Professor Lucille Blumberg is a Deputy Director at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), of the National Health Laboratory Service, and Founding Head of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Response.
She is currently medical consultant to the Division for Outbreak Preparedness and Response and also medical consultant to the Centre for Emerging, Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases where her major focus is on malaria, rabies and zoonotic diseases and travel-related infections.
Professor Blumberg has worked on a number of outbreaks including rabies, avian influenza, cholera, typhoid, and the Lujo virus. She is a medical graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology at the University of Stellenbosch, and lecturer in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pretoria, South Africa, with specialist qualifications in clinical microbiology, travel medicine, and infectious diseases.
Prof Blumberg established the laboratory surveillance programme for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and set up the Mass Gatherings Unit at the NICD, which became part of the WHO Mass Gatherings global network. She has been an advisor on the prevention, detection and response to communicable disease risks to a number of African countries hosting large international sporting events.
