The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu has been appointed Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Ihekweazu will be in charge of Health Emergency Intelligence with effect from November 1, 2021.
A statement issued last night by the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros said Ihekweazu will lead the work on strengthening pandemic and epidemic intelligence globally, including heading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin.
He said: “I am pleased to welcome Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu as an Assistant Director-General for Health Emergency Intelligence from November 1, 2021. He will lead the work on strengthening pandemic and epidemic intelligence globally, including heading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin”.
”I am confident that Dr Ihekweazu’s appointment will help further accelerate WHO’s work in health emergencies. Please join me in welcoming him to WHO”.
Ihekweazu is currently the Director-General of Nigeria Center for Disease Control.
He was trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist, has over 20 years of experience working in senior public health and leadership positions in several National Public Health Institutes, including the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI). He has led several short-term engagements for WHO, mainly in response to major infectious disease outbreaks around the world.
According to the profile given by WHO, Ihekweazu is a Nigerian national, who was born in Germany. He is a graduate of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria and has a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany.
In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and subsequently completed his Public Health specialization in the United Kingdom. He is widely published in medical peer-review journals.
