One of the SAMRC’s Unit Directors, Prof Wiysonge will be leaving the SAMRC to join the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa as the Regional Adviser for Immunisation and Team Lead for the Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Programme.
He will be responsible for leading WHO’s response to vaccine-preventable diseases in Africa, with a focus on contributing to the attainment of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets for vaccine-preventable diseases.
“Specifically, I will provide transformational leadership in developing, implementing, and monitoring the vaccine-preventable diseases programme. This will include but not be limited to i) providing technical and managerial leadership as well as coordination for the development and implementation of regional policies, strategies, programmes and activities towards building and strengthening the capacity of African countries to improve access to immunisation services within strengthened and resilient health systems; ii) promoting a cohesive approach and driving the integration of appropriate immunisation services with healthcare services for other communicable and non-communicable diseases into health systems, including optimum use of currently available and new vaccines in the context of strengthened health systems using people-centred approaches, achieving synergy and improving outcomes; and iii) developing appropriate immunisation and collaborative initiatives for the Immunisation Agenda 2030,” says Prof Wiysonge.
Talking about the SAMRC, Prof Wiysonge says his relationship with the SAMRC started in 2001 when he was selected as the first recipient of a prestigious Public Health and Primary Care Scholarship. The scholarship enabled him to study systematic reviews and meta-analysis at Oxford University.
“I later visited the SAMRC in 2003 to work with Professor Volmink on a systematic review. Later that year the SAMRC awarded me with an Africa Fellowship to conduct research at the University of Cape Town (UCT) under the supervision of Professor Bongani Mayosi. I moved to South Africa in 2004 to take up the fellowship and spent two years at UCT working with Professors Bongani Mayosi, Mpiko Ntsekhe, and Jimmy Volmink on the Investigation of the Management of Pericarditis in Africa (IMPI Africa) registry. In 2006 I left SA but came back a year later to take up a Senior Scientist post at the SAMRC from 2007 to 2009. After five years at UCT and Stellenbosch University, I came back to the SAMRC to be a Chief Specialist Scientist from 2014 to 2016, Unit Director of Cochrane from 2016 to 2022, and Senior Unit Director of both Cochrane and the HIV and other Infectious Diseases Research Unit from 2022 to 2023,” he says.
Although he occasionally feels like a “traitor for resigning” from his current position at the SAMRC which he “loves so much”, Prof Wiysonge believes that there comes a time when one must answer a certain call for the greater good.
“I, therefore, see my move to WHO as an opportunity to be one of many Ambassadors of the SAMRC. I leave the SAMRC in 2023 with very good memories of a very supportive employer, where we work hard but also have ample opportunities for fun. I hope I get invited to the function at the next medal award ceremony! I have enjoyed every day spent at the SAMRC. I am eternally grateful for the support, guidance, and love that I have received from my hierarchy and my colleagues within the organisation. I do not take any of these for granted,” he says.
“On behalf of the SAMRC, we would like to wish him well on the new position and the journey that lies ahead. We all join in thanking Prof Charles Shey Wiysonge for his immense contribution to the organisation and congratulate him on being appointed to this prestigious position. Shey has left his mark at the SAMRC; his special brand of people skills and his amazing scientific contribution will be missed. However, we look forward to continued collaboration with him in the future,” says Prof Liesl Zühlke, SAMRC Vice President Extramural Research and Internal Portfolios.
More about Prof Charles Shey Wiysonge
Prof Wiysonge graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon in 1995, completed an MPhil in Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in the UK in 2000, and graduated with a PhD in Vaccinology from the University of Cape Town in 2012.
He served as Deputy Director of the Centre for Evidence-based Health Care and Professor of Epidemiology at Stellenbosch University; Manager of the Vaccines for Africa Initiative at the University of Cape Town; Chief Research Officer at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS in Geneva, Switzerland; Deputy Director of the national Expanded Programme on Immunisation in Cameroon; Medical Epidemiologist at the Pasteur Centre of Cameroon; and General Physician at the University Teaching Hospital in Yaoundé, Cameroon, as well as being an executive committee member of numerous national, continental, and global advisory groups.