Speakers in Workshops

Eric Fèvre, Professor of Veterinary Infectious Diseases at the Institute of Infection and Global Health (IGH), University of Liverpool and is jointly based at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya, where he manages field-orientated projects researching disease transmission and control at the interface between animals and human beings. His research team, the Zoonotic and Emerging Diseases group (www.zoonotic-diseases.org; Twitter: @ZoonoticDisease) is a 25-strong grouping of epidemiologists, ecologists, biologists, veterinarians and medical practitioners interested in the biology and control of (re-)emerging diseases. The group conducts field studies to acquire a wider understanding of pathogen epidemiology to inform policy on optimal and cost-effective methods of disease control.

Prof Fèvre is the Chair the World Health Organization Working Group on zoonotic Neglected Tropical Diseases (zNTDs), is a member of the WHO Expert Committee on Human African Trypanosomiasis. In Kenya, he is a member of the Zoonoses Technical Working Group (ZTWG), the advisory body to the Government of Kenya National Zoonotic Disease Unit.

Dr. Elisabeth Lindahl Rajala, is a veterinarian currently working as a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU) focusing on the epidemiology of emerging zoonotic diseases. Her PhD targeted Brucella in the capital city of Tajikistan, an area with a high projected urbanization rate and brucellosis being endemic among the livestock. Elisabeth is also the project coordinator of theme 4 in AgriFOSe2030, a SIDA funded project that contributes to sustainable intensification of agriculture for increased food production on existing agricultural land. She has also supervised a number of master students performing their work in Tajikistan.

Dr. Barbara Wieland, International Livestock Research Institute Dr. Wieland is a veterinarian with a PhD in veterinary epidemiology from the University of Bern/Switzerland and with postgraduate degrees in Academic Practise (Kings’s College, London/UK) and in Managing Rural Development (School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS, London/UK). Currently she leads the Herd Health team at ILRI and acts as ILRI focal point and leader of cluster of activities in CRP Livestock and CRP Agriculture and Nutrition for Health. She had broad experience in veterinary epidemiology research, in teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and in coordination research and development projects. Over the last 15 years she has worked on a variety of infectious diseases, incl. zoonoses, in different settings in Europe, Africa and Asia. Other research interests include motivation of farmers to control disease in their herds, improve productivity in herds, One Health approaches, and application of risk assessment and disease modelling techniques to identify the best possible control options for farmers and to inform policy.

Dr. Paul Richards, Professor Emeritus of Technology and Agrarian Development at Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

Dr. Richards is adjunct professor at Njala University in central Sierra Leone. He was formerly a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University College London for many years, and previously taught anthropology and geography, at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London and the University Klistra inof Ibadan, Nigeria. Professor Richards is the author of the book "Ebola - How a people´s science helped end an epidemic" (2016), in which he draws on his extensive firsthand experience of the the outbreak in Sierra Leone.

Dr Anders Nordström was from 9 April 2015 to 9 June 2017 the Head of the WHO Country Office in Sierra Leone. From 1 September 2017 he is be back in his previous position as Swedish Ambassador for Global Health at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. A medical doctor from the Karolinska Institut, Sweden, Dr Nordström has a background that combines development experience in the field, national and international health policy and planning, and strategic leadership. During 2002 Dr Nordström was the Interim Executive Director for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He has served as board member of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, GAVI, UNAIDS and PMNCH.

He was the Acting Director-General of WHO from 23 May 2006 until 3 January 2007 following the sudden death of Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General, on 22 May 2006. Prior to that he had been WHO Assistant Director-General for General Management since July 2003.

Dr. Samson M. Haumba, Country Director, URC University Research Co, LLC Swaziland leads the development and execution of the Integrated Country Strategy and coordinates activities providing overall managerial and strategic leadership of the URC projects in Swaziland. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of the PEPFAR funded Clinical HIV/TB Technical Assistance project. Dr Haumba is an Internal Medicine and Public Health specialist and is member of national and international technical working groups and contributes to international guidelines in the areas of HIV and TB. Samson also has cumulative working experience of 15 years of experience in public health programs, management and leading high impact public health projects in low and middle income developing countries and conducting independent and collaborative health research and participation in national and international public health policy dialogues to improve health outcomes. Research areas include health systems strengthening, tuberculosis, HIV and laboratory diagnostics.

Rev. Dr. Gunilla Hallonsten, Policy Director, Swedish Church, is an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church with a doctorate in theology from Lund University. Her research focus is on the intersection of gender, health and theology including contextual interpretations. Her knowledge on gender, health and theology was deepened through working for many years in Southern Africa with FBOs and CSOs on HIV and gender equality. She gained experience on humanitarian work through the extensive Church of Sweden’s humanitarian specialization on Community-based psycho-social support. For several years she worked as Director of Policy at Church of Sweden and as the Acting International Director. Currently she is the senior advisor on gender justice at ACT Alliance.

Dr. Jim Gallarda, Senior Program Officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, WA. Jim has over 25 years of industry experience in development of commercial infectious disease and oncology-related companion diagnostics. During his tenure at Abbott Laboratories and Roche Molecular Diagnostics, he oversaw multiple teams developing immunodiagnostic & PCR systems for HIV-1, HIV-2, HCV, HBV and West Nile Virus. While at Roche Molecular, Jim obtained an MBA and eventually lead its global business for Genomics & Oncology. Afterwards, he moved into Novartis Pharmaceuticals as a diagnostic lead overseeing development of a companion diagnostic for tyrosine kinase inhibitors in chronic myeloid leukemia. He now serves as a diagnostic lead for the Foundation’s efforts in tuberculosis, and has oversight for investments in next generation sequencing and other molecular applications in global health.

Dr. Sabine Dittrich, FIND, is heading the Fever work in the Fever, AMR and Outbreak program. Prior to joining FIND as a Senior Scientific Officer in December 2015 she was working for the University of Oxford, based at the Lao--Oxford-Mahosot-Wellcome Trust Research Unit in Vientiane, Laos for 5 years. Her work in Laos focused on better understanding and diagnosing the causes of non-malarial fevers with a particular focus on vector-borne or zoonotic bacterial infections.She completed her PhD in Biomolecular Science at the University of Manchester (UK) studying the folate pathway of the P. falciparum and subsequently completed a Public Health Microbiology Fellowship (equivalent of EIS) focusing on outbreak response and preparedness with the European CDC (EPIET/EUPHEM), based at the Dutch National Institute of Public Health.

Dr. Stephan Jaeger, Roche Diagnostics GmbH, is working at the interface of Roche’s two divisions - Diagnostic and Pharma. His focus lies on Personalized Healthcare programs, mainly in diseases areas outside oncology including infectious diseases. During 20 years at Roche he has held positions in development of viral and bacterial PCR assays, in assessment of biomarker and technologies and drug biomarker programs, both in Diagnostics and Pharma.

Dr. Wiltshire Johnson, Registrar and CEO, Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone is registrar and CEO of the country’s national drug regulatory authority. He is also a lecturer at the University of Sierra Leone’s College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, were he currently acts as head of the Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics Department. Mr Johnson is a fellow of the West African Postgraduates College of Pharmacy (WAPCP) with head office in Lagos, Nigeria, and is the immediate past president and a current examiner for the college. He serves as a pharmacovigilance resource person and consultant for PVGSF in Africa. Mr Johnson studied at the University of Sierra Leone and the University of Bradford, UK. He was born in Uzbekistan in the former USSR, and is of Afro-Russian-Chinese decent. He received schooling in USA, Russia and Sierra Leone, and currently lives in Sierra Leone.

Dr. Nils Feltelius, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, is senior scientific advisor at the Swedish Medical Products Agency. He is a physician qualified in internal medicine and rheumatology and has been head of Department of Rheumatology at Uppsala University Hospital. He has an extensive regulatory experience from clinical trials, drug safety and safety communication. He is associated professor at the Karolinska Institute. His main research interests are autoimmune diseases and pharmaco-epidemiology, with focus on safety of biologic drugs. Feltelius is also a member of the Swedish Health Technology Agency Scientific Board. During the 2009-2010 flu pandemic Dr. Feltelius was one of the organizers of the investigations that assessed the safety signal generated in the spontaneous reporting system regarding narcolepsy and H1N1-vaccination.

Dr. Crawford Revie, Professor, Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Dr. Revie is Research Chair in Population Health: Epi-Informatics, which he defines as, “the use of techniques from informatics - such as data mining, data-driven modelling and semantic web technologies - to gain a better understanding of disease”. Crawford has degrees in Computing Science, Microprocessor Design and Industrialisation. His doctoral work in Statistics and Mathematical Modelling involved the creation of models describing host-parasite interactions in aquaculture. His research explores novel methods for extracting and organizing knowledge that exists in large and increasingly complex epidemiological data sets. A particular focus over the past decade has been the application of data-driven models to better understand host-parasite population dynamics, improve differential diagnoses, and to find methods to more effectively share data and knowledge among those working in the field of animal health surveillance. He helped pioneer the area of veterinary syndromic surveillance, working with a range of animal species in both developed and emerging economies.

Dr. Jan C. Semenza, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr. Semenza directs the work on environmental and social determinants of infectious diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm. He was an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1995 when a record-breaking heat wave claimed the lives of more than 700 individuals in Chicago. He led the CDC response to this event and elucidated the underlying environmental, societal, and behavioural risk factors for heat-related mortality. The findings of this study were immediately incorporated into an action plan for the city of Chicago with detailed measures to prevent future heat-related deaths. He was subsequently awarded a Certificate of Commendation by the City of Chicago for this investigation. He also worked internationally on a number of ID issues in Uzbekistan, Sudan, Egypt, Denmark, Brazil, and Haiti. He is currently working on environmental and climatic drivers of vector-borne and water-borne disease transmission in Europe.

Dr. Kun Maggie Hu, IBM Almaden Research Center, USA.

Dr. Hu is a research scientist in the field of Public Health, managing an Industrial and Applied Genomics team conducting research around genomics, metagenomics for food safety among others at IBM Almaden Research Center (in Silicon Valley). She is trained as a system and behavioral scientist with expertise in epidemiological modeling. Dr Hu is an active member and committer to the Eclipse Open Source project Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler, STEM, and contributed many epidemiological models, such as Ebola, Dengue, Polio, to STEM project.

Dr. Hu has led team work on building epidemiological models and forming community efforts to respond multiple infectious disease outbreaks, such as H7N9, Ebola, etc. She was on IBM Health Corps team to Panama, working with Gorgas Memorial Institute and MINSA on a geo-referenced system for vector control and epidemiological surveillance in 2017.

Bassirou Bonfoh, Director General Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire, Director Afrique One-ASPIRE.

Dr. Bonfoh holds a DVM and a PhD in biology. He worked for 5 years in West Africa as a livestock development program coordinator for Vétérinaires Sans Frontières. He went for a 4 year epidemiology postdoctoral fellowship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) on health risks and determinants of dairy sector development. He subsequently led for 4 years a research group on "Avenues of extensive pastoral production system" in the Horn Africa, West Africa and Central Asia in the framework of the Swiss National Competence in Research North-South (NCCR North-South) where he contributed to validate the One Health concept on risk analysis and zoonosis control at human, animal and environment interface (e.g. brucellosis in Kyrgyzstan). Since 2009, he is Managing Director of Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS, www.csrs.ch) where he leads the North-South science diplomacy. He is also the Director of the consortium Afrique One (www.afriqueoneaspire.net).

Dr. Ferdinand Okwaro, Medical Anthropologist, The University of Oslo, Social Anthropology Department.

Dr Okwaro is working on a GLOBVAC funded research project titled ‘the Practice and ethics of collaboration in transnational medical research in East Africa: an ethnographic approach’. This anthropological project ethnographically studies the work of scientific collaboration around East Africa's two leading research universities, Nairobi and Makerere.

Before joining the SAI, Ferdinand was a post-doctoral research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) where he conducted the formative research for this current project. He previously wrote his PhD from the university Heidelberg in Germany and his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He has also conducted extensive research in the field of ritual healing and alternative medical practices, reproductive health and social marketing.

Dr. Johanna Takkinen, Head of the European Center for Disease Control Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses (FWD) Programme.

Dr Takkinen is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with a special degree in food- and environmental hygiene from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in the University of Helsinki. While doing practice mainly with large animals, she has worked in different food-, water- and environmental laboratories since 1983, first as a laboratory technician and later as a Head of food laboratory in Porvoo, Finland. In 1999, Dr. Takkinen joined the European Intervention Epidemiology Training programme (EPIET) in the Robert Koch Institut in Germany, and moved to work at the National Public Health Insitute in Finland in 2002. She was recognised de facto Diplomate for Food Science in the European College of Veterinary Public Health in 2005 and in the same year, she finished her Master of Public Health studies for the Nordic School of Public Health in Gothenburg, Sweden.

As a Head of the ECDC FWD programme covering 21 bacterial, viral, parasitic and prion diseases, Dr. Takkinen has a deep interest to understand and explore the epidemiology of these diseases in a holistic way, applying “One Health” approach, so that important gaps in the prevention and control can be identified and appropriately addressed.

Ettore Severi, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) where he works as expert in outbreak response. He is currently a part-time PhD candidate at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, studying the evolving epidemiology of hepatitis A virus infection in the EU. Prior to ECDC, he worked for Medecins sans frontières in Eastern Africa and for the Health Protection Agency (today Public Health England) in London. During his career, he was deployed to collaborate in response efforts to control outbreaks in different European Union (EU) and tropical countries.