Science, Medicine & Engineering
Peerless
Quarraisha Abdool Karim
born 1960
Worked out how HIV actually moves between young women and older men — and how to stop it
Peerless is level 1 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: changed the field itself. Tell the country's story without them and the story breaks. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Her epidemiology explained why HIV was tearing through young South African women, and her trials produced the prevention that followed. The Lasker Award came in 2024, after South Africa's highest honour, the Nkrumah Prize and a Gairdner.
Quarraisha Abdool Karim is a South African infectious diseases epidemiologist, co-founder and Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA, John C. Martin Chair in Global Health there, professor of clinical epidemiology at Columbia, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Health Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Her work identified the drivers of heterosexual HIV transmission — in particular the pattern by which the epidemic passed from older men to adolescent girls and young women — and led to prevention and treatment approaches now used worldwide. She received the Order of Mapungubwe, South Africa's highest honour, in 2013, along with the African Union's Kwame Nkrumah Prize for Science and Technology; the TWAS-Lenovo Prize in 2014; the L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science award for Africa in 2016; the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award and the Christophe Mérieux Prize in 2020; and, with Salim Abdool Karim, the Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award in 2024.
Her work identified the drivers of heterosexual HIV transmission — in particular the pattern by which the epidemic passed from older men to adolescent girls and young women — and led to prevention and treatment approaches now used worldwide. She received the Order of Mapungubwe, South Africa's highest honour, in 2013, along with the African Union's Kwame Nkrumah Prize for Science and Technology; the TWAS-Lenovo Prize in 2014; the L'Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science award for Africa in 2016; the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award and the Christophe Mérieux Prize in 2020; and, with Salim Abdool Karim, the Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award in 2024.
- Wikipedia — Quarraisha Abdool Karim
- Lasker Foundation — Innovations in HIV prevention, treatment, and advocacy
- CAPRISA — Quarraisha Abdool Karim
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.