Professor Lucille Blumberg

Professor Lucille H. Blumberg holds an honorary position as a medical consultant to the Division for Outbreak Preparedness and Response and to the Centre for Emerging, Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases. Her major areas of work include outbreak preparedness and response, emerging diseases, severe malaria, rabies and other zoonosis and travel-related infections.

 Professor Blumberg is currently a technical consultant on Global Health Security and One Health to the NGO “Right to Care” in South Africa and Mozambique. 

She is serving, or has served, on the following scientific bodies: 

• Chair, Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential (STAG-IH) for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, 2022 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; and
• Lancet Commissioner One Health, 2019 to present.
  

Professor 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.

Professor Blumberg served as Vice-Chair of the IHR Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) during the COVID-19 response.

Professor Blumberg 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.