Country Ambassadors

Nelesh P. Govaender, Head, Centre Healthcare-Associated Infections, AMR and Mycoses, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa. Email: On request
How you have helped GAFFI so far?

• Contributed to GAFFI’s meetings (GFIF1 in Seattle (Roadmap) and GFIF3 in Kampala (Essential Diagnostics).

• Driven multiple epidemiology studies in South Africa and across Africa to a published conclusion, not ably in cryptococcal meningitis, describing Emergomyces infections in AIDS, fluconazole resistance Candida parapsilosis infections, Candida auris epidemiology in SA and others

• Run many educational courses and contributed to many conferences

• Supported GAFFI’s initiatives related to Mycology Reference Laboratories and with the WHO as an adviser.

Personal comment on the major needs in South Africa which GAFFI should be addressing:
As South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic in the world and straddles a mixture of high and low income healthcare services, the major effort is to provide leadership on fungal diseases, from an epidemiology and diagnostic perspective.
Links to key fungal/global health institutions in South Africa:

NICD website:www.nicd.ac.za
FIDSSA website:www.fidssa.co.za
SA HIV Society website:www.sahivsoc.org