GAELF - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Chairman
• Chairman / Elected Member ( at Large )
• Member of Various Committees

Charles has been involved with filarial diseases all his professional career. After completing his PhD at Sydney University he moved to London and following three years in the Department of Parasitology at the MRC labs in Mill Hill he took up a position at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as head of the Wilson Tropical Pathology Unit. As a pathologist his interests have always been oriented towards the pathogenesis and clinical presentation of lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis. As part of his postdoctoral work at the MRC in London he worked in Cameroon studying the immuno-pathology of onchodermatitis and understanding, and classifying, the clinical spectrum of this important skin disease. This set him on firm path of being an active fieldworker in these two major infections which he still maintains to this day. As part of the Moorfields' Eye Hospital team/LSTMH studying the chemotherapy of onchocerciasis in Sudan the 1980s, Charles established a close relationship with this country and has published over 40 papers on work with Sudanese colleagues and still maintains this link to this day. In 1999 as the global program for lymphatic filariasis elimination began Charles joined the Mectizan Donation Program in Atlanta to assist in the rollout of this new NTD program in Africa. After helping to initiate the first 5 African countries to begin mass treatment for lymphatic filariasis, he formed a strong association with the first of these countries to start treatment,Tanzania. Charles worked as the Special Adviser to the Tanzanian Government for Lymphatic Filariasis since 1980, and working with Tanzania and colleagues helped instigate and manage this very successful program that covering both drug distribution and patient care for those affected with lymphatic filariasis. He has also assisted other countries to develop their LF programs and their LF patient care activities in Africa, Latina America and Asia. Charles' focus on fieldwork has always been balanced by a continuing laboratory research program both in London at LSTMH, and when he moved to the United States in 1988 as Head of Pathology at the medical schools at Michigan State University. His research interests have included understanding the damage that filarial infections can cause, the effects of chemotherapy on the disease, and also developing new chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of these infections. This work has resulted in understanding, for example, the mechanisms of action of ivermectin, defining the pathogenic events that occur in the serious Loa loa encephalopathy that has plagued filarial programs in Africa, and describing the fundamental changes that cause the lymphoedema in about elephantiasis. Charles has served as a member of various committees in the filariasis, onchocerciasis and NTD communities: a member of Mectizan Expert Committee since 1999, Chair of DMDI group of NNN since 2015 and chaired the advisory committee on LF Patient Care for the World Health Organization that produce the documentation for LF morbidity management. He also assisted the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 2014-2016 to developing a LF patient care program for UK government supported DFID Program in lymphatic filariasis. He received the Order of Australia in 2012 for his work in tropical medicine. He is a strong believer in the vital role that endemic countries play in global success that is being achieved against lymphatic filariasis, and in the importance of empowering those at the community level to continue to carry out this extraordinary work. The many people that make up the field level teams - the distributors, the healthcare workers and the patients themselves, he believes, deserve the majority of the credit for the successes that have been achieved to date in this amazing public health program - they are the fundamental component of GAELF.

Job Titles:

• Technical Advisor to the Central African Republic Ministry of Health

Adrian hails from England and completed his medical training in Scotland in 1971. Four years later, after surgical and other training, including the DTM&H at Liverpool, he moved to what was then Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) to work in a rural Baptist Mission Hospital in an area of tropical rain forest called Pimu. Pimu was once described by a group of visiting public health specialists as "too rural for rural health care." He remained there for most of 17 years with some brief spells in Kimpese and Yakusu in Zaire, and some time in England to complete his Diploma in Ophthalmology. In 1993, Adrian became technical advisor to the Central African Republic Ministry of Health for the National Programme for Onchocerciasis Control and Prevention of Blindness, working with the Christoffel-Blindenmission (CBM). In 1999, in spite of the ongoing civil war, he returned to the Congo, to Kinshasa, to establish the Training Centre for Ophthalmology for Central Africa (CFOAC), which is a centre for training mid-level personnel in eye care. For twelve years from 1995 he was Medical Advisor for CBM for the Central African Region and has also been their advisor for onchocerciasis control which involved continuous oversight of programmes in CAR, DRC, Sudan and Burundi. The latter programme is now being transformed into a Programme for Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases. He also served for four years on the Technical Consultative Committee of APOC and completed four years as chairperson of the NGDO coordination group for onchocerciasis control and has been involved in the NGDO LF Network and the Africa Regional Programme Review Group for LF. He has also been very involved in national planning and implementation of the WHO/IAPB Vision 2020 programme to eliminate avoidable blindness, mostly in French-speaking regions of Africa. In January 2008 Adrian was appointed as Director for the Mectizan Donation Program (MDP), located at the Task Force for Global Health in Decatur, Georgia (USA).

Job Titles:

• Member ( Co - Opted )

Dr Monique Ameyo DORKENOO has a Medical doctor degree from the University of Benin in Togo and several postgraduate degrees including a Certificate of Parasitology - Mycology obtained in 2000 at the University of Cocody - Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire). Member of the cabinet of the Ministry of health since 2005, Dr Dorkenoo is in charge to providing strategic directions for the development of the national laboratory and blood safety. She has been working to eliminate lymphatic filariasis in Togo since 2005 as an M&E officer and then promoted to the position of program manager in 2008. She successfully implemented innovative approaches that moved in 2016 the country to the validation of elimination stage following a successful post MDA surveillance in all endemic districts and a countrywide availability of morbidity management and disability prevention activities. She is also the scientific officer in charge of following up the effectiveness of antimalarial drugs for the National Malaria Control Program in Togo. As teaching researcher at the University of Lomé, she became Assistant Professor in 2014 at the faculty of health sciences and she is the supervisor of the student's memories and thesis related with Parasitology. Dr DORKENOO works on policy development, implementation and monitoring of national parasites control programs including neglected tropical diseases and malaria in Togo and other West African countries. She is frequently asked by WHO Afro and others partners to provide technical support to other countries in the region concerning NTD's activities.

Job Titles:

• Health Research Scientist
• WHO Regional Programme Review Group Acting Chair for Africa

Dr Ricardo Thompson is a Mozambican health research scientist with over 25 years of experience in public health and biomedical research in Africa. His scope of work includes public health research and evaluation on the major public health problems in Africa, namely HIV & AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, NTDS, other parasitic and infectious diseases, nutrition, etc. He holds a Ph.D. in Medicine with a concentration on Epidemiology from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, 1999. From 2001 to 2008, he served as Scientific Director of the National Institute of Health in Mozambique. In 2007, he founds the Chokwe Health Research and Training Centre (Chokwe HDSS), where he serves as director and principal investigator. The centre runs a continuous demographic and health surveillance system, covering a population of around 100,000, in a rural district of southern Mozambique, population based studies, clinical studies and trials on Malaria, HIV & AIDS, Tuberculosis, Maternal and Child Health, NTDs, other parasitic diseases, among others. From 2011-2015, he served as chairman of the WHO Lymphatic Filariasis Program Review Group in the African Region. In 2015 becomes the vice-chair of the newly formed WHO Neglected Tropical Diseases Program Review Group. Since May 2017 he has been serving as the acting chair of the group. He has been a technical consultant in several WHO missions to other countries in Africa in support NTD elimination programs. Since 2014, he is a member of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (ITFDE) of the Carter Centre, Atlanta, USA, advising on the strategies for eradication of several diseases affecting the most impoverished populations around the world. In May 2017, he becomes a member o the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative of the Imperial College in London, UK. He is author and co-author in more than 30 peer reviewed papers in national and international journals.

Job Titles:

• Elected Member ( at Large )

Dr Richards, an expert in tropical diseases, has worked extensively in Latin America and Africa. His expertise is focused on implementation of public health programs for the neglected tropical diseases (or ‘NTDs'), which have helped to provide more than 250 million mass drug administration (MDA) treatments for NTDs in 11 countries over the last 25 years. The malaria program he directs has helped provide over 15 million insecticide treated bednets in Nigeria and Ethiopia. Dr Richards earned his medical degree from Cornell University and is clinically trained in pediatric infectious disease. He came to The Carter Center after a 23 year career with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all spent in the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria. His awards include the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's Bailey K. Ashford Medal, Weil-Cornell Medical School's Bean Kean Medal, and the Williams College Bicentennial Medal. Dr Richards has appointments with Emory University's Schools of Medicine and Public Health. He has authored or coauthored over 180 articles, letters, and chapters.

Job Titles:

• Member ( Co - Opted )
• Pharma

Molly Brady brings 15 years of experience to her work in infectious diseases with a focus on strategy development and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of neglected tropical disease. She is an expert on lymphatic filariasis (LF), also known as elephantiasis, a mosquito-borne illness that causes disfiguring swelling of limbs and genitals. As senior advisor of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), she provides technical assistance to LF-endemic countries on a range of programmatic areas including mapping, achieving coverage targets for mass drug administration, and documenting evidence towards elimination of LF as a public health problem. Most recently, she has made significant contributions to the development of global tools for addressing LF morbidity, helping countries to effectively locate and treat individuals living with conditions such as elephantiasis and hydrocele. She is a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Core Group on LF Morbidity Management and Disability Prevention and Chair of the LF Non-governmental Development Organization (NGDO) Network. Before joining RTI International, she worked as a technical officer at WHO's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and in the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, finalizing global and regional guidelines, regional action plans, and monitoring and evaluation frameworks. She also spent three years working as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supporting their Asia regional office in Bangkok, Thailand, to monitor more than 18 avian influenza program partners working in Burma, China, Laos, Vietnam, and regionally.

Joan is involved with the broader global NTD partnership activities and is the lead, since 2004, for the Secretariat of the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis which has a diverse and large number of international partners that support GAELF. Since April 2015 Joan has been working with a new initiative, LSTM NTDs (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Neglected Tropical Diseases). LSTM NTDs aims to bring together LSTM's extensive NTD portfolio by establishing a robust institutional identity, which will be vigorously marketed within the NTD and broader global health community.

Job Titles:

• NGDO LF Network Chair

Job Titles:

• Director of Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co., Inc.

Rachel Taylor is Director of Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co., Inc., in Kenilworth, NJ, USA, with responsibility for the company's access partnerships and programs for neglected tropical diseases including the long-standing Mectizan Donation Program. Prior to joining the company in 2019, Rachel spent more than 10 years working in global health policy in Washington, DC, most recently as a senior program officer and forum director at the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She holds a BA in Government and Public Policy from Hamilton College and an MA in International Relations from American University.

Job Titles:

• WHO Regional Programme Review Group Chair for East Mediterrean

Reda, an Egyptian citizen, graduated from Faculty of Science (Biochemistry & Chemistry), Ain Shams University in 1968. After completing his army service, he worked at the Central Laboratory of the Ministry of Health and Population for several years. In 1979, he started his studies for a Master's and Sc.D. degree at Tulane University, USA. After graduation in 1985 he returned to Egypt, and established an immune-parasitological laboratory at the National Nutrition Institute. During the period 1990-2006 he was seconded to the Research & Training Center on Vectors of Diseases, Ain Shams University, where he spent most of his research career. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal for mid-career scientists. As researcher, his scientific activities focused on immunological and molecular diagnosis of a number of NTDs. For more than 2 decades, he maintained a special interest in the development and field evaluation of user-friendly advanced diagnostic methods of lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis and cystic echinococcosis. He was awarded grants from national (Egyptian Academy of Science), regional (WHO-TDR-EMRO) and international (Commission of the European Communities; NIH - NIAID, USA; and USAID) funding agencies. Currently, he is the Chair of the EMRO Regional Programme Review Group for elimination of lymphatic filariasis and other NTDs; and a member of the WHO Neglected Tropical Diseases Strategic and Technical Advisory Group (NTD-STAG), Global Working Group, on Monitoring and Evaluation of Preventive Chemotherapy Interventions. As a WHO consultant, he has taken short term assignments in a number of African, Arabian and Asian countries.

Job Titles:

• Acting Chair PAHO RPRG / WHO Regional Programme Review Group Chair for Americas

Dr. Nicholls obtained his medical degree from the National University of Colombia School of medicine, and his Master's degree in medical parasitology from University of London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. During most of his career he worked at the Parasitology Department of Colombia's National Health Institute on research and control of the parasitic diseases endemic in Colombia. He directed Colombia's Onchocerciasis Elimination Program, contributing to the successful elimination of Onchocerciasis in Colombia in 2011, through an integrated program which included MDA every six months to the eligible population in the only known focus during 12 years, supported by a health education, and social mobilization program. In November 2008 Dr. Nicholls joined the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO's) Regional Neglected Infectious Diseases Program, providing support and technical cooperation to countries in the Americas Region to strengthen their programs in order to reduce the burden of neglected infectious diseases, control and, where possible, eliminate them. In March 2016 he was promoted to his current position.

Warren Lancaster is responsible at the END Fund for granting to fight five neglected tropical diseases; River Blindness, Bilharzia, Trachoma, Lymphatic Filariasis and Intestinal Worms principally in Africa.

Job Titles:

• Chairman of the National Expert Advisory Committee
• Director of the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases
• WHO Regional Programme Review Group Chair for Western Pacific

Xiao-Nong Zhou is Director of the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai, P.R. China, and Director of WHO Collaborating Center for Malaria, Schistosomiasis and Filariasis. He graduated with a PhD in Biology from Copenhagen University, Denmark. His professional works are across the fields of ecology, population biology, and epidemiology of tropical diseases. Dr. Zhou is the Chair of the National Expert Advisory Committee on schistosomiasis and other parasitic diseases for China's National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC). He is serving as Chair for WHO Western Pacific Regional Programme Review Group (RPRG) on Neglected Tropical Diseases, members for WHO Science and Technology Advisory Committee on Neglected Tropical Diseases, WHO/TDR Science and Technology Advisory Committee. He had contributed, as former President, to the Regional Network on Asian Schistosomiasis and Other Important Zoonoses (RNAS+) since 2000. He has led more than 10 research projects in collaboration with multi-institutions at national and international levels, in the field of climate change, control strategies, determinants and innovative modeling of disease transmission, and intervention assessment. He has written extensively on parasitology and parasitic diseases, with more than 200 peer review publications in the international journals, including New Engl. J. Med., Lancet, and Lancet Infect. Dis., etc.. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Infectious Diseases of Poverty (BioMed Central as publisher), and Chinese Journal of Schistosomiasis Control (Chinese national journal).