A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
Sir Peter Karel, Baron Piot, is a Belgian-British microbiologist known for his research into Ebola and AIDS.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is a federal agency responsible for funding health and medical research in Canada. Comprising 13 institutes, it is the successor to the Medical Research Council of Canada.
Mario C. B. Raviglione has been professor at the University of Milan, Italy since March 2018. He directs the activities focused on global health and aiming at pursuing didactic and research in this field as part of the new Multidisciplinary Research in Health Science (MACH) Centre. Part of his activities are devoted to teaching global health principles to undergraduate medical students, making the University of Milan the first in Italy, and one of the pioneers world-wide, introducing global health as a module among the required curricular courses. At the same university, Raviglione is now coordinating the first international Master Course in Global Health in Italy and one of the very few online worldwide . In 2019 and 2020, he was also Professeur Titulaire at the Global Studies Institute (GSI), Université de Genève, Suisse. Through the GSI, he has worked within the context of the Institute of Global Health. Previously, between 2003 and 2017, he was director of the Global Tuberculosis Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) . He graduated in medicine from the University of Turin in 1980 and then trained in internal medicine and Infectious Diseases at Cabrini Medical Center in New York City and at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston where he was a Harvard University Clinical Fellow in Medicine and specialised in AIDS. Back in Europe, Raviglione joined WHO in 1991 as a Junior Professional Officer, and spent a few years working on TB and AIDS, TB epidemiology in Europe, and anti-TB drug resistance surveillance and response. In the mid-1990s, he set up both the WHO global drug resistance surveillance project and the WHO global TB surveillance and monitoring systems. Among his major achievements are the contributions to the development of the WHO's DOTS Strategy in 1995, and the direction of the development of both the Stop TB Strategy in 2006 and the End TB Strategy in 2014. During his years at WHO he worked with, and visited, more than 50 countries supporting their TB care, prevention, control and research activities. His research work has resulted in over 350 scientific articles and chapters on the topics of infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, TB, and global health, including the TB chapters in the last eight editions of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. He is editor of the 3rd and 4th edition of "Tuberculosis - A comprehensive international approach", a multi-author book, and associate editor of other books on public health, infectious diseases and tuberculosis. He directed the team that developed the book “Systematic screening for active tuberculosis – Principles and recommendations”, awarded by the British Medical Association as "Highly Commended Book" for Public Health in 2014. He is among the top 10 most cited authors in the TB field. His h-index is 117 and 94 (Scinapse) and his work has been cited over 63000 times. He is also among the top 25 Italian epidemiological scientists and the top 100 Italian scientists in general. As an expert in TB, he has worked as a teacher or visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, University of Geneva, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and University of Pavia. He has been visiting professor at the University of Brescia and has recently lectured at major universities including Harvard, McGill and Sydney. He participates in a variety of board of directors, scientific and advisory committees, including those of the TB Alliance, Doctors with Africa CUAMM, BE Health Association, International Health Commission of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart - Cabrini Ministries ,Fondazione 3Bi. and the McGill Global Health Programs International Advisory Board. In 2017-2018 and in 2023 he was member of the Lancet Commission on TB. During 2015-2017 he conceived and co-organised, with WHO and the Russian Federation Ministry of Health, the first Global WHO Ministerial Conference on TB in the Sustainable Development Era, held in Moscow on 16–17 November 2017, and his team worked towards ensuring that TB is raised in the international political agenda through the United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting on TB that was held in 2018. As main Editor, he conceived and coordinated with other global health authorities the publication of a landmark book "Global Health Essentials" part of the Springer series devoted to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This practical manual is a comprehensive book written by an esteemed international panel of over 150 experts from 70 institutions across 30 countries, and provides a succinct yet thorough exploration of key global health challenges, issues, and solutions.
GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, previously the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, is a global science initiative established in 2008 to provide access to genomic data of influenza viruses. The database was expanded to include the coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other pathogens. The database has been described as "the world's largest repository of COVID-19 sequences". GISAID facilitates genomic epidemiology and real-time surveillance to monitor the emergence of new COVID-19 viral strains across the planet.
Margaret Ann "Peggy" Hamburg is an American physician and public health administrator, who is serving as the chair of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and co-chair of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). She served as the 21st Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from May 2009 to April 2015.
Tuberculosis in India is a major health problem, causing about 220,000 deaths every year. In 2020, the Indian government made statements to eliminate tuberculosis from the country by 2025 through its National TB Elimination Program. Interventions in this program include major investment in health care, providing supplemental nutrition credit through the Nikshay Poshan Yojana, organizing a national epidemiological survey for tuberculosis, and organizing a national campaign to tie together the Indian government and private health infrastructure for the goal of eliminating the disease.
Sir Jeremy James Farrar is a British medical researcher who has served as Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization since 2023. He was previously the director of The Wellcome Trust from 2013 to 2023 and a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford.
Joanne Liu is a Canadian pediatric emergency medicine physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal, Professor of Clinical Medicine at McGill University, and the previous International President of Médecins sans Frontières. She was elected president during MSF's International General Assembly in June 2013.
Gagandeep Kang FRS is an Indian microbiologist and virologist who has been leading the work on enteric diseases, diarrheal infections and disease surveillance at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 2023.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is a foundation that takes donations from public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations, to finance independent research projects to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases (EID).
Francine NtoumiPh.D., HDR, PvDz, FRCPedin is a Congolese parasitologist specializing in malaria. She was the first African person in charge of the secretariat of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (2006-2010). In recent years, she has become involved in research on other infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
Anita Kaniz Mehdi Zaidi is a Pakistani physician. She is the President of the Gender Equality Division and Director of Vaccine Development, Global Health Surveillance, Diarrhea and Enteric Diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has previously served as Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the Aga Khan University.
Richard Hatchett is an American oncologist and epidemiologist who has been serving as chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in Oslo and London since 2017. He was awarded the Secretary of Health and Human Services's Award for Distinguished Service.
Patricia Jannet García Funegra is a Peruvian professor of public and global health at Cayetano Heredia University. She originally trained as a clinician before focusing on research and public health. Her work also focuses on reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, and medical informatics. In 2016-17 García was the Minister of Health of Peru. She was the first Peruvian to be elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in 2016.
Megan Blanche Murray is an American epidemiologist and an infectious disease physician. She is the Ronda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
John N. Nkengasong is a Cameroonian-American virologist serving as the Global AIDS Coordinator in the Biden administration since 2022 and Senior Bureau Official for Global Health Security and Diplomacy since 2023. He previously worked as the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 to 2022, as well as at the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nkengasong was appointed the WHO Special Envoy for Africa.
Poonam Khetrapal Singh is the first Indian elected Regional Director of WHO’s South-East Asia Region. She was also the first woman in the region to assume the office of WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia in February 2014. In September 2018, she was unanimously elected for a second five-year term by the 71st Regional Committee and 144th Session of the WHO Executive Board.
Madhukar Pai is an Indian medical doctor, academic, advocate, writer, and university professor. Pai's work is around global health, specifically advocacy for better treatment for tuberculosis with a focus on South Africa and India. Pai is the inaugural Chair of the Department of Global and Public Health in the School of Population and Global Health and holds a Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology and Global Health at McGill University.
Pragya D. Yadav is an Indian scientist at the ICMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV), who is known for her research contributions in the field of communicable diseases and highly pathogenic viral infections, such as Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), Nipah, Ebola, leading to improvising national public health surveillance policy for interventions and management. Yadav is among the scientists who detected the first three COVID-19 pandemic cases in India. She headed the team that developed Covaxin, the first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine in India
