[imagesource: Illustration by Brian Lutz for TIME / Photos: Nyani Quarmyne / Redux, Sikhulile Moyo / ProPhoto Studios Gaborone]

In order to crack TIME’s list of the 100 most influential people each year, you really need to make an impact.

Names on the 2022 list include Apple’s Tim Cook, Oprah Winfrey, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Joe Rogan, and Vladimir Putin.

The impact can be bad as you may have gathered from Putin’s inclusion.

Categories in the list include artists, titans, leaders, innovators, icons, and pioneers, and it’s in the final of those categories that Sikhulile Moyo and Tulio de Oliveira feature.

Zimbabwean-born Moyo graduated from Stellenbosch University in 2016 with a PhD in medical virology. He now serves as laboratory director at the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP).

De Oliveira, a leading voice in this country throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, serves as director of South Africa’s Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation. He also holds a joint appointment at Stellenbosch University’s School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, and Moyo is his former PhD student.

The duo crack the nod for their roles in identifying and discovering the Omicron variant, which caused panic when it became the dominant variant around the world in November last year.

John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, penned a tribute for TIME:

Scientists in Africa have been monitoring and sequencing pathogens since long before the pandemic. The world benefited from this network when scientists including Moyo… [and] de Oliveira… identified and reported the emergence of the Omicron variant last November. It was a transformational moment and a shift in paradigm—one that for me symbolized that excellence in science can originate in Africa.

The international response to news of this discovery—which included travel bans imposed on African countries by other nations—was complex. It made me reflect on what global cooperation and solidarity must look like when we fight a common threat like COVID-19.

Every generation has people who inspire subsequent generations. Sikhulile [above] and Tulio have the potential to be that for people who will work in public health and genomics. We have not seen the end of their contributions.

Given that we are nowhere near the COVID-19 finish line, I’m sure their contributions are far from done.

De Oliveira was in an understated mood when mentioning the honour on Twitter:

Not the kind of thing that I would Tweet about.
But just listed by #TIME as one of the 100 most influential people. However, this was together with Dr. Sikhulile Moyo, a past Ph.D. student, who become a scientific leader, this I am really proud of! https://t.co/MhWZlfoJPM pic.twitter.com/4lUO4bWZ0X

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) May 23, 2022

Blow your horn, man – it’s well deserved.

UW Medicine outlined how Moyo and de Oliveira pinned down the new variant:

Moyo is the director of the lab in Botswana that was among the first to detect the Omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The discovery occurred during their routine analysis of the virus’ genetic materials in positive patient samples.

The full sequences of genetic data allowed them to look for any evolutionary changes in the virus currently being transmitted.  They were alarmed to see that some of the samples contained heavily mutated viruses – far more than previous variants.

He reported the sequences to the Botswana Ministry of Health and Wellness, and discussed the matter with de Oliveira [above] in South Africa, who was also seeing strange mutations. Africa publicly reported the genetic and epidemiological findings on the new strain, which was later named Omicron, to the rest of the world.

And then we were instantly punished with travel bans, of course.

At least two scientists from our neck of the woods, and the teams that they’re a part of, are receiving some recognition.

Congrats to all.

[sources:time&uwmedicine]