Welcome to the 8th SA TB conference and thank you for joining us!
With 2025 set as a year for crucial milestones in the WHO’s End TB Strategy and the National Development Plan (NDP) 2030, we gather at a significant time for TB control. The 2022 conference focused on working together to get TB control back on track after the impact of COVID-19. National and international stakeholders heeded the call, and we have witnessed improvements and new developments in many areas of TB control. While we have made progress, many gaps and challenges still remain. Revoking the words of former President Nelson Mandela, “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb,” and building on past work, we now set our sights on climbing the next set of hills with increased urgency to achieve the milestones to end TB disease and deaths, under the theme Accelerating progress to end TB.
The conference scientific committee has put together an exciting and comprehensive programme. The plenary and parallel sessions, symposia, roundtables, debate session, posters, and all other proceedings will purposefully cover diverse aspects of TB and TB control. We look forward to robust engagements, learning from each other, and a renewed sense of purpose and recommitment to effectively addressing the TB burden in South Africa.
May we have a wonderful and worthwhile convening!
Best wishes,
Conference Chair
Associate Professor Sizulu Moyo (MBChB, MPH, Ph.D.) is a public health professional with research experience across public health disciplines. She is currently the Strategic Research Lead for Health and Wellbeing Research at the Human Sciences Research Council(HSRC) in South Africa and holds an Honorary Associate Professorship at The School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town. Her work focuses on TB and HIV epidemiology and surveillance where she integrates the clinical and social aspects of disease, health, and wellbeing. She has led several national surveys on TB, HIV, and COVID-19. After practicing as a clinician, her research career started at the South African TB Vaccine Trial Initiative(SATVI) at the University of Cape Town, where she was involved in developing capacity for TB vaccine trials in South Africa, working in vaccine preparatory epidemiological studies and vaccine trials. Before joining the HSRC she was an epidemiologist focusing on drug-resistant TB at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Cape Town, South Africa. Since joining the HSRC she has been involved in numerous TB projects and co-led South Africa’s first TB prevalence survey.
Conference Co-Chair
She is a medical practitioner with post graduate training in occupational and public health. She has over 20 years’ experience in clinical practise and public health working in both the private and public sectors.
She has vast experience in policy and guideline development, training, monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation and overall coordination of the TB programme. She has also served in several WHO Guideline Development Groups, WHO Working Groups, National TB Think Tank, National Essential Medicines List Committee. She has co-authored several publications and coordinated the national surveys on the TB prevalence, TB patient cost and TB Community, Rights, Gender and Stigma.