Edsel Salvana

It’s always a delight reading the articles of infectious disease specialist Dr Edsel Salvana. He has this knack of explaining events in the medical and scientific realms not only in a crystal-clear way. As a science communicator, he is always conscious of delivering science-based information to the many readers of his columns, which is shared to many social media platforms. “The right information saves lives, and the wrong information can be disastrous,” he tells Tatler. As such, he became the voice of reason especially during the early dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic when many things about the deadly virus were unknown.

His advocacy was rewarded not only by public recognition but a recent promotion to Full Professor for Research at the University of the Philippines Manila. This is a pretty fast achievement for someone who is not even 50 years old, but Salvana credits a combination of funded research grants and a prolific publication record.

His continuous research in infectious diseases recently yielded another discovery. With a team of doctors and scientists, he authored the discovery of Theta, a new Philippine variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid 19.

Among his numerous recognitions, one validates his advocacies: a Senior TED Fellowship for his work in restoring vaccine confidence and improving science communication to the public.