Speakers
Prof Julia Blitz
Julia Blitz became a Family Physician in 1989! Her practice over the next few decades spanned public and private practice
in both rural and urban areas, eventually landing in academia in 1997. She remained an academic Family Physician for the next twenty years, including international opportunities. About 10 years ago she moved into Health Professions Education,
subsequently being awarded a PhD on a topic that bridged Family Medicine and Medical Education. Her last full-time job
was as Vice-Dean: Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University. She
is now retired and balances looking after her grandson, with her ongoing involvement, through a number of institutions, in
undergraduate medical curriculum design and health professions education.
Prof Francois Venter
Professor WD Francois Venter, MD, FCP, PhD is Executive Director of Wits Ezintsha at the University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, where he received most of his training. His work involves health systems research and clinical trials, most
recently involving the antiretrovirals dolutegravir, tenofovir alafenamide, cabotegravir, and doravirine. He leads multiple
antiretroviral treatment optimisation studies and is currently working on new access programmes through private pharmacies within South Africa, patient linkage-to-care interventions, self-testing projects, as well as most recently on new large-scale primary care delivery platforms addressing hypertension, diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidaemia and HIV. He has led large PEPFAR-funded HIV programmes in South Africa, focusing on men, women, children, young people, truckers, sex
workers, and LGBTI communities. For over 20 years he has been an advisor to bodies such as the South African government, UNAIDS, and WHO, contributing to international, regional, and national HIV guidelines, and more recently WHO’s obesity guidelines. He has an active interest in medical ethics and has been involved in several human rights cases within the southern African region. He supervises post-grad students and has over 300 publications, including first-author articles in major journals.
Prof Lucille Blumberg
Professor Lucille Blumberg is an infectious diseases physician and medical microbiologist. She currently has honorary
appointments at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, the Universities of Stellenbosch (Medical Microbiology) and University of Pretoria (Faculty of Veterinary Sciences), South Africa. Her focus is on outbreak prevention and response, emerging diseases, travel- related infections, the viral haemorrhagic fevers, malaria and zoonosis especially rabies. She is the current chair of the Strategic Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards for the WHO Emergencies Programme and a member a member of the scientific advisory group for the WHO Neglected Tropical Diseases programme. She is a longstanding member of the National Rabies Advisory Group in South and is the previous chair of the South African Malaria
Elimination Committee (SAMEC). Prof Blumberg has been involved in the prevention, detection and responses to a number of communicable disease outbreaks including cholera, typhoid, rabies, the Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers (Lujo, Rift Valley fever, Ebola), influenza (pandemic A H1N1, and Avian Influenza A H5N2) and diphtheria. Her special interests are in malaria, rabies, other zoonoses, East African Trypanosomiasis, travel and tropical medicine and border health issues. She has worked with Right to Care as a Technical Scientific Advisor since 2021.
Prof Nicholas Crisp
Prof Crisp is a medical doctor and public health specialist and Honorary Professor in Public Health Medicine at University of
Pretoria. He was Superintendent General (HOD) of the Department of Health and Welfare in Limpopo where he served from 1995 to 1999. Prof Crisp was then a self-employed consultant and has worked on projects in several African countries including South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania. In 2009 he served as Special Adviser to Minister Barbara Hogan. He was intimately involved in the establishment of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), the transfer of the medicolegal mortuaries from police to health and the creation of the Forensic Pathology Services, and in the establishment of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA). During COVID-19 he was responsible for managing the vaccination programme. He is now employed as Deputy Director General: National Health Insurance and is responsible for establishing the governance and administrative capabilities of the entity that will manage the Fund.
![Family Physicians logo[transparent]](https://saafp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Family-Physicians-logotransparent-1200x266.png)