September 2, 2021

Expert Encounter with Liam Smeeth, Director of LSHTM

On 1^st August, Professor Liam Smeeth took over from Peter Piot as head of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), whose experts are recognised around the world for their contribution to global health. This includes tackling infectious diseases, from Ebola and Zika and now SARS-CoV-2. Liam himself played a pivotal role in the pandemic in co-leading the OpenSAFELY research platform, which used huge GP datasets to identify which groups were at the highest risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19.

As Liam takes on this new challenge the SMC invited him to meet the science and health journalists to share his reflections on the pandemic, what the UK did well and what went less well, his concerns about the cuts to the ODA funding, and his vision for the future of LSHTM and global health in a post Covid world.

Speakers included:

Prof Liam Smeeth, Director, LSHTM