NCDC DG, Ihekweazu, elevated to WHO Assistant DG

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday appointed the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Assistant Director-General for Health Emergency Intelligence of the World Health Organisation.

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, in a statement, indicated that Ihekweazu, whose appointment takes effect from November 1, 2021, will lead the work on strengthening pandemic and epidemic intelligence globally, including heading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin.

It was highlighted that Ihekweazu, 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 (NICD), the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

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

Dr Ihekweazu, a Nigerian born in Germany, 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.