Professor Shaheen Mehtar

Professor Shaheen Mehtar is an Emeritus Professor at the Unit for Infection Prevention and Control (UIPC), Faculty of Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University. She trained in the UK in Medical Microbiology, Infectious Disease and Community Health and was Head of Microbiology at the North Middlesex Hospital & Senior Lecturer at Royal Free Hospital before moving to South Africa in 2000.  At Tygerberg Hospital and Stellenbosch Uni, Cape Town she established the Unit of Infection Prevention and Control in 2004.

Professor Mehtar is an internationally recognized expert in IPC and has been involved in setting up IPC programmes globally. She served on the executive committees of several prestigious organizations - Hospital Infection Society, British society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, European Society of Microbiology and Infectious Disease, International Society of Chemotherapy and International Society of Infectious Diseases. Professor Mehtar currently serves on several WHO committees including those for global IPC policies, surgical site infection, WASH, TB IPC guideline development, safety injection global network (SIGN) and Coronavirus. In South Africa, she serves on the Ministerial Advisory Committee (MAC) for Antimicrobial Resistance and COVID-19.

Professor Mehtar is a founder member, and Past Chair, of the Infection Control Africa Network (ICAN). Through ICAN, Prof. Mehtar is involved in establishing and promoting IPC, WASH and antimicrobial stewardship training programmes and structures across Africa. She supported IPC programmes during the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. She is frequently consulted by national governments such as Egypt, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

Professor Mehtar has published extensively with over 240 papers in peer review journals to her name. She has authored two books and several chapters in books; she reviews for seven highly prestigious journals.