ON THE
FRONT LINE BY TOMMY BULLEN
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is one of the many University of London Member Institutions who are playing a key role in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I’d been confronted with death, but always from the outside. This, from the inside, was different.
Photo: © Heidi Larson
T
he director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Professor Peter Piot, has spent his career researching deadly infectious diseases; however, even he was shocked by the severity of COVID-19 when he became infected earlier this year. This
new virus took the world by surprise, and with societies around the world facing unprecedented public health challenges, there’s an urgent need for scientists to provide solutions. With a strong track record of responding to emergencies and major outbreaks, LSHTM’s expertise has played a role in the pandemic response worldwide – and its research has only been part of the story. Many clinically trained staff and students have returned to work in the NHS, the communications team has been working tirelessly to tackle the wave of misinformation about the pandemic, and professors and alumni are advising the UK government and organisations including the World Health Organization and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
22 WC1E | london.ac.uk/alumni
