The Director General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Ghebreyesus has assented the appointment of Dr. Chike  Ihekweazu as  theAssistant Director-General for Health Emergency Intelligence from November 1, 2021. Commencing from November 1, 2021.’

In a letter signed by the WHO DG which partly reads, Tedros noted:

“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.

The appointment letter further reads: “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.

Tedros added that “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.