NCDC boss, Chikwe Ihekweazu, appointed WHO’s Assistant DG

By Oladele Owodina

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Director-General, Chikwe Ihekweazu, is set to resume as the World Health Organisation, WHO’s assistant director-general of Health Emergency Intelligence.

Mr Ihekweazu’s appointment was disclosed in a letter signed by the WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, on Tuesday.

He will begin his tenure on November 1.

The letter read, “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.”

“Dr Ihekweazu is currently the Director-General of Nigeria Centre 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, the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute.

“He has led several short-term engagements for WHO, mainly in response to major infectious disease outbreaks around the world.

“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 specialization in the United Kingdom. He is widely published in medical peer-review journals.”