Dr Laila Khawar

PhD, MPH, MB, BS

Laila is a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Kirby Institute, UNSW and has been working in the public health and epidemiological research sector for over 13 years. Her PhD work focused on developing new methods to track progress toward elimination of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) and blood-borne viruses (BBVs) in Australia, including vertical transmission of HIV. Her research on vertical transmission of HIV identified some important gaps in the antenatal testing data on STIs in Australia. Currently, she is working on developing new surveillance systems to determine national antenatal testing coverage for HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B. In addition, she has been involved in a range of public health / epidemiological projects, including annual surveillance reports on transfusion transmissible infections in Australia.