Juno Thomas

Juno Thomas currently heads the Centre for Enteric Diseases at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases of the National Health Laboratory Service in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her areas of expertise include communicable disease epidemiology, surveillance and outbreak response. Juno and her team lead national syndromic and laboratory-based surveillance for priority enteric bacterial and viral pathogens; food- and water-borne disease outbreak investigations (providing key epidemiological and laboratory support to the South African National Department of Health, or other Southern African countries as needed); and oversee the national reference laboratory which provides specialised phenotypic and molecular testing for enteric bacteria and viruses. Her research interests focus on identifying opportunities for local and regionally relevant public health interventions for endemic enteric diseases and food- and water-borne disease outbreaks, as well as optimising the use of genomic epidemiologic tools for outbreak investigations and surveillance in a developing country setting.