Nomathemba Chandiwana is a 2004 Northeastern graduate whose HIV research was published in the internationally renowned New England Journal of Medicine. Now she has her sights set on the COVID-19 virus.

South Africa has been greatly affected by the “colliding epidemics” of COVID-19 and HIV, says Chandiwana, who moved to the country in 2005 from Boston to continue her medical education.

“Being an HIV physician and seeing COVID-19, I see that there are some similarities, but what has not been similar is the response,” she says from Johannesburg, where she works as a senior research clinician at Ezintsha, a research institute whose name means “innovation” or “new things.”

Ezintsha is part of South Africa’s Wits University, a public research institution whose graduates include the current dean of Northeastern’s College of Science, Hazel Sive.

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AP Photo/Bram Janssen, File.