Nazir Ismail

Professor Nazir Ismail was appointed in 2012 as the Head of the Centre for Tuberculosis incorporating the WHO supranational TB Reference Laboratory at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases/NHLS. He is a pathologist by training and is the lead tuberculosis researcher at NICD with a focus on TB diagnostics, epidemiology, public health responses and transmission.

Two major national studies were completed under his leadership, the SA National TB Drug Resistance survey 2012-14 and the trends in microbiologically confirmed TB nationally and sub-nationally. In addition, he has directed development and significant outputs in the field of genomics using next generation technologies. Lastly, transmission studies of DR-TB across SA are being conducted providing new knowledge in understanding drivers of TB in a high burden setting.