The Lancet Infectious Diseases, August 1, 2020
Tony Kirby
Although now a Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Annelies Wilder-Smith did not seek out a career in emerging infectious diseases. Her career goal had always been tropical and travel medicine, “but emerging infectious diseases came to me”, she tells The Lancet Infectious Diseases. She faced the first severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak when living in Asia in 2003. “When COVID-19 emerged, I asked my husband: why must we go through a SARS-like outbreak twice in our lifetime?”