He is an Adjunct Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard University, Boston, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Cornell University, New York, and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. He is an Associate Member of The Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. He previously served as President of the South African Medical Research Council and is currently serving as the Co-Chair of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 and as a Member of the Africa Task Force for Coronavirus and the Lancet Commission on COVID-19.
Dr Abdool Karim is ranked among the world’s most highly cited scientists by Web of Science. He serves on the Boards of several journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet Global Health, Lancet HIV and mBio. He is the Chair of the UNAIDS Scientific Expert Panel, WHO’s HIV Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee as well as the WHO TB-HIV Task Force. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
His many awards include the African Union’s “Kwame Nkrumah Award” which is Africa’s most prestigious scientific award, the Kuwait Al-Sumait Award, the Canadian Gairdner Global Health Award and pinnacle awards from the African Academy of Sciences, Academy of Science in South Africa, Royal Society of South Africa and the South African Medical Research Council. He is member of the US National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Microbiology and the Association of American Physicians.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).