Celebrating Public Health

This essay honors the 2024 Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award recipients, Drs. Quarraisha and Salim Abdool Karim, highlighting their expansive contributions to science, public health, and societal change in South Africa and globally. The author advocates for greater recognition of public health leadership, citing the Karims’ groundbreaking HIV research (CAPRISA 004), tuberculosis-HIV treatment timing studies, and early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Despite rising threats to public health workers worldwide, the piece calls for renewed celebration and support of their work, emphasizing that health breakthroughs depend on their translation to real-world populations. Paul Farmer’s ethos of collaborative impact and equity anchors the narrative.

This essay honors the 2024 Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award recipients, Drs. Quarraisha and Salim Abdool Karim, highlighting their expansive contributions to science, public health, and societal change in South Africa and globally. The author advocates for greater recognition of public health leadership, citing the Karims’ groundbreaking HIV research (CAPRISA 004), tuberculosis-HIV treatment timing studies, and early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Despite rising threats to public health workers worldwide, the piece calls for renewed celebration and support of their work, emphasizing that health breakthroughs depend on their translation to real-world populations. Paul Farmer’s ethos of collaborative impact and equity anchors the narrative.