The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control Director-General, Chikwe Ihekweazu, has been appointed as the World Health Organisation’s assistant director-general of Health Emergency Intelligence.

This was disclosed in a letter signed by the WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, on Tuesday.

Mr Ihekweazu will begin his tenure on November 1.

“I am pleased to welcome Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu as an assistant director-general for Health Emergency Intelligence from November 1, 2021,” the letter said, “He will lead the work on strengthening pandemic and epidemic intelligence globally, including heading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin.”

Mr Ihekweazu, born in Germany, has served in various public health positions, including the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases, the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute.

Mr Ihekweazu graduated from the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, and got his master’s degree in Public Health from the Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany.

In 2003, Mr Ihekweazu was awarded a fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training in the United Kingdom.

In 2008, Mr Ihekweazu served as a consultant medical epidemiologist at the UK’s Health Protection Agency, providing emergency services and advice to the National Health Service (NHS), managing the South East of England’s Regional Epidemiology Unit (REU) catering to over 10 million people.