342. Dr. Hamid S. Jafari

Project Manager - National Polio Surveillance Project

Dr. Hamid Jafari serves as the main technical advisor to the Government of India (GoI) in the implementation of polio eradication and other immunization activities and directs WHO’s extensive network of nearly 1000 field personnel, including more than 300 surveillance medical officers, who are instrumental in providing technical and programmatic assistance to the government. 

Before this assignment, Dr. Hamid Jafari was appointed as Regional Advisor for Polio Eradication and Vaccine-Preventable Disease Surveillance in WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia. Prior to this he served as Director of the Global Immunization Division and before that as Chief of the Polio Eradication Branch at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, USA. He began his career in epidemiology and public health in 1992 at the National Center for Infections Diseases CDC, and later worked at the National Immunization Program, CDC.  Dr. Jafari served as Medical Officer for Polio Eradication in the Regional Office of WHO for Eastern Mediterranean from 1996-2002 on assignment from the CDC.

Dr. Jafari completed his residency training in Pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire, U.S.A. and his Pediatric Infectious Disease fellowship training at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas Texas, U.S.A. He is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and the American Board of Pediatric Infectious Diseases.  Before his pediatrics training, Dr. Jafari completed a one-year research fellowship at the Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Jafari has published over 50 scientific papers and book chapters on polio eradication, other vaccine-preventable diseases and in the area of pathogenesis and epidemiology of invasive bacterial diseases.

Source: .whoindia.org