Dr Ayesha De Costa

Dr. Ayesha de Costa is a physician and epidemiologist. She trained in India and in Sweden. She has worked closely with the Department of health in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, over a number of years, as part of bilateral assistance program to the state government to strengthen basic health services for mothers and newborns, including care at birth, neonatal survival and access to medicines. She has since worked as academic faculty at the Karolinska Institutet on program related research in the area of maternal and newborn health and with randomized trials in the area of HIV. She been faculty at the Center for Primary Care and public health at Queen Mary University of London and worked with the UK Medicines and Healthcare Agency supporting the  clinical assessments of trials for pediatric medicines.

Ayesha serves as Scientist at the Newborn health Unit in the Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health Department at the World Health Organization HQ, Geneva. She works with research, guidelines and program in the area of newborn health with a focus on prematurity. She supports research, country programs and guideline development in the area of newborn and child health. She has worked with the WHO led clinical research program on antenatal corticosteroids for improving outcomes in preterm newborns, which has included a set of multicountry clinical trials and implementation research studies in low-middle income countries.  As prematurity is the leading cause of neonatal mortality globally, it is a priority focus area for the WHO. She is also presently leading and coordinating work on strengthening level 2 units in low middle income countries to provide care and improve outcomes for preterm newborns. Ayesha also works with young child infant feeding and coordinates a large WHO led multi-country trial in the area.on behalf of the WHO, she actively collaborates on clinical trials and implementation research in Bangladesh, Ethiopia India, Kenya, Mali, Pakistan, and Tanzania. She also works with aspects of the ENAP (Every Newborn Action Pan) and on neonatal screening and the management of birth defects in low and middle income setting.