Professor Olga Perovic

A Prof/Dr Olga Perovic is a Principal Pathologist at the Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses at National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a division of NHLS. Her responsibilities include Antimicrobial Resistance Reference Laboratory, AMR surveillance, outbreak investigation, teaching and training. Professor Perovic held this position over twelve years. Over that time, she had a numerous additional activities as Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, and University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Head of WHO Collaborating Centre for AMR in AFRO region since 2017. She has extensive experience in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in South Africa, a principal investigator of numerous projects and she is involved in teaching and training of undergraduate, postgraduate and other related learners. She had the vast experience in the field of clinical microbiology. AMR aspects involve from the basic AST in laboratory to the whole genome sequencing; from the clinical microbiology consultancy at the bed site to the hospital antimicrobial stewardship programs; from infection control program at hospitals to the national policy development; from the routine real time to the national AMR surveillance.

She is an expert in laboratory quality system and responsible for External Quality Assessment programs in bacteriology and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Her involvement in One Health AMR programs and microbiology at the national and the global levels reflects in over eighty publications. She supervised masters, and PhD students. She was a member of following professional groups: Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (GARP), South Africa since 2010, Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on AMR at WHO, since 2013; Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS), WHO since 2013 and Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on In vitro Diagnostics (SAGE IVD) WHO since 2017-2019. She is a chair of National Advisory Committee for Antimicrobial at South African Society of Clinical Microbiology (SASCM) since 2013.