Dr Elvira Singh (8 July 1976 – 26 February 2022)

It is with great sadness and profound shock that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has learned about the untimely passing of a dear colleague, Dr Elvira Singh.

Dr Singh was a respected public health medicine specialist with extensive experience in the fields of cancer surveillance and cancer epidemiology. Upon joining the South African National Health Laboratory Service in 2009, she worked at the National Institute for Occupational Health and thereafter at the South African National Cancer Registry. At the time of her passing, Dr Singh was the Head of the National Cancer Registry and a valued senior staff member at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

Dr Singh was determined to enhance the pathology-based cancer surveillance system, to implement pilot population-based cancer registration, and to extend this initiative to three other sentinel surveillance sites throughout the country. The Ekurhuleni Population-Based Cancer Registry (EPBCR) is the first urban population-based cancer registry in South Africa. Dr Singh passionately led a team that produced two years of data from the EBPCR, and was in the process of establishing a second population-based cancer registry in KwaZulu-Natal, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Under Dr Singh’s exemplary leadership, the National Cancer Registry was an active member of the African Cancer Registry Network, which is the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Hub of IARC’s Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (GICR). The National Cancer Registry was nominated as a GICR Collaborating Centre for the region for childhood cancer and record linkage, and Dr Singh was also instrumental in ongoing developments to establish national childhood cancer registration in South Africa, as part of the IARC–St. Jude project ChildGICR.

Dr Singh was also dedicated to collaborating with the cancer registry in research activities. She collaborated with IARC scientists on studies on haematological malignancies and on childhood cancer, as well as pilot activities on how to investigate possible cancer risks in relation to the contamination from uranium and other harmful substances found in the gold mine tailings in the Johannesburg region. She always insisted that this research goes hand in hand with capacity-building, ensuring that early career scientists participate in and benefit from this work.

IARC conveys its deepest and heartfelt condolences to Dr Singh’s family, friends, and colleagues. We will miss her warmth and enthusiasm, her beautiful smile, and her commitment to strengthening cancer surveillance, cancer research, and cancer control in Africa.

She is survived by her husband Shailen, her son Mihail, and her mother Roshni Singh. She will always be on our minds, and forever in our hearts.