April 16 at 9 am, Wessam Mankoula, MD, Lead of the Africa CDC Emergency Operations Centre, will give a 30-minute presentation followed by brief reports and a panel discussion moderated by Mina Hosseinipour, MD, MPH, science director for UNC Project-Malawi.
The UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious diseases Friday Conference Series will present “The Status of the COVID-19 Vaccine in Africa” April 16 at 9 am, featuring:
Wessam Mankoula, MB.BCh (MD), MPP, FETP
Lead, Africa CDC Emergency Operations Centre
Esther Chirwa, MBBS, MSc
Senior Lecturer, Malawi Ministry of Health
Lloyd Mulenga, BSc, MBChB, MSc, MMed, PhD
Director of Infectious Diseases, Zambia Ministry of Health
Dr. Mankoula will give a 30-minute presentation followed by brief reports
from Dr. Chirwa and Dr. Mulenga. A panel discussion moderated by Mina Hosseinipour, MD, MPH, UNC Project-Malawi’s scientific director, will follow.
click here to attend virtually
Zoom meeting ID: 921 9108 2267
Mankoula has worked for more than a decade in public health emergency management, epidemiology, and medicine. His mission is to improve health by developing policies and programs targeting disease prevention and control, with a special focus on public health emergency management.
In 2016, Mankoula was selected as one of ten African public health professionals to support establishment and operationalisation of Africa CDC under the African Union Commission. As the lead of the Africa CDC Emergency Operations Centre, he has established a coalition in collaboration with WHO and US CDC to push the agenda of PHEOCs in Africa and support member states. He has also led Africa CDC missions in response to various outbreaks in the African continent such as Ebola in the DRC, Rift Valley Fever in Kenya, and cholera in Zimbabwe. He is currently the Africa CDC Incident Manager for COVID-19 in Africa.
He holds a master’s degree in public policy, with a focus on health policy, from American University in Cairo, Egypt, and the Egyptian Board of Epidemiology. He held an Africa CDC Fellowship, Public Health Emergency Management Fellowship with the U.S. CDC, and completed the Field Epidemiology Training Program.
Chirwa is responsible for COVID-19 vaccine safety with Malawi’s Ministry of Health. She holds an MBBS and MSc in vaccinology and drug development from University of Siena, Italy. Her work includes training health workers and planning the execution of vaccination as well as sensitizing citizens on the importance of vaccines in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mulenga practices as an infectious disease and internal medicine specialist at University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, in addition to his work with the Ministry of Health. He is the lead infectious diseases physician for Zambia’s COVID-19 clinical response. He serves on the NIH Data and Safety Monitoring Boards, WHO Guidelines Development Group, and WHO HIV Drug Resistance Network. His research has focused on HIV and clinical outcomes, HIV drug resistance, HIV and non-communicable diseases, and infectious diseases epidemiology.
Can’t attend on Friday? Find recordings of previous sessions posted here.