Professor Helen Rees

Professor Helen Rees is Chair of the MedAccess Board of Directors, a member of the Investment Committee, and a member of the Nominations and Governance Committee.

Professor Helen Rees is a global health leader who has dedicated her life to improving the health of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through her research and her contribution to global health policy.

Professor Rees started her career as a family doctor in the UK before moving to South Africa to provide medical assistance to communities denied access during apartheid. In 1994, she founded Wits RHI to expand African-generated research into HIV, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health and vaccines and remains the Institute’s Executive Director.

Professor Rees has advised the South African Department of Health extensively on a range of topics related to HIV, sexual and reproductive health, vaccines and pandemic preparedness since the inception of a democratic South Africa. She has served on and chaired many national and global scientific committees and boards and is recognized as a leader in global health security and has served on and chaired a number of WHO International Health Regulation (IHR) Emergency Committees.

Professor Rees is a member of the South African National Advisory Group on Immunisation and co-chairs the Mpox Working group. Helen co-chairs South Africa’s Mpox Incident Management Team overseeing South Africa’s mpox response. She chairs the WHO’s African Regional Technical Advisory Group on Immunization as well as the IHR Emergency Committee on Polio and co-chairs the WHO SAGE working group on Ebola vaccines. Professor Rees is a member of the WHO African Regional Emergency Preparedness and Response Technical Advisory Group and the WHO’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards, as well as a steering committee member of the Coalition for Clinical Research for Pandemics in LMICs. Professor Rees has recently been appointed as co-chair of the newly established WHO Poxvirus Collaborating Centre under the recently released prioritized pathogen family report by the WHO R&D Blueprint.

Professor Rees obtained her Medical Degree and Master’s in Social and Political Sciences from New Hall (now Murray Edwards) College at Cambridge. She is a graduate of Harvard Business School (HBS) having completed the HBS Senior Executive Programme.

Professor Rees is internationally renowned for her research into HIV and reproductive health, with more than 250 published academic papers to her name. She is an Honorary Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an Honorary Fellow of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science (Medicine) by the University of London.

Professor Rees was awarded the OBE in 2001, the South African National Order of the Baobab in 2015 and the French National Order of Merit in 2022. In May 2025, Helen received the prestigious Dr Lee Jong-wook Memorial Prize for Public Health from the World Health Organization, one of the highest global honours in the field of public health. This award recognises her exceptional contributions to global health, particularly in vaccine research, outbreak response, and health equity. In addition to this accolade, Professor Rees has been elected as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, joining a distinguished network of scholars committed to advancing science and innovation across the African continent.