Prof Cheryl Cohen

Cheryl Cohen is a South African infectious diseases epidemiologist affiliated with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the University of the Witwatersrand. Her work centers on surveillance-driven research to inform vaccine policy and public health responses in high HIV-prevalence settings. She has played a leading role in strengthening national laboratory-based surveillance platforms that integrate epidemiology, genomics, and health systems data.

Her research focuses on vaccine-preventable and respiratory pathogens, including pneumococcus, influenza, RSV, SARS-CoV-2, meningococcus, and diphtheria. Major contributions include evaluating long-term impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines across age groups, assessing COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, and characterizing reinfection dynamics. She has advanced understanding of serotype replacement, antimicrobial resistance, and genomic diversity through large-scale surveillance analyses.

Cohen’s portfolio also addresses neonatal sepsis, pathogen aetiology, and the economic burden of respiratory illness, with emphasis on vulnerable populations such as young children, older adults, and people living with HIV. Her work bridges epidemiologic modeling, clinical risk assessment, and policy translation, supporting evidence-based immunization strategies and equitable access to preventive interventions in low- and middle-income countries.