23/09/2025
From Patient to Pioneer: Dr Lilishia Gounder Earns PhD in Virology at UKZN
Dr Lilishia Gounder, a Clinical Virologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), has achieved a remarkable academic milestone, earning a PhD in Virology.
Born and raised in Phoenix, Durban, and a proud alumna of Crystal Point Secondary School, Gounder was drawn to Medicine by a deeply personal experience. At just 17, she was hospitalised with post-viral Guillain-Barré syndrome - an experience that would profoundly shape her life. “Being on a ventilator at such a young age and surrounded by compassionate healthcare workers transformed my entire perspective,” she recalled. “I realised that to change the system, one had to be in the system.”
Encouraged by her family, she pursued her Medical degree at UKZN, where she developed a fascination with how viruses interact with the immune system. Though family commitments initially made her doubt the possibility of further specialisation, the unwavering support of her husband and mother-in-law motivated her to pursue Virology. She qualified as a specialist in 2018, completing both the Fellowship of the College of Virologists in South Africa and a Master of Medicine degree in Virology.
Her doctoral journey began in 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the guidance of her supervisor, Dr Benjamin Chimukangara, alongside co-supervisors Professor Raveen Parboosing and Dr Kerusha Govender, Gounder undertook ground-breaking research to strengthen HIV treatment monitoring in KwaZulu-Natal.
Her PhD focused on developing a surveillance database platform to monitor HIV-1 viral load and drug resistance data, linked to Geographic Information System (GIS) co-ordinates for geospatial analysis. By analysing over seven million viral loads from across the province, she uncovered crucial insights. She found that although viral loads decreased between 2018 and 2022, one in eight people living with HIV still had detectable viraemia, with worrying levels of drug resistance emerging, especially in children. Alarmingly, her study reported one of the highest recorded prevalences of dolutegravir resistance globally, underlining the urgent need for heightened surveillance.
Read more: https://shorturl.at/9bTSZ
