WHO Director-General’s Special Envoys on COVID-19 Preparedness and Response
On the 21 February 2020, the WHO Director-General appointed six Special Envoys on COVID-19, to provide strategic advice and high-level political advocacy and engagement in different parts of the world. The Special Envoys work in close collaboration with WHO Regional Directors and country offices to coordinate the global response to COVID-19.
The main functions of the Special Envoys on COVID-19 are to:
- amplify the messages of the Director-General;
- disseminate WHO guidance on COVID-19 readiness and response;
- partake in high-level advocacy and political engagement;
- provide strategic advice on preparedness, readiness and response to COVID-19 outbreaks;
- engage with regional bodies and national governments; and
- report regularly to the Director-General on their work and the situation in countries.
Special Envoys on COVID-19
Dr David Nabarro
Former Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change
David was a Lecturer in Nutrition and Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1982-1985) and Senior Lecturer in Health Systems at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (1985-1989). He joined the United Kingdom Government Foreign Office (Overseas Development Administration) as Senior Health Adviser for East Africa (1989–1990) and Chief Health and Population Adviser (1990-1997). He became Director for Human Development in the UK Department for International Development (DFID, 1997–1999). In 1999 David moved into the United Nations system starting as an Executive Director at the World Health Organization responsible for the Roll Back Malaria Project and the Office of the Director-General. He was Special Representative of the WHO Director-General for Health Action in Crises (2002-2005). He was then appointed as UN System Senior Coordinator for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2005-2014), United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition (2008-2014), Coordinator of the Movement for Scaling Up Nutrition (2011-2014, as Assistant Secretary-General), UN S-G’s Special Envoy for the West Africa Ebola Outbreak Response (2014-2015), and UN S-G’s Special Adviser for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change (2016 - 2017,as Under-Secretary-General)). He was appointed, by the Director-General of WHO, as chair of the expert group on the reform of WHO’s work on outbreaks and emergencies in 2015. In October 2018, David received the World Food Prize together with Lawrence Haddad for leadership on nutrition.
David is currently Co-Director (since mid-2019) and Chair of Global Health at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College, London. He is Strategic Director of the Swiss-based social enterprise 4SD (Skills Systems and Synergies for Sustainable Development), established in 2017, training and mentoring leaders for sustainable development. Since June 2018 David has curated the Food Systems Dialogues as a contribution to the transformation of food systems: they have involved more than 1700 leaders in 29 locations within the last 18 months. From July 2018 David contributed to preparations for the UN’s September 2019 Climate Action Summit. David co-facilitated the coalition that advanced the Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) workstream (co-led by China and New Zealand). David is co-chair of the forum on Climate Change and Health which will complete its work at the World Innovation Summit for Health, November 2020. From March 2020, David is appointed Special Envoy of WHO Director General on COVID-19.
Former Special Envoys on COVID-19
Professor Dr Maha El Rabbat
Former Minister of Health and Population of Egypt
Professor Dr Maha El Rabbat is a former Minister of Health and Population of Egypt and Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa Health Policy Forum. She has accumulated more than 30 years of strategic leadership, policy, academic, advocacy and operational expertise, working closely with national, regional, and international organizations as a public health expert on a wide range of health issues, including: health system strengthening and governance reform; HTA; maternal, child and reproductive health; hepatitis C; emerging diseases; non-communicable diseases; and other public health priorities in various contexts, such as deprived areas and among vulnerable groups. She has extensive experience in conducting system-wide assessments and reform in response to emerging needs such as the Avian Flu, Swine Flu and Hepatitis C, HIV and supported strengthening of service delivery at different levels.
As professor of public health and chairperson of the public health department at Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, in July 2011, she led efforts to reform public health teaching and research. Between July 2013 and March 2014, she served as Minister of Health and Population of Egypt, during which time she consolidated efforts to address system inefficiencies by supporting reform and restructuring initiatives to equip the ministry to better handle future needs, to operationalize public health priority actions and to foster social justice and equity for universal health coverage. Since 2014, as executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Health Policy Forum, a regional NGO, Dr El Rabbat has worked on strengthening health systems and responses to emerging needs and human development in the region, particularly in middle and lower income countries, through evidence-based policy, knowledge exchange and networking. Among her current projects, she is working in partnership with UNHCR and the League of Arab States to develop a regional strategy for public health in asylum context.
Dr John Nkengasong
Director of the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr Nkengasong is Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prior to his current position, he served as the acting deputy principal director of the Center for Global Health, United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S. CDC), and Chief of the International Laboratory Branch, Division of Global HIV and TB., U.S CDC.
He received a Masters in Tropical Biomedical Science at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium and a Doctorate in Medical Sciences (Virology) from the University of Brussels, Belgium.
He has received numerous awards for his work including Sheppard Award, the William Watson Medal of Excellence, the highest recognition awarded by CDC. He is also recipient of the Knight of Honour Medal by the Government of Cote d’Ivoire, was knighted in 2017 as the Officer of Loin by the President of Senegal, H.E. Macky Sall, and Knighted in November 2018 by the government of Cameroon for his significant contributions to public health. He is an adjunct professor at the Emory School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
He serves on several international advisory boards including the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiative – CEPI, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) among others. He has authored over 250 peer-review articles in international journals and published several book chapters.
Dr Mirta Roses Periago
Former Director of the WHO Region of the Americas
Dr Mirta Roses Periago is a former Director of the PAHO/WHO Region of the Americas. She earned her degree in Medicine and Surgery from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, in 1969, completing her specialization in tropical medicine at the Universidade Federal de Bahia, Brazil, in 1971. Her graduate studies include a diploma in public health (1974) and a specialization in epidemiology (1982) at the Escuela de Salud Pública in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as a specialist degree in clinical medicine and epidemiology of infectious diseases at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, in 1976.
From 2003 to 2013, she was Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). She was the first woman to head the world’s oldest international health organization. Prior to assuming this office, she served two terms as Assistant Director of PAHO (1995-2003) being responsible for the direct supervision of all PAHO/WHO Representative Offices in the Americas, forming part of WHO’s Directors of Programme Management Group (DPM) and the Global Programme Management Group (GPMG).
Prior to this, she served seven years as PAHO/WHO Representative in the Dominican Republic (1988-1992) and in Bolivia (1992-1995), supporting public health policies and programs, promoting south-south cooperation and putting public health at the center of development priorities.
She entered PAHO/WHO as coordinator of the Epidemiological Surveillance Unit of the Caribbean Epidemiology Center (CAREC) in Trinidad and Tobago (1984-1986), serving all the Caribbean countries, and then moved to the Dominican Republic (1986-1987) as Epidemiologist. Currently, Dr Roses Periago is a member of the National Academy of Science of Buenos Aires and a senior advisor in Global Health, serving in the Global Fund Board as a LAC representative, in the End Malaria Board (RBM) and in several WHO expert groups.
Dr Palitha Abeykoon
Former Director, Health Systems Development, WHO South-East Asia Regional Office, Senior Advisor Sri Lankan Ministry of Health
Dr Palitha Abeykoon is a senior physician and public health professional from Sri Lanka, with post graduate education and training from the universities of Geneva and Southern California, and the Harvard School of Public Health, where he was a Taro Takemi Fellow.
He is a Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka, chairs the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol, serves on the National Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases, and is a member of National Medicines Authority of Sri Lanka. A former president of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, Dr Palitha serves as a member of the WHO Global Learning Academy and the Regional Director’s Research Advisory Committee.
In his long career in the WHO, Dr Palitha served as the health workforce advisor in Nepal where he helped to set up the Institute of Medicine, the country’s first medical school, and later in Indonesia where he helped establish the Consortium of Health Sciences and five new schools of public health.
Subsequently, Dr Palitha worked as the WHO South-East Asia Regional Advisor on Human Resources for Health and later was the Director of Health Systems Development. He also served as the WHO Representative to India and led India’s polio eradication effort.
Dr Palitha has been a consultant in health policy and health systems to the World Bank, WHO, UNFPA and DFID in Thailand, Myanmar, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Timor Leste and India. He facilitated the establishment of Myanmar’s first public health university and the blueprint for the Royal Bhutan Institute of Medicine and its baccalaureate program in public health.
He is the recipient of numerous academic awards, the Dr. Fred Katz Award of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Medical Education, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the South East Asia Public Health Education Network, and most recently the Kazue McLaren Leadership Achievement Award of the Asia Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health.
Dr Palitha has published widely in international journals, written chapters in books in public health and medical education, and most recently was the editor of the History of Medicine in Sri Lanka.
Professor Samba Sow
Director-General of the Center for Vaccine Development in Mali, former Minister of Health of Mali
Professor Samba Sow is Director-General of the Center for Vaccine Development of Mali (CVD) and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Since CVD-Mali's inception, Dr Sow has headed the implementation of field and hospital-based epidemiological studies and clinical trials in the study of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Previously, Dr Sow has served as the coordinator for WHO Multi-Center Field Trial on Leprosy Chemotherapy, and has been an investigator on many other studies.
He received his MD in Medicine from the National School of Medicine and Pharmacy of Mali and his MSc in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr Sow’s honors include the 2000 Paul Laviron Prize in Tropical Medicine from the University of Marseille, France. He was also named the Commemorative Fund Lecturer of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene in 2006. He received the ROUX Price in 2017 and become Minister of Health and Public Hygiene of Mali. As a Minister, he started a large Reform of Mali Health system to improve the quality of services and the under-five and mother health. During his career, he has made substantial contributions to basic vaccinology, bacterial pathogenesis, clinical research, field epidemiology and public health policy in Mali and in Sub-Saharan Africa. He authored and co-authored more than 90 scientific articles and chapters.
Dr Young-soo Shin
Former Regional Director the WHO Region of the Western Pacific
Dr Young-soo Shin served as the WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific from February 2009 to January 2019. Dr Shin was the first Regional Director for the Western Pacific elected from outside of WHO. From the first day in his service, Dr Shin pledged to put countries at the centre of the work of WHO in the Region. He has led a series of reforms to change the way the Organization works. His focus has been constant: providing better support focused on needs at the country level. These reforms are producing results by helping Member States to achieve better health outcomes for the nearly 1.9 billion people of the Western Pacific Region.
Prior to joining WHO, Dr Shin was a professor and founding Chairman of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the College of Medicine, Seoul National University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1969.
He was deeply involved in expanding the Korean national health insurance system in 1980s and later, when universal health coverage was being introduced, in securing quality and accountability of the Korean health care service system. Dr Shin was instrumental in the establishment of Korea's National Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, which oversees health care service quality and disburses national health insurance payments. He served as the founding president from 2002 to 2003.
Dr Shin received the Mugunhwa Medal from the Korean Government, which is the highest-level medal given to Korean civilians.