Professor Helen Rees

Professor Helen Rees is founder and Executive Director of Wits RHI, the largest research Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. A medical doctor by profession, Helen is a Personal Professor in the University of Witwatersrand’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Co-Director of the Wits African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise, Honorary Professor in the Department of Clinical Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an Honorary Fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, UK. She holds a Doctor of Science (Medicine) honoris causa from the University of London and a Doctor of Law honoris causa from Rhodes University.

Helen is internationally recognised as an award-winning global health practitioner who has dedicated her professional career to improving public health in Africa, with a focus on vaccine preventable diseases, HIV and sexual and reproductive health. Helen has advised the South African Department of Health extensively on a range of topics related to HIV, sexual and reproductive health, vaccines and pandemic preparedness since the inception of a democratic South Africa. She has served on and chaired many national and global scientific committees and boards and is recognized as a leader in global health security and has served on and chaired a number of WHO International Health Regulation (IHR) Emergency Committees. Helen is a member of the South African National Advisory Group on Immunisation and co-chairs the Mpox Working group. Helen co-chairs South Africa’s Mpox Incident Management Team overseeing SA’s mpox response.

She was a member of the WHO IHR Committee on Mpox responsible for issuing standing recommendations. She chairs the WHO’s African Regional Technical Advisory Group on Immunization as well as the IHR Emergency Committee on Polio She is a member of the WHO African Regional Emergency Preparedness and Response Technical Advisory Group and co-chairs the SAGE working group on Ebola Vaccines.  Helen is a member of WHO’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards and a steering committee member of the Coalition for Clinical Research for Pandemics in LMICs. Helen has recently been appointed as co-chair of the newly established WHO Poxvirus Collaborating Centre under the recently released prioritized pathogen family report by the WHO R&D Blueprint. Helen chairs the MedAccess Board, a global not-for-profit organisation that uses innovative funding mechanisms to support access to neglected therapeutics and diagnostics required in Low Middle-Income Countries.

Helen 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 Helen 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 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. In May 2025 Helen 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, Helen has elected as 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.