Dr Waasila Jassat
Project Director (TB TSU | Health)
Dr Waasila Jassat is the project director for the TB Support Unit in the Health practice. She is based in South Africa.
Waasila is experienced in supporting the implementation of health programmes; surveillance and the use of data for action; and health systems and clinical research.
She has worked at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases where she established the DATCOV Covid-19 hospital surveillance system, and served as a key voice in the national pandemic response. Her past work experience has included overseeing programmes that strengthened health systems at NGOs such as the Health Systems Trust, Aurum and Right to Care. She also led a project team funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies to establish Tekano, a leadership programme for changemakers addressing health inequity. Waasila worked as an independent consultant to the World Health Organisation.
Waasila has served on several national task teams as well as on the Boards of the Public Health Association of South Africa, and the South African Institute of Health Care Managers.
To date, she has published over 50 papers in accredited journals and has presented at both local and international conferences. She has lectured on postgraduate programmes at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria, and has supervised and examined master’s students.
Waasila has a medical degree and master’s in Community Medicine, both from the University of the Witwatersrand, a specialist qualification in Public Health Medicine from the Colleges of Medicine (South Africa), and a PhD from the University of the Western Cape.
