A new Director General has been appointed for the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). He is Dr Ifedayo Morayo Adetifa, who replaces Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, who is now head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence based in Berlin, Germany.
Below are five things to know about the new NCDC boss, according to London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:
1. He received his undergraduate medical training at the University of Ilorin, Kwara, Nigeria and completed residency training in Paediatrics at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos, Nigeria for which he was awarded the Fellowship of the West Africa College of Physicians in Paediatrics.
2. He studied for his MSc in Epidemiology at the School and got his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
3. He joined the School in June 2014 and work overseas as a Clinical Epidemiologist at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme,Kilifi, Kenya.
4. His research is to provide evidence for vaccine policy in low-and-middle income countries especially those in Africa. His vaccine policy advisory roles include membership of the Kenyan National Immunisation Coordination Committee, the WHO AFRO Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (RITAG), the Advisory Group of the WHO Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme, and the WHO Technical Advisory Group on RSV vaccines.
5. Prior to joining the School, I worked as a Clinical Epidemiologist at the Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia at the LSHTM. My research interests and work then were in Tuberculosis Epidemiology.
