Speakers

Dr Jean-Michel Heraud is a virologist with a broad experience in infectious disease and public health. He has worked in different settings but mainly in tropical countries (French Guiana, Madagascar and Sénégal).

Jean-Michel actively participate in the set-up of the Malagasy integrated surveillance of influenza, arbovirus, malaria and febrile diarrhea. In Senegal, he implemented the first Senegalese viral encephalitis surveillance network, and initiate new approach for an integrated rabies surveillance.

In 2023, Jean-Michel joined the Global Influenza Programme at the WHO to work on the global integrated surveillance of Influenza and other respiratory viruses.

Nicola Lewis is Director of the Worldwide Influenza Centre and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Response at the Francis Crick Institute in London. She is also Professor in One Health Evolutionary Biology at the Royal Veterinary College, from where she also graduated as a veterinary surgeon. After a period in general practice Nicola returned to Cambridge to undertake a PhD in infectious diseases – focussing on using state-of-the-art computational methods to quantify the evolution of influenza A viruses in animals.

Her research now focuses on investigating the ecology and evolution of influenza A viruses in multiple animal hosts and the risks that these viruses might pose to the human population, with a global context. This internationally-collaborative high-impact research spans huge diversity from implementing surveillance in wild birds in the Republic of Georgia, analyzing emerging highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, to using state-of-the-art computational techniques to analyse influenza virus antigenic and genetic evolution, to assess pandemic risk, and to inform international stakeholder on vaccine strains. Her recent research publications encompass avian, swine, marine mammal and human influenza A viruses as well as Newcastle Disease.

In her roles, she provides consultancy to a range of stakeholders but specifically including the European Commission, WOAH, FAO, EFSA, ECDC, WHO and UKHSA. She serves on the WOAH expert group for the Control of Equine Influenza who meet annually to decide on global equine influenza vaccine strain selection. She was also an OFFLU (WOAH/FAO) Executive committee member 2016-2019, and a member of the OFFLU swine influenza virus group who globally co-ordinate swine influenza virus surveillance and who aim to strengthen and coordinate influenza surveillance in pigs worldwide, providing up-to-date expert scientific advice to WOAH, FAO and WHO. Additionally, she is a member of the OFFLU avian influenza network consisting of avian influenza experts who address priority influenza-related issues, the OFFLU wildlife group who assess emerging infectious disease in wild animals. Alongside her WHOCC analyses of human seasonal influenza virus evolution, Nicola also contributes data and analyses biennially to the WHO Vaccine Composition Meeting submission for animal influenza viruses of zoonotic potential.

Dr Joshua Mott is currently a Senior Advisor for influenza and pandemic preparedness to WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness. Prior to his arrival to WHO in April of 2022, he was the US CDC Southeast Asian Regional Influenza Program Director. In this capacity he provided technical oversight and supervision to surveillance, preparedness and policy-relevant work not only in Thailand, but also through regional supervision Lao PDR, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. Dr. Mott has also served as the Director of the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service, and prior to that as the CDC Influenza Program Director in Kenya. From 2009-2011, he also was the CDC influenza technical advisor to the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

Dr Mott has also worked in the areas of biothreat agents, complex emergency field response, and environmental health. He also served as the epidemiology lead for CDC-Thailand’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana and also has worked as an EMT-Paramedic.

Professor Petro Terblanche has a successful track record in the strategic and operational management of technology intensive organizations. She has played a key part in the design and implementation of South Africa’s biotechnology strategy. She holds the position of Chief Executive Officer of Afrigen Biologics (Pty)Ltd based in Cape Town, South Africa. Afrigen hosts the WHO Global mRNA technology development and transfer Hub and has a mRNA Covid 19 vaccine candidate in development as part of a global program to build capacity and capabilities in LMICs to design, develop and produce mRNA vaccines. Prof Terblanche is the author of more than 200 scientific publications and conference papers in public health. Petro holds several Board positions and serves on a number of scientific advisory boards in the public health sector. She was recently acknowledged as one of the legends of science by the Academy of Sciences South Africa.

Title: Global influenza vaccination policy and programmatic recommendations and considerations

Christopher Chadwick is a Technical Officer for Influenza Preparedness and Response at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. He has worked in epidemic and pandemic preparedness for over a decade, working previously with the United States Department of Health and Human Services, where he advised leadership on influenza preparedness and response and other global health security issues. At WHO, Christopher works on research, development, and policy for influenza vaccines and other products and sustainable vaccine manufacturing. He has an MS in public health microbiology and emerging infectious diseases and a BS in microbiology and chemistry.

Dr. Ghazi Kayali is an infectious disease epidemiologist with special interest in emerging viral infectious diseases at the human-animal interface. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Public Health degrees from the American University of Beirut. He received his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Iowa where he studied zoonotic viral diseases amongst humans exposed to turkeys. He completed his post-doctoral training at the Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dr. Kayali is the managing partner of Human Link DMCC in Dubai, working on biomedical research in the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Kayali’s current research activities include studying the ecology of influenza and coronaviruses at the human-animal interface. Dr. Kayali published more than 110 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Dr. Kayali collaborates with the WHO/EMRO on pandemic preparedness, One Health, and Zoonotic Diseases.

Dr. Sofonias Tessema is the Program Lead for Pathogen Genomics at the Africa CDC. Sofonias received a PhD degree from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute at the University of Melbourne and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California in San Francisco. Sofonias is passionate about capacity building for the implementation of genomic and digital epidemiology for public health in Africa.

Heading the Global Influenza Programme of WHO in its headquarters in Geneva Switzerland since November 2012, Dr Zhang provides leadership and coordinates global activities on influenza surveillance and monitoring, detection of emerging novel viruses, risk assessment and evidence for policies, vaccine viruses and pandemic preparedness. From 2002 to 2012, Dr Zhang coordinated the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). In response to the 2009 A(H1N1) Influenza Pandemic, Dr Zhang directed the Laboratory Response and Capacity of WHO response. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dr Zhang headed the response component of sentinel surveillance and the interface of influenza and SARS-CoV-2, building sustainable global capacity of integrated surveillance of respiratory viruses of pandemic potential using existing influenza platforms. Before joining WHO, Dr Zhang worked for 9 years in the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health on tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, and iodine deficiency disorder initiatives in collaboration with WHO, World Bank, UNICEF and UNIDO. Graduated from Medical School, Zhejiang University, with a bachelor’s degree on biomedical engineering and postgraduate training on system evaluation and epidemiology.

Almiro Tivane, Biologist, MSc and PhD fellow in Health Sciences. Surveillance General coordinator and Researcher on respiratory viruses, with focus to Influenza and RSV. Has been working on the implementation and strengthening of national surveillance, research and outbreak preparedness platforms for respiratory viruses. Co-founder and Member zoonotic diseases technical group and Mozambique One Health Secretariat. Has a experience on laboratory methods implementation and validation as well training organizer and facilitator on surveillance and laboratory procedures.

Abdourahmane SOW is the Director of Public health department at the Institute Pasteur de Dakar (IPD). He has a large and extensive experience in Management of complex public health programs, epidemics preparedness and response, and infectious diseases surveillance and control. He established and coordinated the West Africa reference laboratory Network as well as the regional AMR surveillance and control observatory. Dr SOW is also member of various technical advisory / steering committees at WHO and Africa CDC. He received a PhD in Epidemiology from both Bordeaux School of Public Health (ISPED) and University of Dakar where he earned the degrees of Medical Doctor in 2008, a Master of Public Health in 2012 and a master’s in biomedical sciences in 2005. Before joining IPD, Dr SOW was the head of Epidemics and Public Health Laboratory services at West African Health Organization (WAHO).