The Society is pleased to announce that WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, MBBS, MSc (CHDC), FLSHTM, DSc, a public health veteran with more than 35 years of national and international experience, will deliver this year’s keynote address at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
Dr. Moeti, the first woman WHO Regional Director for Africa, is leading health transformation in the African Region through an agenda that is advancing efforts toward universal health coverage and accelerating progress toward global development goals, while tackling emerging and present threats such as the recent outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She joined the WHO Regional Office for Africa in 1999. At the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, she led WHO’s “3 by 5” initiative in the African Region that helped establish systems to provide antiretroviral therapy and resulted in a significant increase in the number of HIV-positive individuals accessing antiretroviral drugs.
“The prominence of Africa in tropical medicine and global health cannot be overstated, and so we are honored that Dr. Moeti has accepted our invitation to open the 2018 Annual Meeting,” said ASTMH President Regina Rabinovich, MD. “Her lifetime of national and international public health experience, and her current role as leader of WHO Africa has given her a unique vantage point of the complex intersections of global health, policy, politics and real-world challenges.“
Dr. Moeti has held several senior positions in the WHO, including Deputy Regional Director, Assistant Regional Director, Director of Noncommunicable Diseases, WHO Representative to Malawi, and Coordinator of the Inter-Country Support Team for Eastern and Southern Africa. She also worked with UNAIDS as the Team Leader of the Africa and Middle East Desk in Geneva, with UNICEF as a Regional Advisor, and with Botswana’s Ministry of Health in various capacities.