Safura Abdool Karim
- Adjunct Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health
Overview
Safura Abdool Karim is a public health lawyer whose research focuses on using the law to improve health outcomes. Safura is currently the Oxford-Hopkins GLIDE postdoctoral fellow at the Berman Institute, Johns Hopkins University and an Adjunct-Assistant Professor at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Safura holds chambers at the Bridge Group of Advocates and is a member of the Johannesburg Society of Advocates and the Pan African Bar Association.
Safura has an LLB from the University of Cape Town, an LLM in Global Health Law, a PhD in Law from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Safura previously worked at a top 5 law firm in Sandton and clerked at the Constitutional Court. Safura has been a researcher at both the School of Public Health, University of Western Cape and the Wits School of Public Health, spanning topics of nutrition, diet-related NCDs, health technology assessment and COVID-19.
Safura has experience in developing policies and laws as well as researching the use of law to prevent diet-related NCDs in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has led multi-country studies on fiscal and regulatory interventions, including simplified nutrition labelling, SSB taxation and trade and NCDs. Safura is also a part of the Department of Health’s Technical Working Group on Front of Package Labelling, providing technical support for the development of a mandatory warning label for South Africa. Safura is on the steering committee of the Africa Health and Human Rights Network.
Safura has been involved in researching and advocating on issues in COVID-19, including equitable vaccine access, human rights and criminalization of COVID-19. Safura has done extensive work on the legal issues on COVID-19 vaccines, serving on the DPME/NRF Expert Group developing the COVID-19 Country Report and the Africa CDC’s COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Alliance and the Technology and Intellectual Property Workstream of the Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing. Safura also worked with the Occupational Health and Safety Workstream of the NDOH Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 to provide advice on streamlining the pricing of COVID-19 testing. Safura has also provided technical support for key litigation and assisted in the development of workplace mandatory vaccination policies.
Academic Appointments
- Adjunct Assistant Professor of Population and Family Health
Credentials & Experience
Education & Training
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
- LLB, 2013 University of Cape Town
- LLM (Global Health Law), 2017 Georgetown University
- PhD (Law), 2023 University of Kwazulu-Natal
Committees, Societies, Councils
Associate Member, Global Health Law Consortium
Member, South African Young Academy of Sciences
Steering Committee Member, Africa Health and Human Rights Network
Advocate, Johannesburg Society of Advocates
Editorial Boards
Honors & Awards
50 Most Powerful Women, Mail and Guardian
Top 100 South African Shining Stars, Inside Education
Research
Research: Dr Abdool Karim's research focuses on the use of law as a health intervention with the aim of improving public health. With increasing recognition of the legal determinants of health, herresearch investigates the ways in which law can inform the design and implementation of policy interventions to address obesity, the commercial determinants of health, pandemic responses and universal health coverage. In parallel, Dr Abdool Karim's scholarship seeks to develop, conceptualize and operationalize a right to public health and recast human rights – so often co-opted in opposition to public health – as enablers of public health.
Policy impact: Dr Abdool Karim's research has had significant policy impact, with her work on labelling being used to inform the development of South African regulations for simplified nutrition labelling, the structure of the COVID-19 vaccine compensation fund, and South Africa's transition out of the COVID-19 state of disaster. It has also been drawn upon to inform labelling laws in Kenya and Ghana. Dr Abdool Karim has married research impact with direct impact litigation including to defend the constitutionality of a certificate of need scheme for private healthcare providers, bring class action litigation against coal mines and successfully challenge the parental leave scheme in South Africa. I also assisted in bringing an amicus intervention for UNAIDS in the challenge to the constitutionality of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Publications: Dr Abdool Karim has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications, including 15 first author publications, many in high-impact journals including Nature Food, the Lancet, the International Journal of Human Rights and the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics
Dr Abdool Karim joins the Department as an Adjunct Assistant Professor teaching human rights and infectious disease responses.
Research Interests
- Health and Human Rights
- Obesity Prevention Policy
- Pandemic Responses
- Public Health Law
- Public Health Policy
Selected Publications
Gostin, Lawrence O., Safura Abdool Karim, and Benjamin Mason Meier. ""Facilitating access to a COVID-19 vaccine through global health law."" The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 48, no. 3 (2020): 622-626. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1073110520958892
Abdool Karim, Safura, Petronell Kruger, and Karen Hofman. ""Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping."" Globalization and Health 16, no. 1 (2020): 1-14. https://globalizationandhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12992-020-00647-3
Erzse, Agnes, Safura Abdool Karim, Louise Foley, and Karen Joanne Hofman. ""A realist review of voluntary actions by the food and beverage industry and implications for public health and policy in low-and middle-income countries."" Nature Food 3, no. 8 (2022): 650-663. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00552-5
Abdool Karim, Safura, Agnes Erzse, Anne-Marie Thow, Hans Justus Amukugo, Charles Ruhara, Gemma Ahaibwe, Gershim Asiki et al. ""The legal feasibility of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in seven sub-Saharan African countries."" Global Health Action 14, no. 1 (2021): 1884358. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16549716.2021.1884358
Abdool Karim, Safura, and Bonginkosi Shozi. ""Is a right to health a means to protect public health? South Africa as a model for a communitarian interpretation of the right to health for the promotion of public health."" The International Journal of Human Rights 27, no. 5 (2023): 925-949. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642987.2023.2190584
Karim, Safura Abdool, and Petronell Kruger. ""Which Rights? Whose Rights? Public Health and Human Rights through the Lens of South Africa’s Covid-19 Jurisprudence."" Constitutional Court Review 11, no. 1 (2021): 533-560. https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.2989/CCR.2021.0019
Karim, Safura Abdool, Quarraisha Abdool Karim, and Salim Abdool Karim. ""COVID-19: The Challenge of Global Vaccine Inequity."" Social Research: An International Quarterly 90, no. 1 (2023): 75-109. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/887093/
Global Health Activities
2024 - Member, Drafting Group for the WHO Global Report on the Commercial Determinants of Health
2023 - present Member, Global Health Law Consortium
2023 - present Member, South African Young Academy of Science
February 2022 – May 2022 Member, Mandatory Covid-19 Vaccine Objections Appeal Committee, Discovery Health (Private Health Insurance provider)
October 2021 – December 2022 Member, Healthy Diets and Human Rights Advisory Group, International Development Law Organization
November 2021 – January 2023 Member, Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Pillar, Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing, Africa CDC
January 2021 – July 2022 Member, African Vaccine Delivery Alliance, Africa CDC
May 2021 – September 2021 Member, Expert Group for the COVID-19 County Report on the implementation of measures to combat COVID-19 in South Africa, National Research Foundation, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and the Government Technical Advisory Centre
November 2020 – December 2021 Member, Academic Advisory Group to the Food Law and Policy Centre, O'Neill Institute, Georgetown University Law Center
May – September 2020 Member, Occupational Health and Safety Work Stream, Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, South African National Department of Health
May 2019 – January 2023 Member, Front of Package Labelling Scientific Working Group, South African National Department of Health