Both Madhi and Prof Barry Schoub are the annual recipients of gold medals for outstanding achievement in scientific thinking to the benefit of society at the ASSAf’s annual awards ceremony held recently.
Madhi is the dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (Wits VIDA).
Most recently, Madhi has been at the forefront of the fight against Covid-19 and has led the first two Covid-19 vaccine studies undertaken in Africa.
He has also been involved in multiple epidemiological studies on Covid-19 in South Africa and through various forms of media.
Schoub was director of the National Institute of Virology and created the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in 2002.
The founding chair of the National Advisory Group on Immunisation of South Africa, Schoub served as initial chair of the Polio Expert Committee and led the scientific Board of the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation.
Schoub is currently the chair of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 vaccines that is guiding South Africa’s vaccination programme.
The South African Medical Association (SAMA) has congratulated them, saying that the recognition to the two professors is not only well deserved, but also important because of the enormous value each of them have added to the fight against Covid-19.
