showed that starting antiretroviral treatment (ART) simultaneously with tuberculosis treatment resulted in a 56% lower death rate, saving the lives of patients with HIV-TB co-infection. This work led to the WHO advising that co-treatment would now be the standard of care for people with HIV and TB.
“Her research has shaped the development of international clinical guidelines and algorithms used in managing TB-HIV co-infection,” said Professor Salim Abdool Karim, Director of CAPRISA.
“She leads several CAPRISA studies across multiple research sites to optimise innovative treatment strategies to reduce deaths in patients further co-infected with TB-HIV and HIV patients with drug-resistant TB.”
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