Chikwe Ihekweazu, NCDC boss appointed Assistant DG of WHO

Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Director-General of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control NCDC has been appointed an Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) in charge of Health Emergency Intelligence with effect from November 1, 2021

Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu’s appointment was announced in a statement issued by the WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros. According to the statement, Ihekweazu 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 please 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”.the statement in part read

Born in Germany, Ihekweazu 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.

He was appointed NCDC boss by President Buhari in August 2016.

Ihekweazu trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has worked in senior public health and leadership positions in several National Public Health Institutes, including The National Institute for Communicable Diseases South Africa (NICD), the UK’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI).