Wei Shen Lim KBE is a consultant respiratory physician and honorary professor of medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, England. [1] [2]
Lim was born in Singapore and attended Anglo-Chinese Junior College before studying at the University of Nottingham Medical School. He graduated in 1991 and spent several years with Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Singapore General Hospital before his specialist training as a respiratory consultant at the Nottingham trust.[ citation needed ]
Lim has been on the specialist register for General Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine since 2002. [3] Since November 2020 or earlier, he has been chairman of the COVID-19 subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation which provides advice to the UK government. [4]
In 2021 and in 2022, he received more than £25,001 in research funding from vaccine-maker Pfizer. [5]
In 2024, Lim was appointed as Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for services to the COVID-19 vaccination programme. [6]
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is an independent expert advisory committee that advises United Kingdom health departments on immunisation, making recommendations concerning vaccination schedules and vaccine safety. It has a statutory role in England and Wales, and health departments in Scotland and Northern Ireland may choose to accept its advice.
Immunization during pregnancy is the administration of a vaccine to a pregnant individual. This may be done either to protect the individual from disease or to induce an antibody response, such that the antibodies cross the placenta and provide passive immunity to the infant after birth. In many countries, including the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, vaccination against influenza, COVID-19 and whooping cough is routinely offered during pregnancy.
Tan Chorh Chuan is a Singaporean college administrator and professor who served as the second president of the National University of Singapore between 2008 and 2017. He is currently a professor at the National University of Singapore.
Professor Mark Andrew Woodhead FRCP FERS is a world authority on lung infection and pneumonia. He has been the National Clinical Adviser on pneumonia to the Department of Health since 2010, a Consultant in General and Respiratory Medicine at the Manchester Royal Infirmary since 1992, Honorary Clinical Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Manchester since 2011 and an Honorary Research Fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine since 2013.
Sir Adrian Vivian Sinton Hill, is a British-Irish vaccinologist who is Director of the Jenner Institute and Lakshmi Mittal and Family Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford, an honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases, and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Hill is a leader in the field of malaria vaccine development and was a co-leader of the research team which produced the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, along with Professor Sarah Gilbert of the Jenner Institute and Professor Andrew Pollard of the Oxford Vaccine Group.
Professor Jonathan Samuel Friedland is a British physician and medical researcher who is Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Infectious Diseases at St George's, University of London.
Dame Sarah Catherine Gilbert FRS is an English vaccinologist who is a Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Vaccitech. She specialises in the development of vaccines against influenza and emerging viral pathogens. She led the development and testing of the universal flu vaccine, which underwent clinical trials in 2011.
COVID-19 infection in pregnancy is associated with several pregnancy complications. However, pregnancy does not appear to increase the susceptibility of becoming infected by COVID-19. Recommendations for the prevention of COVID-19 include the same measures as non-pregnant people.
The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) is an advisory body that advises the United Kingdom Government's Chief Medical Advisor / Chief Medical Officer for England, who in turn advises the UK Department of Health and Social Care and relevant ministers regarding threats from viral respiratory tract infections. The body replaced the UK Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee (SPI) as part of a move to expand the scope to cover the threat of other respiratory viruses, besides pandemic influenza. The inaugural meeting was held on 19 December 2014 where the terms of reference were agreed. The group has been advising the Department of Health for some years and minutes of meetings are now regularly published, backdated to 2014. As of 2020, the group has been advising specifically on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sir Stephen Huw Powis is a renal medicine consultant and has been the National Medical Director of NHS England since 2018. Previously he was the chief medical officer at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. He is also a professor at University College London.
Sir Jonathan Stafford Nguyen Van-Tam is a British physician specialising in influenza, including its epidemiology, transmission, vaccinology, antiviral drugs and pandemic preparedness.
Professor Richard M. Leach FRCP is a British Consultant Physician and Professor at Guy's and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, who is accredited in general, respiratory and critical care medicine. He has pioneered multiple respiratory care techniques and been instrumental in the development of numerous NICE guidelines relating to acute medicine. It has been reported that he led the care of British prime minister Boris Johnson during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Azeem Majeed is a Professor and Head of the Department of Primary Care & Public Health at Imperial College, London, as well as a general practitioner in South London and a consultant in public health. In the most recent UK University Research Excellence Framework results, Imperial College London was the highest ranked university in the UK for the quality of research in the “Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care” unit of assessment.
Nicola Mary Turner is a New Zealand public health advocate who is a Professor at the University of Auckland and Medical Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre, an organisation that advises the New Zealand medical profession and the New Zealand Government. She has contributed to advisory committees for the New Zealand Ministry of Health, is a spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group and works in general practice. Much of her research and outreach has focused on improving immunisation coverage and closing equity gaps for the national schedule vaccine delivery in New Zealand and she has commented publicly on these issues during COVID-19 in New Zealand.
Sir Andrew John Pollard is the Ashall Professor of Infection & Immunity at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. He is an Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at John Radcliffe Hospital and the Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group. He is the Chief Investigator on the University of Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine trials and has led research on vaccines for many life-threatening infectious diseases including typhoid fever, Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae type b, streptococcus pneumoniae, pertussis, influenza, rabies, and Ebola.
Yee-Sin Leo is a Singaporean physician. Leo is the executive director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases and researches emerging infectious diseases. She has been in charge of Singapore's response to several outbreaks, including Nipah, SARS and COVID-19. In 2020, she was selected as one of the BBC's top 100 Women.
The COVID-19 vaccination programme in the United Kingdom is an ongoing mass immunisation campaign for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Shabir Ahmed Madhi, is a South African physician who is professor of vaccinology and director of the South African Medical Research Council Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand, and National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Technology Research Chair in Vaccine Preventable Diseases. In January 2021, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic includes reporting on the deaths of anti-vaccine advocates from COVID-19 as a phenomenon occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The media also reported on various websites documenting such deaths, with some outlets questioning whether this practice was overly unsympathetic. Reports noted phenomena including "deathbed conversions", in which vaccine opponents reportedly changed their minds and began encouraging vaccination before dying, with these claims meeting continued skepticism by vaccination opponents; and on groups of deaths within specific demographics, such as anti-vaccine radio hosts.
Susanna Jane Dunachie is a British microbiologist who is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Oxford. Her work considers microbiology and immunology to better understand bacterial infection and accelerate the development of vaccines. She has focused on melioidosis, scrub typhus and tuberculosis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she studied T cell immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.