Rees honoured with 2025 Dr Lee Jong-wook prize
- Wits University
Professor Helen Rees received the coveted World Health Organizations prize for her “outstanding contribution to public health”.
Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) and Personal Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at Wits University, Rees was “honoured for a life spent shaping public health — from the defiant clinics of apartheid-era Johannesburg to the influential policy halls of Geneva. As the world’s health architecture falters, Rees draws from an unscripted career forged in crisis and an unwavering conviction in human rights”. Read the full story published on Geneva Solutions.
'We need a new model, not faster horses'
Speaking to Health Policy Watch, Rees said: “We don’t need faster horses, we need a new model of global health,” says Professor Helen Rees, who received the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2025 Dr Lee Jong-wook Memorial Prize on Friday for her “outstanding contribution to public health”.
“If there isn’t going to be money, we shouldn’t be trying to run the same things on a third of a budget.
“We have to restructure, focusing on what is going to give us the best return on investment — things like immunisation, and maternal and child health,” she told the award ceremony last Friday, hosted by the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare (KOFIH) and the Geneva Graduate Institute. Read the full story.