The South African Ministry of Health congratulated one of Stellenbosch University's globally acclaimed bioinformatics scientist, Prof Tulio de Oliveira, on his continued recognition and praised his sterling genomic sequencing work that led to the discovery of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. 

De Oliveira was praised by speaker after speaker at the World Health Summit, which is currently underway in Berlin, Germany. 

Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, the Deputy Minister of Health and leader of the country's delegation to the 2022 Summit, said the country is fortunate to have scientists like De Oliveira whose hard scientific work continues to break new ground and put the country on the map. 

“We are so thrilled to have such globally recognised scientists like De Oliviera whose great work helped our country and the World Health Organisation to detect new variants and also to understand their circulation in order to adapt our response strategies accordingly and to anticipate the new waves," Dhlomo said.

Click here to read the full statement released by the Department of Health.