Juno Thomas

Background

About Juno Thomas

Since specialising in clinical microbiology and infectious disease almost 20 years ago, several fantastic career opportunities have enabled me to garner a rich, diverse experience in the fields of applied clinical microbiology and clinical infectious diseases, public health (as relevant to infectious diseases), infectious disease epidemiology and surveillance, and research. Whilst heading the Outbreak Response Unit at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa I developed a keen interest in enteric, food- and water-borne diseases and later took up the opportunity to head the Centre for Enteric Diseases at the Institute. In this role, I led the Centre activities which included national syndromic and laboratory-based surveillance for priority enteric bacterial and viral pathogens, food- and water-borne disease outbreak investigations (providing key epidemiological and laboratory support to the South African National Department of Health and other Southern African countries as needed), managing the national reference laboratory which provides specialised phenotypic and molecular testing for enteric bacteria and viruses, teaching and training, as well as supervision of postgraduate students, and engagement with the media. My research interests have focused primarily on identifying opportunities for local and regionally relevant public health interventions for endemic enteric diseases and food- and water-borne disease outbreaks, and optimising the use of molecular epidemiologic tools (especially whole-genome sequencing) for outbreak investigations and surveillance in a developing country setting.