Public Health Intelligence in Action: PHI for All Hazards

Thursday, 9 December 2021

Moderator

Raquel Medialdea Carrera

Epidemiologist & EIOS Training Coordinator, World Health Organization (WHO)

Raquel Medialdea is a Spanish epidemiologist with a PhD in Infections and Global Health from the University of Liverpool, UK. Raquel completed EPIET (the FETP Fellowship of the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention - ECDC) based in the Ministry for Health of Malta. Raquel has over seven years of a track record in international public health crisis, health emergencies and public health intelligence including deploying twice to Sierra Leone in 2015 during the Ebola outbreak and working in Brazil for almost 2 years during the Zika, Chikungunya and Dengue Virus epidemic (2016-2018). Raquel joined WHO in 2019 to support the Ebola response in DRC from Health Emergency Information and Risk Assessment (HIM) Department in WHO HQ, Geneva. In 2020, Raquel worked with the Go.Data/GOARN team deploying to Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. In 2020, Raquel joined the WHO COVID-19 Intelligence, Info Products & GIS team within the COVID-19 Incident Management Support Team (IMST). In 2021, Raquel joined the Innovation Systems and Analytics (ISA) Unit within the Health Emergency Information and Risk Assessment (HIM) (WHE) as Training Coordinator in the EIOS Core Team. Raquel is currently living in Geneva and is also passionate about running, hiking, cycling and camping.

Speakers

Francesca Massanello

Drugs Monitoring Platform Coordinator, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Francesca Massanello is a Drug Control and Crime Prevention Officer within the Research and Trend Analysis Branch of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Francesca has over 15 years of experience working within the UN system and other international organizations having served in field mission in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Her current focus is on monitoring drug trafficking trends.

Luca Vernaccini

Technical officer, World Health Organization (WHO)

Luca Vernaccini is a data scientist expert in composite indicator and humanitarian data. At WHO he is responsible for the Dynamic Preparedness Metric, an aggregate of open-source indicators representing hazard, vulnerability and capacity dimensions that determine preparedness capacity gaps.


Przemyslaw Jankowski

Policy Officer, European Commission Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation (ECHO)

Przemyslaw Jankowski finished law at the University in Poznan (Poland). He gave lectures at the University in Czestochowa (Poland), worked as Legal Advisor in law offices and private companies. He has also an IT background confirmed with certificates and active work as IT developer and Project Manager. In 2009 he joined the European Commission and worked in the Directorate General (DG) for Research and Innovation and later for Education, Youth, Culture and Sport. As of 2020 Mr Jankowski joint the DG for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation. As a Policy Officer, he works in a unit dealing with Security and Situational Awareness and he covers among others Copernicus Emergency Management Services, European Civil Protection Knowledge Network and other topics related to response in crisis management. He also contributes to overall monitoring and coordination, supporting other units in DG ECHO with data information and analysis related to their activities.


 

 

 

 

 

Gaston Wamba

Consultant-Health Emergency Officer, World Health Organization (WHO)

From Cameroon - Medical Doctor from the Faculty of Medicines and Biomedical Sciences of the Yaounde 1 University in Cameroon in 1995 - District/Chief Medical Officer in Health Districts and Hospital in the South West Region of Cameroon - MPH at the Institute of Tropical Medicine at Antwerpen, Belgium in 2011 - Regional Coordinator Malaria Program in the South West Region of Cameroon - STOP TEAM Polio Consultant in Senegal in 2013 - Consultant for Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Mambasa- Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) - National Consultant for Covid-19 response in the West Region of Cameroon - Consultant-Health Emergency Officer at Dakar Hub - Participation at the recent Joint Operational Review of the North-East Nigeria at Maiduguri

 

 

 

 

Fairouz Larfaoui

Animal Health Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Joint Centre for Zoonoses and Anti-Microbial Resistance (CJWZ)

Fairouz Larfaoui is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) with a Master degree in Veterinary Public Health and Food Safety (MSc) from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Perugia, Italy and an MSc in e-Health from the Faculty of Camerino, Italy. Fairouz Larfaoui joined the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) at Headquarter (Rome, Italy) in 2003, where she works as an Animal Health Officer. Prior to FAO, she has been working in Academia and private sector. Fairouz has extended experience in working with veterinary services to strengthen early warning and surveillance capacities and in the development of innovative early warning approaches and Information Technology (IT) tools for collecting and analyzing epidemiological data from the field. She leads several capacity development projects at country level to improve early warning and surveillance of Transboundary Animal Diseases (TADs), including zoonoses. She is the FAO focal point for the Tripartite FAO, OIE, WHO Global Early Warning System (GLEWS+), a tripartite initiative to address threats and emerging risks at the human–animal–ecosystems interface. In her current position she is engaged in working with FAO partners, governments, regional and national networks to advance One Health approach for a better prevention, preparedness, detection and response to emerging zoonotic diseases.

 

Jonathan Epstein

Vice President for Science and Outreach, EcoHealth Alliance