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Ihekweazu’s appointment was made public in an official letter addressed to him by the director-general of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. He will serve as the deputy in charge of health emergency intelligence at the WHO. The Nigerian who still serves as the director-general of the NCDC will commence duty in his new role on November 1, 2021, as head of the World Health Organization’s pandemic and epidemic response hub, situated in Berlin, Germany.
‘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.’ Tedros GhebreyesusThe WHO boss went further to shower encomium on the Nigerian epidemiologist, disclosing little details about his CV.
‘Dr Ihekweazu, a Nigerian national, who was born in Germany, is a graduate of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria and has a Masters in Public Health from the Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training and subsequently completed his Public Health specialisation in the United Kingdom. He is widely published in medical peer-reviewed journals.’ Tedros
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With over 20 years of experience as a senior public health official in several national public health institutions such as the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Robert Koch Institute in Germany, and the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, Ihekweazu has led numerous short-term engagements for the WHO especially as regards response to the outbreak of major infectious diseases around the globe. President Buhari in August 2016, appointed Ihekweazu as the acting head of the NCDC. With the signing of the NCDC act into law, the epidemiologist, in November 2018, emerged as the first substantive head of the disease agency. As the NCDC boss, the senior health official has led the response to the outbreak of infectious diseases in Nigeria such as monkeypox, yellow fever, and Lassa fever. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the early parts of 2020, Ihekweazu has been in charge of Nigeria’s response to the pandemic as the NCDC boss. A Member of Nigeria’s Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Ihekweazu who has been an active part of the World Health Organization’s IHR Emergency Committee for COVID-19, is also a Member of the Africa Task Force for Coronavirus Steering Committee, where he heads the Infection Prevention Control Sub-Committee. Sources: Lions Crib Premium Times Featured Image Source: Premium Times NG
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