Professor Helen Rees

Professor Helen Rees is the founder and Executive Director at Wits RHI of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, a UNAIDS collaborating Centre and the Co-Director of the Wits African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE), a Wits University flagship programme.  Professor Rees is a Personal Professor in the University of Witwatersrand’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, an Honorary Professor in the Department of Clinical Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where she was the LSHTM’s International Health Clark Lecturer. She obtained her Medical Degree and Masters in Social and Political Sciences from Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, where she is now an Honorary Fellow. She holds a Doctor of Science (Medicine) honoris causa from the University of London and a Doctor of Law honoris causa from Rhodes University.  She is a graduate of Harvard Business School (HBS) having completed the HBS Senior Executive Programme for Southern Africa.

Professor Rees is a distinguished and award-winning global health leader whose career has been devoted to advancing public health in Africa, with a particular emphasis on vaccine-preventable diseases, HIV, sexual and reproductive health (SRH), and regulatory science.   Professor Rees chairs and provides strategic expertise to various international bodies, including the WHO, the International Vaccine Initiative and MedAccess, the latter two being not-for-profit global entities aimed at increasing access to vaccines and to health products for LMICs.  She has held senior positions on the Boards of Gavi, CEPI and IAVI. She has played a major role in the response to major contemporary health crises, including the Ebola, COVID-19 and Mpox epidemics. She co-chairs South Africa’s Mpox Incident Management Team, overseeing the national response to Mpox, and is a member of the South African National Advisory Group on Immunization (NAGI). Internationally, she chairs the WHO AFRO Regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group and has served on and chaired a number of WHO International Health Regulation (IHR) Emergency Committees. She chairs the WHO’s IHR Emergency Committee on Polio and co-chairs the SAGE working group on Ebola Vaccines. She co-chairs the WHO Poxvirus Collaborating Centre under the WHO R&D Blueprint prioritized pathogen family report.  Professor Rees is a member of the WHO African Regional Emergency Preparedness and Response Technical Advisory Group as well as a member of the African Centre for Disease Control (Africa CDC) Emergency Consultative Group Committee.

Professor Rees has won many international and national awards for her contribution to global health and to science, including being made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001 by Queen Elizabeth II.  In 2016 she was awarded the South African National Order of the Baobab for her contribution to medicine and to medical research. In 2022 Professor Rees was made an Officer of the French National Order of Merit by President Macron for her contribution to global health and to the COVID-19 response, and she also received the Platinum South African National Batho Pele Award for excellence in contribution to the South African COVID-19 response. In 2022 she was named a ‘standout voice’ in African public health by Harvard Public Health and in 2026 the Meridian Letters featured her as one of 20 African Leaders shaping health across Africa. In May 2025 Professor Rees received the prestigious Dr Lee Jong Wook Memorial Prize for Public Health from the World Health Organization, one of the highest global honours in the field of public health. This award recognises her exceptional contributions to global health, particularly in vaccine research, outbreak response, and health equity. In addition to this accolade, Professor Rees is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), joining a distinguished network of scholars committed to advancing science and innovation across the African continent.