Dr Ismail, Farzana

Dr Farzana Ismail is a Clinical Microbiologist and initially worked as a consultant at a tertiary level Microbiology laboratory affiliated with Academic Hospitals in Pretoria, providing specialist services in both infectious diseases, and infection control.
In 2017, she was appointed as the pathologist at the Centre for Tuberculosis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, and leads the WHO Supranational TB Reference laboratory section of the centre, while providing support to other National TB reference laboratories in the region.
Ismail has a keen interest in drug-resistant TB, diagnostic technologies, infection control, and patient centered care for TB. She plays a pivotal role in diagnostics policy for South Africa and was instrumental in the rollout of the National DRTB reflex testing algorithm for second-line drug susceptibility testing (including Bedaquiline and Linezolid). She was also the laboratory lead for the first-ever South African National TB prevalence survey that was recently completed.
An important initiative since joining the centre has been the provision of reference laboratory support for specialised testing to clinicians managing difficult to treat and highly resistant TB patients in the country. She also plays an important role in surveillance activities, monitoring new drug resistance as well as patient pathways to TB diagnosis, and provides advice to other pathologists and clinicians regarding TB diagnostics. She is a member of the WHO Technical Advisory group on Tuberculosis Diagnostics and Laboratory Strengthening and has participated in WHO guideline development group (GDG) meetings for different diagnostic tools including the development of the relevant WHO guidance policy documents.
Ismail is also a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria, involved in training medical undergraduate and postgraduate students in clinical microbiology and infection control.