Virology

The Department of Virology is part of the School of Pathology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It is a department-level unit within the school, alongside the other departments that make up pathology at Wits.

Its publication profile centres on vaccine safety surveillance, pharmacovigilance and signal detection, with particular attention to COVID-19 vaccines. Work on hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease and rabies shows an integrated approach that combines laboratory testing with epidemiological analysis.

Further themes include wastewater surveillance and wastewater-based epidemiology, genomic analysis, environmental monitoring and national reporting systems. The research is focused on South Africa and on African collaboration in vaccine safety, and it connects laboratory findings to immunization policy, antimicrobial resistance strategy and outbreak preparedness.