Salim S. Abdool Karim, FRS, is a clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist widely recognized for scientific contributions in HIV and Covid-19. He is the Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), Durban, and CAPRISA Professor of Global Health at Columbia University, New York. He serves as the Special Advisor on pandemics to the Director-General of the World Health Organisation.

He is an Adjunct Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard University, Boston, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Cornell University, New York, and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. He previously served as President of the South African Medical Research Council and Chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19. He is the Chair of the Africa CDC’s Emergency Consultative Group on continental epidemics.

In addition to his more than 500 peer-reviewed journal publications, he is co-editor of textbooks on epidemiology (Oxford), HIV/AIDS (Cambridge) and clinical trials (Springer). He is the author of “Standing up for Science: A Voice of Reason” (Pan MacMillan). He serves on the Boards of the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Global Health and Lancet HIV. He is a member of the WHO Science Council. He is a Vice-President of the International Science Council. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians.

His awards include the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award, Canada’s Gairdner Global Health Award, Japan’s Hideyo Noguchi Prize, Royal Society’s Michael Faraday Prize and the African Union’s “Kwame Nkrumah Award”, the continent’s most prestigious scientific award.

He is a Fellow of The World Academy of Science, African Academy of Sciences, Academy of Science in South Africa and the American Academy of Microbiology.

He is member of the US National Academy of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).