WHO appoints new Director of the Global Malaria Programme

Published by the World Health Organization, 30 July 2014

The World Health Organisation Director-General has appointed Dr Pedro L. Alonso as Director of the Global Malaria Programme. Dr Alonso is currently Director of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and Professor of the Barcelona University School of Medicine. He will take up the WHO position on 13 October 2014.

Dr Alonso has over 30 years’ experience in Global Health; he has worked in The Gambia, Tanzania and Mozambique, as well as the Americas and Asia. Some of Dr Alonso’s most relevant research has included the field of malaria epidemiology and the evaluation of new control tools including Insecticide Treated Nets, drugs and vaccines. Dr Alonso conducted the first trials to show the impact of insecticide-treated nets in the reduction of all-cause mortality (Lancet 1991) as well as phase 2b trials of the first malaria vaccine candidate (RTS,S) in Africa (Lancet 1994) and the first proof-of-concept trials of RTS,S in African children and infants (Lancet 2004 and 2007). He is also lead author on papers showing the safety and efficacy of iron supplementation in young infants in malaria-endemic areas (Lancet 1997) and presenting the first proof of concept of intermittent preventive treatment in infants as a potential malaria control tool (Lancet 2001). He has published more than 300 papers in international peer-reviewed journals.

Institutional and human capacity building has been central to his career, including his role as founding director of the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM) is Southern Mozambique. Between 2005 and 2007, together with Professor Fred Binka, he led the steering committee that designed and implemented the European Union EDCTP (European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership) initiative. He has served on several national and international committees. Currently, he is a board member of the Medicines for Malaria Venture, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration an initiative promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Malaria Eradication Scientific Alliance, MESA. He is also a member of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee.

Dr Alonso is a a Spanish national, born and educated in Madrid and the United Kingdom. 

Additional biography information from ISGlobal, where Dr Alonso is currently Director.