WHO Secretariat has received and assessed all the Declaration of Interest submitted by the participating experts. In accordance with WHO’s policy, all declared interests, even if they do not give rise to a conflict of interest that would warrant partial or total exclusion of the expert concerned, will be disclosed within the committee at the beginning of the meeting so that other members are aware of them.
Members and Advisers
Members
Prof Lucille Blumberg
Biography
Deputy Director at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), of the National Health Laboratory Service, and founding head of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Response.
Professor Lucille Blumberg is currently medical consultant to the Division for Outbreak Preparedness and Response (incudes Travel medicine Unit) and also medical consultant to the Centre for Emerging, Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases where her major focus is on malaria, rabies and zoonotic diseases and travel – related infections.
- Vice Chair, WHO committee for Review of the International Health Regulations during COVID-19, September 2020 to present.
- Immediate past chair SAMEC South African Malaria Elimination Committee
- Scientific advisory group member - WHO Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2019 to present
- Scientific advisory group member - WHO Blueprint for Research and Development for Counter Measures for Emerging Diseases, 2015 to present
- Lancet Commissioner One Health, 2019 to present
She has worked on a number of outbreaks including rabies, avian influenza, cholera, typhoid, and the Lujo virus. She is a medical graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology at the University of Stellenbosch, and lecturer in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has specialist qualifications in clinical microbiology, travel medicine, and infectious diseases.
Prof Blumberg established the laboratory surveillance programme for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and set up the Mass Gatherings Unit at the NICD, which became part of the WHO Mass Gatherings global network. She has been an advisor on the prevention, detection and response to communicable disease risks to a number of African countries hosting large international sporting events.
She is a member of the South African expert advisory groups on rabies and malaria (Immediate Past Chairperson) as well as the advisory groups to the WHO on yellow fever risks in travellers (Chairperson), the ‘Blue Print’ for research in diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics for epidemic–prone (mainly zoonotic) diseases and, member of the guidelines group for the 2018 WHO rabies guidelines for prevention of rabies in humans.
Advisers
Dr Emily Jentes, PhD, MPH
CDR, USPHS, Division of Global Migration and Quarantine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA
Dr J. Erin Staples
Medical Epidemiologist at Arboviral Disease Branch, Division of Vector-borne Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States of America