Quarraisha Abdool Karim

Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an infectious diseases epidemiologist and co-founder and Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA.

Abdool Karim co-chairs the United Nations 10-Sustainable Development Goal 10 Member Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM); is a member of the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board; and serves on the Board of Directors of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (USA).

Abdool Karim’s research over the past 32 years has focused on preventing HIV infection in adolescent girls and young women.

Her landmark study, the tenofovir gel CAPRISA 004 trial, demonstrated for the first time that anti-retrovirals can prevent HIV infection.

Abdool Karim’s scientific contributions in highlighting the vulnerability of young women, the need for women-initiated technologies and integration of HIV prevention efforts into sexual reproductive health services has been recognised by more than 30 local and international prestigious awards including South Africa’s highest honour, the Order of Mapungubwe, from the President of South Africa.

She is the recipient of the African Union’s Kwame Nkrumah Prize for Science and Technology; the TWAS-Lenovo Prize from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS); the ASSAf Science-for-Society Gold Medal; the South African Medical Research Council Gold Medal; the 2016 L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science award for Africa and the Arab States; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Human Virology in the USA; and the 2018 HPTN Ward Cates Spirit Award.

[5] She conducted population-based surveys, aiming to the understand the spread of the epidemic in women, as well as researching on additional factors such as gender, age, and migration.

[8] Additionally, at the XVIII International AIDS Conference, 2010, the results of their CAPRISA 004 study led to a standing ovation, an uncommon occurrence at a scientific meeting.

[9] In 2017, with other leaders from the project, Abdool Karim edited The CAPRISA Clinical Trials: HIV Treatment and Prevention.

[13] Outside of her research in HIV and AIDS, Abdool Karim has also worked to improve education and training for scientists in South Africa and served as an advocate for women in science.

[14] She has also spoken and given interviews explaining the difficulties associated with being a woman in research as well as encouraging more young women to pursue the sciences.