Georgina Ferry interviews Sheetal Silal, Associate Professor (Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Cape Town) and Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in Tropical Disease Modelling (Nuffield Department of Medicine), 28 February 2023.
Topics discussed include (00:01:18) early interest in mathematics, database evidence making in health; (00:03:24) global health problem of malaria; (00:04:47) contribution of data science in combating and eliminating malaria; (00:07:13) global collaborations, including with colleagues at the University of Oxford and South America; (00:08:47) first awareness of COVID-19, involvement in the response; (00:11:45) model building during the pandemic; (00:16:18) government policy decisions based on modelling; (00:18:40) evolution of the pandemic in South Africa; (00:22:50) mortality rate and hospital capacity in South Africa; (00:25:35) projections and analyses of new variants; (00:30:31) compliance to public health regulations in South Africa; (00:37:10) CoMo Consortium; (00:38:12) shift of focus since COVID-19 on a variety of diseases, including hepatitis A; (00:40:34) teaching at Oxford, module lead on course Malaria Modelling for Strategy Design; (00:42:40) personal threat from COVID-19; (00:44:10) wellbeing of friends, family and colleagues; (00:49:01) working hours during the pandemic; (00:54:33) therapy and personal coping mechanisms; (00:56:00) personal reflections from the pandemic.
