Chikwe Ihekweazu

Director WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence

Chikwe Ihekweazu is leading the newly established WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin, Germany. Prior to this, he was the first Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and led the agency between 2016 and 2021. Dr Ihekweazu trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has over 25 years’ experience working in senior public health and leadership positions in several National Public Health Institutes, including NCDC, South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Dr Ihekweazu has led several short-term engagements for WHO, mainly in response to major infectious disease outbreaks around the world. He was part of the first WHO COVID-19 international mission on COVID-19 to China, in February 2020, and member of the Presidential Task Force for the COVID in Nigeria.