Anticipating Emerging Infectious Disease Epidemics ... · Anticipating Epidemics –...

1 Anticipating Epidemics – Participants’ biographical sketches

Anticipating Emerging Infectious Disease Epidemics

Participants’ Biographical Sketches

Professor Frank Møller Aarestrup – Head of Research Group, National Food Institute, Technical University of

Denmark, Denmark

Dr James Ajioka -- Senior Lecturer, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, UK

Dr Jim Ajioka is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pathology and Fellow of Jesus College,

Cambridge. He also teaches in the Departments of Biochemistry and Engineering. His current research

directions are (i) investigating host-intracellular pathogen interactions and the population

structure/evolution of the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, and (ii) developing Synthetic Biology

methods for the construction of genetic systems in microbes. Current projects include analysis of host cell response to

toxoplasma infection; hierarchical network analysis of large transcriptomic data sets (B. subtilis); developing methods for

genetic part/device characterization; and constructing a whole-cell arsenic biosensor for field use. Dr Ajioka is one of the

Pathology Department’s Biological Safety Officers, organizing the review of risk assessments on both dangerous

pathogens and GM work. “Understanding how infectious disease agents evolve is crucial for implementing synthetic

biology methods for detection and intervention.”

Dr Hamoud S. Al Garni -- Director of Health Authority at Point of Entry, Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia, Saudi

Arabia

Dr Homoud S Algarni works as a Director of Health Authority at Points of Entry and also coordinating

the implementation of the International Health Regulation (IHR) in Saudi Arabia. He has a master’s

degree in Public Health (MPH), Global Health, with a concentration in infectious disease, from Emory

University in the United States. “In today’s interconnected world, it's more important than ever to make sure all countries

are able to respond to and contain public health threats. As known the countries have agreed to build their capacities to

detect, assess and report public health events through the International Health Regulations (IHR).”

Dr Ray Arthur – Director, Global Disease Detection Operations Center, Division of Global Health Protection, Center for

Global Health, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA

Dr Rana Jawad Asghar -- Resident Advisor, Field Epidemiology & Laboratory Training Program, National Institute of

Health, Pakistan

Dr. Rana Jawad Asghar has worked as a Resident Advisor of the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory

Training Program (FELTP) in Pakistan since August 2006 (workforce capacity development in surveillance

and response, setting up surveillance systems, laboratory capacity enhancements, One Health). He was an

Epidemic Intelligence Service Fellow at CDC before coming to Pakistan. He has served as program manager for a child

survival project in Mozambique, faculty member at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Research

Associate in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University. He completed his

master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Washington where he was a Fellow of Training in International

Emerging Infectious Diseases. He did his basic medical education in Pakistan from Allama Iqbal Medical College and

MCPS from College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was a Franklin Adams Scholar for a year in the Bristol University,

UK in the department of Epidemiology.


Dr Abdullah M Assiri -- Adult Infectious Diseases Consultant, Assistant Deputy Minister Preventive Health, IHR

National Focal Point, Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Dr Abdullah Assiri MD FACP is an Adult Infectious Diseases Consultant, Assistant Deputy Minister

Preventive Health, IHR National Focal Point in the Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia and Adjunct Associate

Professor, Hubert Department of Global Health, Emory University, USA. He received his MBBS degree

from King Saud University in 1994 and Fellowship in adult infectious diseases from Dalhousie University in 2003. Dr

Assiri has worked as an internist and adult infectious diseases consultant in the Department of Medicine, King Fahad

Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia since 2007. Currently he is in charge of infectious diseases surveillance programs

including MERS-CoV. He is an active member of the command and control center at the Ministry of Health. Dr Assiri is

an editorial board member for Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health since July 2014, a member of WHO IHR

Emergency Committee on MERS-CoV since May 2014, a member of the WHO IHR Emergency Committee on Ebola

since July 2014, and a member of WHO Executive Board since 2014.

Dr Juliet Bedford – Director and Founder, Anthrologica, UK

Dr Juliet Bedford is the Director of Anthrologica, a research-based organisation specialising in applied

anthropology in global health (www.anthrologica.com). She is a Research Associate at the School of

Anthropology, and is an Adjunct Professor at the College of Global Public Health at New York University.

Anthrologica conducts formative and operational research across health sectors, focusing on the interface

between the provision and uptake of health services in resource-scarce settings. Anthrologica’s core

expertise lies in incorporating the needs and perceptions of intended beneficiaries into health policy and programming to

ensure these are contextually relevant and that opportunities for improving health are maximised through the active

participation of recipients. Anthrologica is developing a rapid response unit for the future deployment of applied

anthropologists in public health and humanitarian crises During the Ebola response, Dr Bedford was deployed with

UNMEER and UNICEF in Liberia and Sierra Leone and continues to be engaged in recovery and resilience work across

the region.

Ms Barbara Bentein – Head, Principal Advisor Ebola Crisis Cell, UNICEF, USA

Ms Barbara Bentein currently serves as UNICEF’s Principal Advisor and recently served as the Global

Emergency Coordinator for Ebola from March through June 2015. She is responsible for coordinating

UNICEF’s contribution to the response in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, providing strategic guidance,

supporting mobilization of staff and resources while also ensuring coordination with the UN, other UN

partners, governments, NGOs, civil society organizations, the private sector and donors. She previously

served as the UNICEF Representative for the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of UNICEF’s largest country programs.

Ms. Bentein has worked with UNICEF since 1984 in various capacities including Deputy Regional Director in the West

and Central Africa Regional Office, Area Representative for Madagascar, Comoros and Mauritius, and Program

Coordinator in Chile and Tunisia. Ms Bentein has a Master’s degree in Social and Political Sciences, International

Relations and Teaching Skills in Political and Social Sciences from Rijksuniversiteit in Gent, Belgium.

Dr Ariel Beresniak – Chief Executive Officer, Data Mining International SA, Switzerland

Mr David Bestwick – Technical Director, Avanti Communication Group plc, UK

As Technical Director at Avanti Communications, Mr Bestwick has a strong interest in bringing low cost,

efficient communications to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa which are served by Avanti’s satellites.

Avanti focusses on delivering low cost connectivity to schools and hospitals across East and Southern

Africa. With the launch of their next satellites in 2017, they will deliver these same services to Western

Africa. “Communications plays a vital role in understanding the evolution of infectious disease epidemics,

allowing warning signs to be identified by monitoring social media interactions, enabling health workers to deliver aid

effectively in the field and even allowing self-reporting by victims of disease. When combined with other satellite

technologies, such as Earth Observation, enormous amounts of data can be compiled, collated and analysed for


information relating to the outbreak and spread of disease. Avanti is currently preparing the “LIFENet” project to

demonstrate these capabilities in real world situations.”

Dr Peter Black – Deputy Regional Manager, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailandia

During the last ten years, Dr Black has developed a special interest in the use of strategic foresight with a

particular focus on the interactions between food systems, global environmental change and emerging

infectious diseases. He is a veterinary epidemiologist who also holds a Master of Science in Strategic

Foresight from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He was involved in

facilitating foresight approaches within sections of the Australian Government, and as part of that process,

identified a platform to assist in ‘changing and adjusting lenses’ so that officers are better prepared to anticipate and

respond proactively to emerging disease threats and their drivers. “The most valuable outcome of this work however has

been the change that happens in people’s thinking.”

Professor Mathilde Bourrier -- Professor, Départment de Sociologie, Université de Geneve, Switzerland

Mathilde Bourrier holds a PhD in Sociology (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and University of

California, Berkeley, 1996) and an Habilitation (2004). She has been a professor of Sociology at the

University of Geneva since 2006. For many years she has studied, using ethnographic methods, high-risks

industries and complex activities (nuclear power plants; large hospitals; GMO' risks governance), and

cross-national comparisons. Since 2008, she has been involved with research projects dealing with the

management of outbreaks, as part of an American Science Foundation project conducted at the University

of California, Berkeley by Prof. Ann Keller, Prof. Chris Ansell and Prof. Art Reingold (2008-2011). She currently

coordinates a research project, funded by the Swiss National Fund (2013-2016), on Lessons from the A(H1N1) pandemic

to the Ebola epidemic: Unraveling lessons learned from the A(H1N1) pandemic to the ongoing Ebola epidemic. Professor

Bourrier is especially interested in organizational design and resources' allocation during severe and challenging

conditions, such as epidemics or pandemics.

Dr Philippe Calain – Physician, Research, Médecins Sans Frontières, Switzerland

Dr Dennis Carroll – Director Pandemic Influenza and other Emerging Threats Unit, US Agency for International

Development (USAID), USA

Dr Dennis Carroll serves as the Director of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID)

Global Health Security and Development Unit. In this position Dr. Carroll is responsible for providing

strategic and operational leadership for the Agency's programs addressing new and emerging disease threats

and promotion of One Health strategies across the Agency. 1n a career that includes positions at both the US Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention and USAID, Dr Carroll has been directly involved in the development and introduction

of a range of new technologies and strategies for disease prevention and control. He currently oversees USAID’s

Emerging Pandemic Threats Program. Dr. Carroll has received awards from both CDC and USAID, including the 2006

USAID Science and Technology Award for his work on malaria and avian influenza, the 2008 Administrator’s

Management Innovation Award for his management of the Agency’s Avian and Pandemic Influenza program, and the

2015 Agency Distinguished Honor Award.

Mr Sean Casey – Emergency Response Team Leader, International Medical Corps, USA

Mr Sean Casey was the first person deployed by International Medical Corps to respond to the 2014 West

Africa Ebola outbreak. Today, he serves as the organization’s Regional Director for West Africa,

managing response, recovery and preparedness efforts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau

and Mali. Since August 2014, International Medical Corps’s over 1,500 staff in West Africa have cared for

nearly 2,500 patients in five Ebola Treatment Centres, trained thousands of frontline Ebola responders,

screened hundreds of thousands of individuals through Screening and Referral Units in the three most-

affected countries, and provided ongoing support to hundreds of Ebola survivors. In addition to his work on the Ebola

response, Mr Casey was one of the first humanitarian responders to the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. Prior to his work in


West Africa, he led responses to outbreaks in both Haiti and South Sudan, and has worked extensively on HIV/AIDS

programming around the world.

Dr Marty Cetron – Director, Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, US Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, USA

Dr Andrew Clements – Senior Scientific Adviser, Global Health Security and Development Unit Bureau for Global

Health, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), USA

Andrew Clements, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientific Advisor for the Emerging Pandemic Threats program in the

USAID’s Bureau for Global Health. He received his graduate and post-doctoral training in microbiology and

biochemistry. He has served as an infectious disease advisor at USAID for the past 18 years with a focus on

tuberculosis, malaria, antimicrobial resistance, avian influenza, and other emerging threats, such as MERS-CoV and

Ebola. He also analyzes trends for emerging public health threats and manages activities (implemented by PREDICT and

FAO) that are related to understanding and mitigating risk associated with emerging pandemic threats.

Professor Maire Connolly – Professor, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland

Máire Connolly is Professor of International Health at the School of Medicine at National University of

Ireland Galway. She is Project Director and Principle Investigator of PANDEM - a Horizon 2020 project

on pandemic risk and emergency management funded by the European Commission. The project includes

experts from the health, security, defence, microbiology, IT, communications, legal and crisis management

fields working on innovative solutions to improve communications, coordination and multi-sectoral

cooperation between key players in pandemic management. Her areas of expertise include communicable diseases,

outbreak response, global health security, pandemic preparedness and humanitarian response. She joined WHO in 1995

working in the Tuberculosis programme and became focal point for communicable diseases in the Emergency and

Humanitarian Action department in 1997. She was Programme leader and subsequently Coordinator for Disease Control

in Emergencies from 2000 to 2007. She has been deployed on WHO missions to over 20 countries, and developed

WHO's guidelines for pandemic preparedness in displaced populations with partner humanitarian agencies.

Dr Denis Coulombier -- Head of Unit, Surveillance and Response Support, European Centre for Disease Prevention and

Control, Sweden

Dr Denis Coulombier is a medical doctor and a specialist in tropical diseases and public health with

extensive international experience. He joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the CDC in 1991 and

subsequently worked in the Epidemiology Programme Office of the CDC in Atlanta. In 1995 he returned to

native France to head the Unit for information systems in the National Institute for Public Health. In 2000,

Dr Coulombier was seconded to WHO to lead the team in charge of epidemiology capacity strengthening.

From May 2005, Dr Denis Coulombier was the Head of Unit for Preparedness and Response, and from April 2011 he is

the Head of Unit for Surveillance and Response Support in the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, in

Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr Inger Damon – Director, Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, US Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention, USA

In April 2014, Dr. Damon assumed leadership of the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and

Pathology within the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases. From July 2014

through March 2015, she served as the Incident Commander for the CDC’s West African Ebola Response.

Dr. Damon previously spent 15 years working in various scientific or leadership roles in the Poxvirus and Rabies Branch

at CDC. Under her leadership, the Poxvirus Program has developed programs of study in human orthopoxvirus disease

pathogenesis, animal models of orthopoxvirus disease, laboratory diagnostics development, therapeutics development,

poxvirus surveillance activities, ecological investigations of poxviruses, and studies of the transmission dynamics of

orthopoxviruses. She has worked with the US government on smallpox preparedness activities, and has been involved in


multiple outbreak responses.. She is the director of one the two WHO Collaborating Centers for Smallpox and other

Poxvirus Infections, is certified to work, and trained others to work, in high containment laboratories.

Professor Xavier De Lamballerie – Director of the Research Unit (EPV), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement

(IRD) Marseille, France

Ms Emma Diggle – Epidemics and Vaccination Adviser, Save the Children, UK

Emma Diggle is the epidemics and vaccination adviser at Save the Children, UK. She has many years of tropical nursing

expertise, followed by an Master’s of Science at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and experience in

epidemiology/public health/operational research roles with MSF and WHO.

Professor Dialo Diop – Professor, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Senegal

Professor Dialo Diop is both a physician and a biologist. He holds a BA in Philosophy (1968), a MD degree

(1982) and a PhD in Molecular Biology (2006). He works at Fann Children Hospital's laboratory and is a

lecturer in Virology at Cheikh Anta Diop University Medical School (Microbiology Department).

Professor Christl Donnelly – Professor of Statistical Epidemiology, Imperial College London, UK

Christl Donnelly is Professor of Statistical Epidemiology at the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and

Modelling and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling at the Department of

Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London. Originally trained as a biostatistician, her

specialist interest is in outbreaks and outbreak response, particularly relating to zoonoses. She is a leading

member of the collaborative WHO Ebola Response Team, and was part of the WHO Rapid Pandemic

Assessment Collaboration in 2009. “Statistical and mathematical epidemiology can offer powerful analytical tools to

estimate fundamental biological parameters relating to disease progression (e.g. the incubation period) and transmission.

Furthermore, related tools can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of time-varying control measures, for example the use

of new diagnostic tools, contact tracing or quarantining. Rigorous statistical analysis provides suitable estimates as well

as measures of their uncertainty.”

Dr Henry Dowlen – Senior Manager, Health, Government and Public Sector (GPS), Ernst & Young LLP

Dr Henry Dowlen joined Ernst & Young in 2014. Prior to that, he worked as a medical doctor in

Emergency Medicine, the Armed Forces and in Public Health. He qualified from Imperial with a Bachelor

of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, and also holds a Masters in Public Health, a Masters in Development

Management, a BSc in Physiology and a Diploma in the Medical Care of Catastrophes. Henry is a Major in

the Royal Marines, currently serving in Royal Marines Reserve, London. He was deployed by the military

to work in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to coordinate the National Ebola Response Centre

before moving to the border with Guinea where he led the UK team working on the response.

Dr Monique Eloit – Deputy Director, World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), France

Monique Eloit graduated as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. In 1999, Dr Eloit was appointed Director at

the French Food Safety Agency. In this capacity, she contributed to reform the expert committees, and

supervised national veterinary laboratories network. She was also in charge of the bioterrorism dossier. In

2005, she was nominated by the French Minister of Agriculture as Chief Veterinary Officer. During the four

years that followed, she worked on many health crises, including avian influenza and various food safety

emergencies. She joined the OIE in 2009, as Deputy Director-General. She was elected as Director-General

in May 2015. She will begin her five-year term in January 2016.


Dr Delia Enria – Director, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Virales Humanas, Argentina

Dr. Delia Enria received her medical degree from the University of Rosario, School of Medicine,

Argentina and a Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She has the title of Specialist

on Internal Medicine from the Medical College of Buenos Aires Province, a degree on Higher Studies on

Bioethics from the Latin-American Faculty of Social Sciences, and is a Specialist on Infectious Diseases

under the Council of Certification of Medical Professionals, National Academy of Medicine, Argentina.

She is the Director of the WHO/PAHO Collaborating Centre in Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers and

Arboviruses. Through the work of the Institute, WHO/PAHO and international collaborations, Argentina achieved the

control of Argentine Haemorrhagic Fever (Junin Virus). She is professor at the University of Northwestern Buenos Aires

Province. Dr. Enria has done much international collaboration in the region of the Americas, including Venezuelan

Hemorrhagic Fever (Guanarito virus), Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever (Machupo virus), dengue, yellow fever and

hantavirus outbreaks.

Dr Abdul Ghafur – Consultant in Infectious Diseases, Apollo Hospital, India

Dr Abdul Ghafur is the primary author and coordinator of the “Chennai Declaration” which is a document

and initiative by medical societies in India, to tackle the challenge of antimicrobial resistance from an

Indian perspective. He is a Consultant and Adjunct Associate Professor in infectious diseases and Clinical

Microbiology at the Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, India. He is an advisory member of the “Longitude prize”.

Dr Ghafur is the Indian coordinator for the Royal college of Pathologists. He is an editorial board member

and reviewer of many international journals. He received the Indian Medical Association oration award from the

Honourable Union Health Minister for his contribution towards tackling antibiotics resistance. He is a core committee

member for National Antibiotic Policy and Guideline of the Indian Ministry of Health.

Dr Dirk Glaesser – Director, Sustainable Development Programme, World Tourism Organization, Spain

Dr. Dirk Glaesser is Director for Sustainable Development of Tourism (SDT) at the World Tourism

Organization (UNWTO). The SDT programme deals with the different challenges and opportunities of

tourism development, among them environment and planning, investment and finance, safety and security.

Under his supervision, the programme engages in top-level coordination with WHO, ICAO, UNSIC and

the Tourism Emergency Response Network (TERN) to promote safe travel behavior and has closely

monitored the various health emergencies, from the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 to the most recent Ebola

epidemics, and their impact on travel and tourism. Dr. Glaesser is an advisor of the IHR Emergency Committee on Ebola.

Dr Jean-Paul Gonzalez – Senior Scientist, Metabiota Inc, USA

Dr Jean-Paul Joseph Gonzalez graduated from the Medical School of Bordeaux University, France..

He received his Ph.D. in viral ecology (University of Clermont-Ferrand, France). He has dedicated his

career to research, training and expertise for developing countries across the Americas, Africa and

Asia. His main fields of research encompass disease emergence, and viral disease eco-epidemiology.

He has worked at CDC, and as a visiting professor at the Yale University Arbovirus Research Unit,

has been involved in high security laboratory practices and research, early development of

geographical information systems applied to infectious diseases. He and his teams have identified new pathogens for

humans and animals, and developed tools and strategies for biosurveillance, control and prevention of highly infectious

transmitted disease. He has developed several scientific concepts and research strategies for health. In 2012, he joined

Metabiota, Inc. as Senior Staff Scientist, perpetuating his expertise on emerging viral disease, biosafety, biosecurity and

biosurveillance, and mentoring scientists from developing countries.

Professor Herman Goossens – Head, Department for Microbiology, University Antwerp, Belgium

Dr Jessica Halverson – Manager, HIV/AIDS and TB Section Surveillance and Epidemiology Division Centre for

Communicable Diseases and Infection Control, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada


Dr Nur A. Hasan – Adjunct Faculty, University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, USA

Dr. Hasan is a molecular biologist with over 15 years of experience in microbial genomics,

metagenomics, molecular ecology, and infectious disease diagnosis. His research focuses on using

microbial genomics and metagenomics to understand epidemiology, transmission, and ecology of enteric

diseases. Dr. Hasan uses comparative microbial genomics to examine pathogen evolution, subtleties of

virulence and mobile genetic elements; metagenomics to understand the dynamics of microbial

community in reference to the emergence of enteric disease like cholera, as well as to predict health and

disease states; and WGS sequencing based infectious disease diagnosis for rapid identification of human pathogens for

enhanced medical treatments and rapid bio-agent detection, biosurveillance, and outbreak investigation. In addition to

leading the Science Team at CosmosID, Dr. Hasan is an adjunct Faculty at the Center for Bioinformatics and

Computational Biology, University of Maryland. Dr. Hasan holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Microbiology, an

M.B.A in Marketing, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology.

Professor David Heymann – Head and Senior Fellow, Centre on Global Health Security, The Royal Institute of

International Affairs, Chatham House, UK

David L. Heymann is Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and

Tropical Medicine, Head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, London and Chairman

of the Board, Public Health England, UK. Previously he was the WHO's Assistant Director-General for

Health Security and Environment, and Representative of the Director-General for polio eradication. Earlier

experiences at WHO included Executive Director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster during

which he headed the global response to SARS. Prior to that he worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-

Saharan Africa on assignment from the US CDC where he participated in the first and second outbreaks of Ebola

Hemorrhagic Fever. He is an elected fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (US) and the

Academy of Medical Sciences (UK). In 2009 Professor Heymann was appointed an honorary Commander of the Most

Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to global public health.

Dr Didier Houssin – President, Agence d'Evaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur, France

Professor of surgery and liver transplant specialist at Paris's Descartes University since 1988, Dr Didier

Houssin has served as head of surgery at Paris's Cochin Hospital, as executive director of the French

transplant agency, as Greater Paris University Hospitals' medical policy director and, from 2005 to 2011, as

director general for health at the French Ministry of Health and inter-ministerial delegate for pandemic flu

preparedness. President of the French agency for the evaluation of research and higher education from

2011 to 2015, and president of the French agency for food, environmental and occupational health and

safety since 2013, he served as an advisor to WHO since 2011, mainly as chair of the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness

Framework Agreement Advisory Group and, since 2015, as chair of the Review Committee on the Role of the

International Health Regulations (2005) in the Ebola Outbreak and Response.

Professor T Jacob John – Professor and Former Head of Clinical Virology, Christian Medical College, India

T Jacob John, pediatrician-virologist, retired as Professor and Head of Department of Clinical Virology,

Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. He established India’s first diagnostic virology laboratory in

1967, which resulted in the detection of 3-dose OPV failure in India and the improvement in OPV

efficacy which became critical for eliminating wild poliovirus transmission in India during 2000-2010. In

1985 Professor John led a team of investigators that detected India’s first HIV infected persons in 1986

and was subsequently appointed Director of the National HIV/AIDS Reference Laboratory until 1995. In

early 2000s he led a team that showed that the annual recurrent outbreaks called viral encephalitis in

children in Uttar Pradesh, were caused by toxicity of a weed, Cassia occidentalis, and thus a new disease, hepato-myo-

encephalopathy, was described. In 2013-14, he led a team that discovered that the annual recurrent outbreaks in Biharwas

in fact toxic hypoglycemic encephalopathy caused by a hypoglycin present in litchi fruit. Professor John was instrumental

in recognizing wide prevalence of leptospirosis in Kerala and melioidosis in several states in India. In 1994, he was the

President of Indian Association of Medical Microbiologists, and in 1999, President of Indian Academy of Pediatrics.


Senator Fabienne Keller – Senator, Sénat, France

Fabienne Keller was born on October 20th

1959 in Selestat (Bas-Rhin, France). She is a French politician,

Senator of the Bas-Rhin region and member of Les Républicains .

She graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and Berkeley University, before working at the French

Ministry of Finance and at the Crédit Industriel d’Alsace et de Lorraine. In 1998 she entered politics and

was elected Mayor of Strasbourg where she served from 2001 to 2008.

Senator of the Bas-Rhin region since 2004, she is Vice-President of the Standing Committee on Finance

and Vice-President of the Committee for European Affairs. Truly engaged in emerging infectious diseases issues, in 2012

she published a report entitled The new threats of Emerging Infectious Diseases, describing the driving forces and public

policy measures that could prevent an epidemic or a pandemic from occurring. To update this report, in April 2015 she

organized, a conference about the digital tools that may help prevent and treat emerging infectious diseases.

Dr Kamran Khan – Research Scientist, Centre for Research on Inner City Health St Michael's Hospital, Canada

Dr Kamran Khan is a practicing infectious disease physician at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and an

Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Inspired by the SARS epidemic, Dr. Khan

launched BioDiaspora, an academic research program to study the relationship between global population

mobility via commercial air travel and the worldwide spread of infectious diseases. In 2010, he partnered

with the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

to develop BioMosaic, an initiative to gather, integrate, analyze and visualize diverse health and non-health data to

support timely decision-making during public health emergencies. In 2014 Dr. Khan founded BlueDot, a social enterprise

housing integrated expertise in clinical infectious diseases, population health, data engineering and analytics, human

factors and design, and software development to translate ideas into practical solutions that harness big data and cutting-

edge web and mobile technologies.

Dr Ali S Khan – Dean, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Centre, USA

Ali S. Khan, MD, MPH, is a former Assistant Surgeon General and current Dean of the College of Public

Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. His career has focused on health security, global

health, and emerging infectious diseases. He completed a 23-year career as a senior director at the CDC,

where he led and responded to numerous high profile domestic and international public health

emergencies including Hantavirus, Ebola, monkeypox, avian influenza, Rift Valley fever, SARS, the

Asian Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina. He was one of the main architects of the CDC’s public health

bioterrorism preparedness program. In 2015 he responded to the West Africa Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone as a WHO

consultant and enrolled UNMC as a member of GOARN.

Dr Nadia Khelef – International Affairs Advisor, Institut Pasteur, France

Dr Nadia Khelef trained as microbiologist, specializing in the study of the virulence mechanisms of

bacterial infections. She worked in the pharma industry, then started a research career at the Institut Pasteur

and Columbia and Cornell Universities in New York. She has published numerous papers, given seminars

and taught, all at international level. She is co‐inventor of a patent exploited to develop a therapeutic cancer

vaccine. Dr Khelef has been involved in developing projects and programmes at European and International levels,

including setting up and managing a Grants Office, managing European Affairs, contributing to setting up a Public

Private Partnership, Bioaster, dedicated to accelerate the translation of biomedical discoveries in the field of infectious

diseases and microbiology, including microbiota. She has served as diplomatic advisor to the French Minister of higher

education and research. She is now senior advisor for global affairs in charge of reinforcing the partnerships with the

Global Health International Organizations.


Professor Ilona Kickbusch – Director of the Global Health Programme and Adjunct Professor, Interdisciplinary

Programmes, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland

Ilona Kickbusch is the Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International

and Development Studies, Geneva. She is senior advisor to the Regional Directors of the WHO Regional

Offices for Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. She has been deeply involved in the development of the

Health 2020 European health policy framework. She is a member of the independent Ebola interim assessment panel of

the WHO. In Switzerland she serves on the executive board of the Careum Foundation and on the expert panel to the

Federal Councillor to advice on the implementation of the Swiss Health Strategy 2020. She has worked with the WHO at

various levels and in academia as professor at Yale University. She has published widely and is a member of a number of

advisory boards in both the academic and the health policy arena. Her key areas of work relate to Global Health

Governance, Health Security, Public Health, Health Promotion, Health Literacy and Health in All Policies. She has a

strong commitment to women's rights.

Dr Ann Marie Kimball – Strategic Advisor, Rockefeller Foundation, USA

Ann Marie Kimball is a physician and epidemiologist. A strategic adviser for Rockefeller Foundation, she

served as technical and strategic lead for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation surveillance strategy

formation. She was also senior program officer with the foundation, prior to which she served as professor

of epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health where she is now emerita.

During her tenure at UW, Dr Kimball founded and directed the APEC Emerging Infections Network, and

led research and training programs in Peru and Thailand. Her research focus on global trade and emerging

infections earned her a Fulbright New Century Scholars award and a Guggenheim Scholars award. She is the author

of Risky Trade: Infectious Diseases in an Era of Global Trade and has authored numerous scientific publications and

served on several Institute of Medicine panels. Most recently she led the Rockefeller Foundation evaluation of their

global disease surveillance network portfolio. She is a fellow in the American College of Preventive Medicine and

member of the National Biosurveillance Advisory group, Centers for Disease Control.

Dr Gary P Kobinger – Head of Special Pathogens, Head, Vector Design and Immunotherapy, Special Pathogens

Program, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Canada

Dr Gary Kobinger is the Chief of the Special Pathogens Biosafety Level 4 program at the National

Microbiology Laboratory (Public Health Agency of Canada), and is an adjunct professor in the Department

of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and associate professor in the

Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Manitoba. His work focuses on developing

and testing new vaccine platforms and immune treatments against high containment viruses. He is the co-Director of the

WHO Collaborating Centre for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases Detection, Diagnostics, Reference and Research, and

co-chair the Emerging and Dangerous Pathogens Laboratory Global Network for Outbreak Response and Readiness. In

2013, Gary was appointed as a member of the IHR roster of experts in Viral Hemorrhagic Fever.

Professor Marion Koopmans – Professor of Public Health Virology, ErasmusMC, Netherlands

Professor Marion Koopmans is a veterinarian specialized in viral diseases. Her research interest is in

understanding viral dynamics and diversity in relation to epidemiology, patterns of transmission and human

health impact, particularly foodborne and zoonotic diseases. She has trained and worked at Utrecht University,

CDC, the National Institute of Public Health of the Netherlands and Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam

where she heads the Viroscience department. At RIVM she has been responsible for emerging disease

laboratory preparedness. She has developed collaborative networks for sharing of laboratory and epidemiological data in

order to understand patterns of transmission, both nationally and internationally and is currently developing a generic

platform for incorporation of next generation sequencing data in such a platform (www.compare-europe.eu). The

Viroscience department is the national reference laboratory for emerging viral infections and influenza. During the Ebola

outbreak, the laboratory deployed three mobile laboratories and trained technical staff for deployment in Liberia and

Sierra Leone.

http://www.compare-europe.eu/


Professor Gérard Krause – Head of Department Epidemiology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Germany

Gérard Krause is a medical epidemiologist with work experience in various Latin American and West

African countries. He worked as epidemic intelligence service officer at CDC and was state epidemiologist

at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany. In that position he was in charge of implementing IHR,

and coordinated among others the epidemiological response to the flu pandemic in 2009 and the outbreak

haemolytic syndrome due to shigatoxin producing E. coli in 2011. In Since 2011 he has been professor for

infectious disease epidemiology at the Hannover Medical School and head of the newly founded epidemiology

department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany. He is project lead of the

Surveillance, Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System which was piloted in Nigeria during the Ebola

outbreak in West Africa.

Ms Rhonda Kropp – Senior Surveillance Advisor Office of Public Health Practice, Public Health Agency of Canada,

Canada

Ms Rhonda Kropp is the Director General for the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious

Diseases at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Ms Kropp has been working in the field of infectious

diseases for over 20 years as a nurse, microbiologist, researcher and infectious disease epidemiologist.

During her twelve years with the Government of Canada, Rhonda has had various responsibilities for the

prevention and surveillance of, and response to, emerging infectious diseases including H1N1 and Ebola.

As such she has relevant experience from the federal government perspective on preparing for and responding to national

and international emerging infectious disease events. As a nurse, she also has intelligence to contribute on health system

considerations. In her current position, she is responsible for overseeing Canada’s preparation for and response to

emerging respiratory pathogens.

Dr Melissa Leach – Director, Institute of Development Studies - University of Sussex, UK

Dr Melissa Leach is Director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She

founded and directed the Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability Centre

from 2006 – 2014. A geographer and social anthropologist, her interdisciplinary, policy-engaged

research in Africa and beyond links health, environment, technology and gender. She has researched

and published extensively on social aspects of emerging infections, pandemics, zoonotic disease and

public engagement with health responses. She is currently leading a large interdisciplinary research

consortium on Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa. She co-founded the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform, led an

initiative on Ebola “Lessons for Development”, and was lead social scientist in the UK and WHO Ebola scientific

advisory committees. She is vice-chair of the Science Committee of Future Earth; a member of the International Panel of

Experts on Sustainable Food Systems; and lead author of UN Women’s World Survey on the Role of Women in

Economic Development 2014.

Dr James Le Duc – Director, Galveston National Laboratory, The University of Texas Medical Branch, US

Dr James Le Duc is an expert in global public health and emerging infectious diseases. His counsel is

frequently sought on topics related to infectious diseases and emergency preparedness. He is the Director of

the Galveston National Laboratory, one of the world’s leading high biocontainment facilities where

infectious disease basic research and preclinical testing is conducted with the goal of developing

diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines to control emerging and re-emerging public health threats. He is a

professor in UTMB’s School of Medicine. Prior to joining UTMB, Dr. Le Duc worked at CDC in various

leadership roles, including director of the division of viral and rickettsial diseases, associate director for global health, and

coordinator for pandemic influenza preparedness. He was instrumental in implementing the WHO program in emerging

infectious diseases and serves on the Texas Task Force for Emergency Preparedness & Response.


Professor Vernon Lee – Deputy Director, Communicable Diseases Ministry of Health, Singapore and Head, Singapore

Armed Forces Biodefence Centre, Singapore

Associate Professor Vernon Lee is a preventive medicine physician, Deputy Director for Communicable

Diseases in the Singapore Ministry of Health, Head of the Singapore Armed Forces Biodefence Centre, and

adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health at the National University of Singapore. He was formerly

Advisor to the Assistant Director General for Health, Security and Environment at WHO; and Medical Epidemiologist in

the WHO Office in Indonesia. He has been involved in many global health security collaborations, and has developed

pandemic preparedness plans and risk assessment and management programs at the global and national levels. He has

also conducted research on the effectiveness of various interventions against infectious diseases. He graduated from

medical school at the National University of Singapore, holds a PhD in epidemiology from the Australian National

University, and the MPH and MBA degrees from the Johns Hopkins University, US.

Ms Hélène Lepetit – Managing Partner - Co-founder, Institut des Mamans (IDM), France

Ms Hélène Lepetit is the co-founder of Institut des Mamans, a market and social research agency

specialised on mothers, children and families. She is also the founder of maman.fr, a website and a

community of more than 100,000 mothers. She has studied mothers’ digital and health behaviors since 2000,

and in particular, the impact of the web and social networks on health behaviors. Further, Ms Lepetit has

done numerous studies on vaccination. She has developed specific methodologies to research digital

behaviors in particular health behaviors, which she has implemented in France and in the UK.

Professor Gabriel Leung – Dean, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, China

Gabriel Leung is Dean of Medicine and Chair Professor of Public Health Medicine at the University of Hong

Kong. Previously he was Hong Kong’s Under Secretary for Food and Health, then Director of the Chief

Executive's Office in government. He directs the University’s WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious

Disease Epidemiology and Control. His research defined the epidemiology of two novel viral epidemics,

namely SARS in 2003 and H7N9 in 2013. While in government, he led Hong Kong’s policy response against

Pandemic (H1N1) 2009. Most recently he has served on the Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the

Future led by the US National Academy of Medicine, the International Expert Group Convening on Pandemic Emergency

Preparedness for G7 Summit, the Harvard-LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola and was an

expert reviewer for the United Nations Secretary-General High-level Panel on the Global Response to Health Crises.

Dr Woraya Luang-on – Director, Bureau of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand

Woraya Luang-on is a medical doctor and an epidemiologist. After her medical degree graduation from

Chulalongkorn University, Thailand in 1998 and her service at hospitals in rural areas as physician and

hospital director, she started her epidemiology career by enrolling in the Field Epidemiology Training

Program, Ministry of Public Health. Subsequently she obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health at

Mahidol University and a diploma from the Thai Board of Preventive Medicine (Epidemiology) in 2004.

Dr.Woraya’s has worked in preparedness and response to Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs), nationally and

internationally. As part of the disease prevention and control authority, she is one of the key persons who launched

National strategic plans on EIDs and the simulation exercises for EIDs preparedness as well as Business Continuity

Planning countrywide. She introduced technical guidance on prevention and control of avian influenza, pandemic

influenza, MERS, Ebola, and other EIDs for medical and public health personnel. She is focal point for the international

collaboration projects under Thai-US collaboration and Canada-Asia Regional Emerging Infectious Disease Project. She

has served as temporary WHO advicer and is on the ASEAN Working Group on Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

Dr Hayley MacGregor – Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK

Dr Hayley MacGregor is a medical anthropologist at the Institute of Development Studies at the University

of Sussex and a co-convenor of the Health and Nutrition research cluster. She trained as a medical doctor in

South Africa, before completing a PhD in Social Anthropology in the U.K. Research interests include the

http://www.maman.fr/


anthropology of global health and health systems; lay and informal health providers; concepts of care and chronicity in

responses to lifelong illnesses such as HIV and NCDs; and social dimensions associated with zoonotic disease

transmission, detection and spread. She is the lead social scientist in the Myanmar Pig partnership Project, which is

studying endemic and emerging zoonotic disease risks in the pig industry in Myanmar and the links also to anti-microbial

resistance. In a recently completed project she participated in research on emerging infectious diseases associated with

bats in Ghana as a researcher in the STEPS Centre at the Institute of Development Studies.

Ms Debora MacKenzie – Health and Global Security Issues Reporter, New Scientist, UK

Ms Debora MacKenzie has reported for New Scientist magazine since 1984, covering infectious disease

and global security issues including food production, arms control, and complex systems. She has covered

the major infectious diseases of people, plants and animals that have emerged in that time, including Ug99,

BSE, SARS, MERS-CoV and various kinds of flu, as well as events surrounding chemical and biological

weapons, and what the science of complexity can tell us about social systems from finance to government.

New Scientist’s scientific emphasis means its reporters often talk to scientists, and get stories overlooked by other

journalists.

Professor John Mackenzie – Research Associate and Professor of Tropical Infectious Disease, Curtin University,

Australia

John Mackenzie is a Research Associate and Professor of Tropical Infectious Diseases at Curtin University

in Perth. His research interests have encompassed the emergence, ecology and spread of vector-borne viral

diseases, and novel bat-borne viral diseases. He was the inaugural recipient of the Academy of Science

Malaysia’s Mahathir Science Award for Excellence in Tropical Research, and received the Order of

Australia for his contributions to public health. He was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology, and as

Secretary-General of the International Union of Microbiological Societies from 1999-2005. He serves on the Steering

Committee of WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, and the Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging

Diseases. Most recently, his interests have turned to the concept of One Health, co-chairing the first and fourth

International Congresses, and as Vice-Chair of a new Foundation, the One Health Platform. He is also co-Editor-in-Chief

of a new journal, One Health.

Dr Lawrence C. Madoff – Editor, ProMED-mail, USA

Dr Lawrence Madoff is an infectious disease physician specializing in the epidemiology of emerging

pathogens, bacterial pathogenesis, and international health. He is Professor of Medicine at the University of

Massachusetts Medical School and Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Madoff serves as

Director of Epidemiology and Immunization and Deputy State Epidemiologist for the Massachusetts

Department of Public Health. Dr. Madoff has directed ProMED, the Program for Monitoring Emerging

Diseases, since 2002. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology, the International Society for Infectious

Diseases, past President of the U.S. Lancefield Streptococcal Research Society, a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases

Society of America and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. A graduate of Yale College and Tufts Medical

School, he performed his Internal Medicine Residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and his Infectious

Disease Fellowship at the Harvard Medical School-Longwood program.

Dr Jean-Claude Manuguerra – Head, Institut Pasteur, International, France

Dr Amanda McClelland – Senior Officer, Emergency Health, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent

Societies (IFRC), Switzerland

Dr Amanda McClelland is the Senior Officer for Emergency Health with the International Federation of the

Red Cross and Red Crescent. Her experience covers a variety of roles related to health, health promotion

and epidemic control in numerous countries across the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Most recently she spent 8

months in the West Africa Ebola crisis supporting the IFRC operations and working closely with the

effected National Societies. As part of her role at the IFRC she has been exploring the role of technology


and communication related to epidemics, both in terms of improving community engagement but also in improving

technical support for National Societies, to enhance program decision making and response.

Dr Brian McCloskey – Director of Global Health, Public Health England Wellington House, UK

Dr Brian McCloskey is the Director of Global Health, Public Health England, London. He has worked in

public health at local, regional, national and international level over a period of 25 years with a remit for

emergency planning and responsibility for cross government response to major emergencies. He has been

working with WHO’s Mass Gatherings Advisory Group since 2008, setting up and leading the first WHO

Collaborating Centre on Mass Gatherings. He was part of a WHO Mission to Saudi Arabia in 2009 to

advise on the implications of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 for the Hajj. He has been involved with the response to MERS-CoV

in UK, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Korea.. Dr McCloskey was PHE’s National Incident Director for Ebola in 2014

and was then seconded to work with the UN Special Envoy on Ebola until April 2015. He is a member of WHO’s IHR

Review Committee. He also works with the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security.

Dr James Meegan – Director, Office of Global Research National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases National

Institute of Health, United States Department of Health and Human Services, US

Dr James M. Meegan received his PhD from the University of Connecticut and has had a long career in

science, specializing in microbiology/virology and infectious diseases. He has held research positions at

U.C Berkeley, Yale Medical School, U.S. Army Institute of Infectious Diseases Ft. Detrick, and the Naval

Medical Research Institute and at its overseas laboratories. He has held leadership positions at WHO, the National

Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and was a Senior

Director of R&D and at Invitrogen/Life Technologies Corporation. Since 2012, he re-joined NIH as the Director of

Global Research at NIAID. His research programs have focused on the role of viral diseases in international health and

tropical medicine.

Dr Shoji Miyagawa – Director, Infectious Diseases Information Surveillance Office, Ministry of Health, Labour and

Welfare, Japan

Dr Shoji Miyagawa is the Director, Infectious Diseases Information Surveillance Office, the Ministry of

Health, Labour and Welfare, the Government of Japan. He has been working to develop and implement

Japan’s national guidelines for control and prevention of recent infectious diseases events such as Ebola,

MERS-CoV and Dengue. He is also responsible for national management of highly pathogenic agents and

biosafety in accordance with the provisions of the Japan’s Infectious Diseases Control Law. He was appointed Technical

Officer, the Food Safety Division, WHO in 1994, Counselor, the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, New

York in 2008, and Director, International Cooperation Division, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan in

2011. He has been working mainly in the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan on regulatory aspects on food

safety and public health including infectious disease control and prevention.

Dr Anne-Marie Moulin – Research Director Emeritus, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France

Anne Marie Moulin is Director of Research (emeritus) at the French Center for Scientific Research in Paris.

Trained as a philosopher and as a medical doctor, with a specialization in tropical medicine and parasitology,

she has shared her life between medical practice and social sciences. From 1999 to 2002, she was the head

of the Health/Social Sciences Department at the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD), and

chair of the Board of ANRS (French Agency for Research on AIDS and Hepatitis), then coordinated a team

at CEDEJ, Cairo. She has conducted several missions in Asian and African countries, in particular in the

Arab World and contributed to several reports on emerging diseases. Dr Moulin has been consultant for the European

Union and NGOS in the fields of Public Health, Global Medicine and Vaccinology. She is teaching public health at the

Senghor University, Alexandria (Egypt); a member of the Haut Comité de Santé Publique (French Council of Public

Health); and the chairperson of the Committee of Ethics of IRD. She has authored several articles on parasitic infections,

social and cultural determinants of health and the strategy of eradicating diseases.


Dr David Murdoch – Head of Department, Department of Pathology, New Zealand

Dr David Murdoch is Professor and Head of Pathology at the University of Otago, Christchurch, and

clinical microbiologist at Canterbury Health Laboratories, Christchurch, New Zealand. He is also Adjunct

Professor of One Health at Massey University, New Zealand and Senior Associate at Johns Hopkins

School of Public Health. An infectious diseases physician, clinical microbiologist, and epidemiologist by

background, his particular interests include the diagnosis, epidemiology, and prevention of respiratory

tract infections, pneumococcal disease, legionellosis, bloodstream infections, and the role of vitamin D in infectious

diseases. He has a particular interest in the microbial aetiology of pneumonia and is the laboratory director of the

Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health project which is focussed on determining the causes of severe pneumonia

in children from developing countries.

Dr Vickneshwaran Muthu – Principal Assistant Director Grade, Ministry of Health of Malaysia, Disease Control

Division, Malaysia

Dr Vickneshwaran Muthu received his medical degree from the North Sumatera Islamic University,

Indonesia in 2002. He worked in several hospitals in Kuala Lumpur (University Kebangsaan Malaysia

Hospital and Hospital Kuala Lumpur) and Negeri Sembilan (Tunku Jaffar Hospital Seremban and Jempol

Hospital) before moving to primary care in 2009. He was medical officer in charge in Taman Ehsan

Community Clinic and beginming in 2010 as district second epidemiology officer in Gombak, Selangor. Dr

Vickneshwaran received his Master’s in Public Health from University Malaya in 2012 and came to Zoonosis Sector,

Disease Control Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia. He oversees Neglected Tropical Disease programmes,

Antimicrobial Resistance and Emerging Re-emerging Zoonotic Diseases. He is the technical manager for Acute Muscular

Sarcocystosis Outbreak and in 2014 led One Health Field Investigation Team, which was assisted by Dr Douglas

Esposito from CDC and Dr Ron Fayer from USDA Beltsville.

Dr David Nabarro – United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Ebola, United Nations Headquarter New

York, USA

Dr. David Nabarro is the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Ebola. Since his

appointment in September 2014, he also serves concurrently as Special Representative of the UN Secretary-

General for Food Security and Nutrition and as Coordinator of the Movement for Scaling Up Nutrition,

positions he has held since 2009 and 2012, respectively. His career began as a District Child Health Officer

in Dhankuta District, Nepal. He has played a catalytic coordination role in the response to several global emergencies,

such as the Avian and Human Influenza epidemic of 2005, crisis response operations in Darfur, Sudan, and in countries

affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Previous key leadership roles include Coordinator of the UN

System High Level Task Force on Global Food Security (2008-2014); Senior UN Coordinator for Avian and Pandemic

Influenza (2005 – 2014), Representative of the WHO Director General for Health Action in Crises (2003 – 2005);

Executive Director, Office of the WHO Director-General (2001-2003); Head of Roll Back Malaria at WHO (1999-2001);

and Director for Human Development in the UK Department for International Development (DFID) (1997-1999). David

was awarded an MA, MSc and a Medical degree from Oxford University. He also holds a Master’s in Public Health from

London University.

Dr Josh Nesbit – Chief Executive Officer, Medic Mobile, USA

Dr Josh Nesbit is the Chief Executive Officer of Medic Mobile, a non-profit organization that builds

mobile and web tools for community health workers, clinic staff, and families in hard-to-reach

communities. These tools help over 10,000 health workers provide care for 5 million people in Africa,

Asia, and Latin America. In 2014, Medic Mobile received a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Dr

Nwsbit is an Ashoka Fellow, PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, Echoing Green Fellow, and Rainer

Arnhold Fellow. He was selected by Devex as one of 40 Under 40 Leaders in International Development,

received the Truman Award for Innovation from the Society for International Development, and was named by Forbes as

one of the world’s 30 top social entrepreneurs.


Dr Carl Newman – Deputy Chief Scientist, Cooperative Biological Engagement Program, Cooperative Threat Reduction,

Defense Threat Reduction Agency, USA

Dr Patrick L Osewe – Lead Health Specialist, World Bank, South Africa

Dr Heather Papowitz – Senior Advisor, Health-Emergencies, UNICEF, USA

Dr. Heather Papowitz is trained in Internal Medicine, has a MPH in International Health and

Humanitarian assistance and a Certificate in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She has 20 years of

experience planning, designing and implementing health interventions in humanitarian crises and

outbreaks working with and across organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, ICRC, USAID/OFDA and

NGOs at the district, country and global levels. She has responded to the Zimbabwe and Haiti cholera

outbreaks, H1N1 and Ebola in West Africa, among others. Apart from field experience she has participated in global

strategic initiatives notably UNSIC, UN SG panels on Cholera in Haiti and Health Emergencies, the Global Health

Cluster, GOARN, IHR, UNISDR, GTFCC. She has developed strategies, guidelines and tools for influenza pandemic

preparedness and cholera control.

Dr Malik Peiris – Director, Division of Public Health Laboratory Sciences, University of Hong Kong School of Public

Health, China

Dr Malik Peiris is a clinical and public health virologist who works on newly emerging viral infections,

especially those emerging from animals to humans. He has investigated the diagnosis, ecology, epidemiology,

transmission and pathogenesis of avian influenza H5N1 since 1997, SARS in 2003, the Pandemic (H1N1)

2009, and more recently, avian influenza H7N9 and MERS-CoV. He currently is the Director of the School

of Public Health; co-directs the WHO H5 reference laboratory and the HKU-Pasteur Research Pole, at The University of

Hong Kong.

Prof Jorge Pérez Avila – Director General, Instituto de Medicina Tropical "Pedro Kouri", Cuba

Professor Jorge Pérez Avila is an infectious diseases physician. His experience is in the management,

treatment and control of malaria, polio, HIV, dengue, chikungunya, cholera, H1N1 and more recently

Ebola., He has served as a temporary advisor of PAHO/WHO for the management of infectious diseases

such as HIV/AIDS. He has experience in the control of infectious diseases in other countries such as

Nicaragua, Angola, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and Haiti. For more than 20 years, he was a

Director of Infectious Diseases Hospital and ward of infectious diseases. He is a member of the advisory board of the

program of infectious Diseases and Social Change of Department of Social Medicine of Harvard Medical University. He

is currently the general director of Institute of Tropical Medicine Pedro Kourí.

Dr Mark Perkins – Chief Scientific Officer, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, Switzerland

Mark Perkins is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of FIND, a non-profit organization dedicated to

the development of diagnostic tests for poverty-related infectious diseases. FIND has major diagnostics

programs in the areas of tuberculosis, malaria, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, and human African

trypanosomiasis. Dr Perkins leads FIND’s efforts to identify diagnostic needs in developing countries, and

to identify and create, with academic and commercial partners, technology solutions to meet those needs. Dr

Perkins trained in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, Molecular Virology, Clinical

Microbiology, and International Medicine. Before joining FIND he established a diagnostics research laboratory in Brazil

and then joined WHO where he established and managed the Diagnostics R&D unit within the WHO Special Program for

Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. For the past year he has been leading a new program area on Ebola and

outbreak pathogens at FIND.


Dr Julio Pinto – Animal Health Officer, FAO, Italy

Dr Julio Pinto is a veterinarian, epidemiologist and working on animal/livestock health issues with the

Animal Health Service in FAO since 2006. Having graduated in Veterinary Science in the University of

Chile in 1994, he completed his PhD studies in Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics at the University

of Reading, UK, in 2000. Subsequently, he joined the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in

Paris where he worked as deputy head of the animal health information department. He is currently the

FAO coordinator of the joint FAO/OIE/WHO Global Early Warning program for livestock diseases which is a global

platform implemented to enhance detection, early warning and risk assessment. The scope of this program is to build

disease intelligence capacities globally and in countries by strengthening animal health systems and networks to enhance

disease surveillance and reporting using new tools and approaches for disease reporting.

Dr Navindra Persaud – Global Technical Lead for Health Information Systems, Management Sciences for Health, USA

Dr Francois Louis Roger – Head, AGIRs (UPR22) Research Unit Animal & Integrated Risk Management, Cirad,

France

Dr Paolo Ruti – Chief, World Weather Research Division, World Meteorological Organisation, Switzerland

Dr Paolo Ruti is Chief of World Weather Research Division, World Meteorological Organisation, He is

working on how to improve weather prediction from minutes to months and how to provide better

services to several sectors from water to health. From 2010 to 2014, he was head of the Climate Modeling

and Impacts Laboratory at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable

Economic Development, Rome. He developed new tools to provide sector-specific climate information

over the Mediterranean as coordinator of the first European project on Climate Services. Engaged in

several international projects in Europe and Africa, he started his international research career in 1992 with a master in

Physics and 1996 with a PhD in the context of the first European project on the regionalization of climate change

projections.

Dr Ronald K Saint John – President, St John Public Health Consulting International Inc, Canada

Ronald K. St. John, MD, MPH, has had a 35-year career in public health and infectious disease control

in the US and Canada, and at WHO’s Regional Office for the Americas. With undergraduate, medical

and public health degrees from Yale, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons and

Harvard, his career has included the planning, management and policy review of international and

national infectious disease control programs, quarantine and migration health, travel medicine, the

Global Public Health Intelligence Network, and counter-terrorism. As the first Director General for the

Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response in the Public Health Agency of Canada, he was the national manager

for Canada’s response to 9/11, bioterrorism threats, and SARS. Recently, he was the Ebola Incident Manager at PAHO

with the responsibility of assessing and improving member states’ response to the possible importation of a case of Ebola.

Dr Gérard Salem – Directeur du Laboratoire Espace, Santé et Territoires, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense,

France

As a Geographer of Health, Dr Gérard Salem is interested in the emergence and diffusion of diseases,

in the contexts of rapid environmental changes in an increasingly globalized world. His main field of

experience is urban health (North and South) with a special interest ni vector-borne disease in Africa.

After completing a B.A. and M.A. degrees in geography (University of Paris 1 – Sorbonne), he went on

to receive a Ph.D. in African Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Additionally, he

completed a master’s in urbanism at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and another master in epidemiology from

the Pasteur Institute in Paris. As a researcher with ORSTOM, he worked from 1980-1988 and from 2009-2012 in Senegal;

has been Full Professor of Geography of Health at the University of Paris-Nanterre. He is currently Professor emeritus,

member of the Scientific Committees of International Council for Science ICSU (Urban Health and Wellbeing program),

International Society of Urban Health, and International Geographical Union.


Dr Nidal Salim – Director, Global Institute of Water Environment and Health, Switzerland

Dr Amadou Alpha Sall – Scientific Director, Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Senegal

Dr Mark Salter – Consultant in Global Health, Public Health England, Wellington House, UK

Dr Salter is a consultant for Global Health and senior medical advisor for Public Health England (PHE).

In this role, he coordinates the international efforts of the PHE in establishing bilateral links with nation

states and regional networks as well as responding to requests for public health assistance in response to

public health emergencies and humanitarian crises. At PHE, he is leading on developing a sustainable

platform for thier engagement in response to humanitarian crises and public health capacity development

in low and middle income countries. Prior to the Ebola outbreak, he was working with the Ministry of Health and

Sanitation in Sierra Leone during the recovery from the cholera epidemic of 2012. In addition he was supporting the

ministry in preparing the groundwork for strengthening public health capacities and moving towards a National Public

Health Institute.

Dr Lars Schaade – Vice President, Robert Koch Institute, Germany

Dr Lars Schaade is Vice President at the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's federal institute of public health,

since 2011 and has also been the head of the institute's Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens

since 2010. Prior to joining the Robert Koch Institute, Dr Schaade led the communicable disease unit in the

German Federal Ministry of Health from 2007 to 2010 and was an advisor for the same unit from 2002 to

2007. He has also held positions in science and clinical medicine at the University Göttingen, Germany, the

Clinical Centre Kassel, Germany, and the University Hospital Aachen, Germany. Since 2000, he has been

board certified for microbiology and infectious disease epidemiology, and has been approved as a university

lecturer for medical microbiology and virology at the RWTH Aachen University since 2003. He received his doctorate in

medicine in 1994.

Dr Jan Slingenbergh – Senior Animal Health Officer/Head of EMPRES, FAO, Italy

Dr Jan Slingenbergh, working as Head of the FAO Emergency Prevention System, Animal Health,

played a significant role in clarifying the role of rice-duck farming in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia

during the initial establishment and spread of H5N1. Before that he reconstructed the details of the

Eurasian small ruminant street, a dispersion route for FMD and other pathogens connecting South Asia

with West Asia/Europe. Recently he has been editor and main author of the 2013 FAO flagship

publication “Changing Disease Landscapes.” His current focus is to establish and predict how pathogens with different

trait profiles and corresponding disease transmission ecologies respond differently to novel host environments. Findings

comprise the rationale for the enhanced role of livestock and wildlife viruses as emerging disease agents and of livestock

bacteria as a source of a growing number of food safety hazards.

Dr Franck Smith – Campaign Director "No More Epidemics," Management Sciences for Health, US

Frank Smith, PhD, is the No More Epidemics Campaign Director at Management Sciences for Health.

Frank has led campaigns in some of the world’s leading NGOs, including Amnesty International, Oxfam

GB and World Vision International where, as Director of Global Campaigns, he set up the organization’s

first global campaign focusing on maternal newborn and child health. Frank has also worked in the areas

of policy and research and was Head of Department for the Middle East, Europe, the Caucasus and Asia at

the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre in Geneva. Dr Smith holds a PhD and an MA in Sociology from the

University of Essex and a Bachelor’s Degree in Modern Languages from the University of Westminster.


Dr Idrissa Sow – Expert on Infectious Disease Epidemics, Mauritania

Dr Idrissa Sow has over 30 years of national and international public health experience as WHO Country

Representive, head of training and research on communicable diseases, WHO Head of Africa Emergency

and Humanitarian Action Unit, WHO Special Coordinator for the Rwanda Crisis, WHO Global programme

on AIDS epidemiologist-Team Leader, and Mauritania Director Primary Health Care. He is an expert in

communicable diseases surveillance and response particularly integrated diseases surveillance and response

and led the inclusion process of integrated diseases surveillance and response into in and pre-service

curricula of national and regional epidemiology training institutions. He has worked on inter-country cross border

cooperation for preparedness and response to epidemics, post emergency rehabilitation of health systems, and

development of national health policies and strategic plans as backbone of health systems within the framework of

country partnerships.

Dr Oyewale Tomori – Professor of Virology, Redeemer's University, Nigeria

Dr Oyewale Tomori, President of the Nigerian Academy of Science, was pioneer Vice-Chancellor at the

Redeemer’s University, Nigeria. He is a recipient of Nigeria’s highest award for academic and intellectual

attainment. At the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, as Professor of Virology, he led research into study of

viral infections, and elucidated the properties of Orungo virus. In 1981, he received the USPHS Certificate

for contribution to Lassa Fever Research. At the WHO Africa Region, as Regional Virologist from 1994-

2004, he set up the African Regional Polio Laboratory Network, which provided laboratory diagnostic support for polio

eradication, and was involved in the investigations of outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fevers in many African countries. Dr

Tomori serves on several national and international advisory bodies including the Nigeria Expert Review Committee on

Poliomyelitis Eradication and Routine Immunization; and WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts.

Dr Shinya Tsuzuki – Medical Officer, Tuberculosis and Infectious Diseases Control Division, Ministry of Health,

Labour and Welfare, Japan

Dr Shinya Tsuzuki is currently a Medical Officer, Tuberculosis and Infectious Diseases Control

Division, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Government of Japan. In his capacity he has

been working to develop and implement Japan’s national guidelines for control and prevention of recent

infectious diseases events such as Ebola. He was in charge of preventing mother to child transmission

of HIV/AIDS in Zambia, as a staff of JICA project in 2012. He has been working mainly as a pediatrician in International

Medical Cooperation Agency and National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Japan, and tackling public health

issues including infectious disease control and prevention.

Mr Fabio Turone – Science Writers in Italy, World Federation of Science Journalists

Fabio Turone is Director of Agency Zoe of scientific and medical information, and President of Science

Writers in Italy. Since 2012 he is co-director at the Erice International School of Science Journalism. In

2013-2014 he coordinated two UNESCO workshops for science journalists in the Balkans. He was in the

panel on "The danger of new infections" at ESOF2014. He recently launched the Center for Ethical Science

Journalism. Mr Turone is also an advisor for the World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ). The

WFSJ’s role is to build the capacity of media professionals to undertake engaging, incisive, accurate, impartial, high

quality science and health journalism. For the past 14 months the WFSJ has been running a number of journalist training

workshops on risk communications for public health emergencies in outbreak and post outbreak periods. Partners have

included the WHO, the US State Department, IDRC and the Wellcome Trust.

Mr Richard Vaux – Project Manager for the GloPID-R Project, Fondation Mérieux, France

Mr Vaux has a Master’s degree in international law and a PhD in International Relations from the

University of Paris. He is currently Project Manager at Fondation Mérieux, an independent family

foundation The mission of Fondation Mérieux is to contribute to global health by strengthening capacities

of developing countries to reduce the impact of infectious diseases on vulnerable populations. Their


priorities are clinical biology laboratories; collaborative research programmes; training and exchange of knowledge; and

support to local initiatives. Fondation Mérieux manages the Secretariat of GloPID-R, the Global Research Collaboration

for Infectious Disease Preparedness.

Dr Niteen Wairagkar – Lead, Influenza/RSV Initiative, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA

Professor Ronald Waldman – Professor, Public Health Department, George Washington University, USA

Ronald Waldman, MD, MPH, began his career in WHO’s Smallpox Eradication Program and

subsequently joined CDC where he served for more than 25 years. His fields of concentration have been

both the study of and the implementation of public health programs in complex emergencies and natural

disasters. He was Secretary of WHO’s Cholera Task Force in the early 1990s, Technical Director of the

USAID-funded BASICS Project, and founding Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health

at Columbia University. Subsequently, he headed the Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness initiative for

USAID before joining the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University as Professor of

Global Health. He was the technical lead for Save the Children/US during the recent Ebola outbreak. He also serves as

President of Medecins du Monde/USA.

Dr John Watson – Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health Richmond House, UK

Dr John Watson is Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health in London, UK where his

responsibilities span health protection including the national immunisation programme, anti-microbial

resistance, seasonal and pandemic influenza and emergency preparedness and response. After training as a

hospital clinician and infectious disease epidemiologist, most of his career has been spent leading the

national respiratory diseases team at Public Health England where he was involved in the management of

local and national responses to outbreaks of respiratory illness including legionnaires disease, plague,

SARS, and MERS-CoV as well as seasonal, avian and pandemic influenza.

Dr Cécile Wendling – Associate Researcher, Sociology Organization Centre, France

Dr Cécile Wendling joined AXA in June 2014 as Head of R&D foresight, after working as a foresight

senior consultant at Futuribles, in Paris. She is in charge of elaborating insights into social, political and

technologies trends, conducting horizon scanning on future constraints, opportunities, game changers of

the insurance. She connects AXA with academic and research communities in order to develop both

internal and external networks of experts focused on the future of insurance. She conducted a 9-month

project on the future of health risks and diseases in France in 2014 for the French Institut national de veille sanitaire

(INVS).

Dr Teresa Zakaria – Head of the Health Assistance for Crisis Affected Populations Unit, International Organization for

Migration, Switzerland

Dr Teresa Zakaria provides global technical support to IOM’s emergency health operations and heads the Health

Assistance for Crisis Affected Populations Unit based at IOM’s Migration Health Division in Headquarters, Geneva.

Within this function, she provides technical and programmatic support and strategic guidance to IOM’s emergency health

operations in West Africa in response to the Ebola outbreak, as well as in many other countries and regions affected by

crises. She was a key contributor to the articulation and operationalization of IOM’s Health, Border and Mobility

Management framework, including the development of methodological guidelines for population mobility mapping at

borders, within public health interventions. She is the primary technical person working with CDC and WHO within the

tripartite collaboration on health management at borders. She represents IOM in the Global Health Cluster.

Anticipating Emerging Infectious Disease Epidemics ... · Anticipating Epidemics –...

Documents

Transcript of Anticipating Emerging Infectious Disease Epidemics ... · Anticipating Epidemics –...