Face to face meetings within PHA4GE are rare. As a result, in-person get-togethers are celebrated with some fanfare, such as when Dr Joshua Levy, project scientist at Scripps Research in the US, visited the PHA4GE Secretariat hub at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) at the end of March. 

Levy’s visit to South Africa was largely recreational, he explained. But in keeping with his own work and interest in wastewater surveillance, and as co-chair of the PHA4GE wastewater surveillance sub-working group, he had also set aside a significant part of his trip for work matters. This included a visit to colleagues Dr Mukhlid Yousif and Dr Kerrigan McCarthy at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg. Yousif and McCarthy run “an amazing” wastewater surveillance programme at the NICD, said Levy. They also form part of the Modjadji Initiative, an international wastewater-based pathogen surveillance consortium that includes researchers at Scripps and the NICD, and is funded by the Gates Foundation.

Moving to Cape Town for his last few days in South Africa, Levy met up with fellow PHA4GE member Associate Professor Nicki Tiffin of UWC’s South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI). The two discussed the integration of the ethical and legal frameworks developed in the wastewater working group with the interactive tools and frameworks she’s been working on within SANBI and PHA4GE. 

On a lighter if carb-heavy note, Levy then joined Secretariat staff for one of his favourite South African treats, a Gatsby. Over the meal, he learned that the dish – comprising meat and fries (or chips, as locals call it) crammed into a large bread roll – is something of a Cape Town icon, as one UWC master’s student outlined in her 2018 thesis. 

Levy also sat down with Farzaana Diedericks, a research trainer in PHA4GE, for an interview on his work, which will shortly be shared as a podcast.