WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will hear two-lifetime achievement awards to accept outstanding contributions to advancing global health during the high-level opening session of the Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly.
The Director-General’s Global Leaders Awards, established in 2019, will go to Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum and Peter Piot. Both recipients are distinguished scientists and public health leaders who were closely implicated in the discovery of the Ebola virus disease ahead of advancing to leadership positions in global health. They give honours for their lifetime attainment in public fitness.
Professor Muyembe-Tamfum from the famous Republic of the Congo (DRC) is recognized for his innovation, leadership, and ground-breaking contributions to managing and treating infectious diseases. He has been critical in better health outcomes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo of the African and the global segment. Professor Muyembe-Tamfum is the Director familiar of the DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, a Full Professor of Microbiology at the University of Kinshasa Medical School and the first president of the Congolese Academy of Science.
WHO Unveils Global Health Leaders Awards
Professor Muyembe-Tamfum was a bit of the team that found the Zaïre ebolavirus during the first tape outbreak in 1976 in Equateur Province, Central DRC. He later helped plan one of the first successful treatments against the virus and the deployment of experimental Ebola virus disease vaccines. He has laboured tirelessly to build the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s scientific capacity, establishing multiple research facilities in the country. He has played critical roles with the WHO in fighting infectious diseases.
Professor Piot from Belgium is recognized for his extraordinary leadership in response to the HIV/AIDS plague and other significant global health challenges. He has been essential in launching major global health enterprises such as UNAIDS, the Global Fund, and others with better health outcomes worldwide. Under his leadership, UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwide action against AIDS, spearheading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN organizations.
Professor Piot also participated in the earlier finding of the Ebola virus and the restraint of the opening known outbreak, engaging in field epidemiological investigations.
He has chaired several high-level initiatives, served in numerous high-level consulting roles, including on COVID-19, and has obtained multiple give.
Professor Piot is the Special mentor to the EC President, a Professor of worldwide Health and an erstwhile Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“These outstanding persons personify lifelong dedication, continuing advocacy, a commitment to fairness, and selfless help of humanity and people’s health,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “In a time of multiple emergencies, health calamity, and quarrels, we recognize that public health and science leaders are more important than ever to advance global health. Our awardees today personify that passion.”
“Their combined stories and successes show how much the world has progressed in collaboration at the global, regional and country quantity to strengthen health emergency preparedness, response and flexibility. These outstanding scientists will pursue to inspire us every day,” he added.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the six WHO Director-General’s Global Health Leaders Awards awardees. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to advancing global health, demonstrated leadership and commitment to territorial health issues.
Other Recipients of the Award:
• Dr Paul Farmer was Chair of the Department of Global Health and communal medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-creator of Partners in Health.
• Dr Ahmed Hankir, a British-Lebanese psychiatrist, is a Senior Research man at the Centre for Mental Health Research in alliance with Cambridge University and Academic Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry at King’s College London in the United Kingdom.
• Ludmila Sofia Oliveira Varela for her work to facilitate access to sports for all, providing a healthy alternative to risky behaviours among young people, and tackling the fatten threat of non-communicable diseases.
• Polio workers in Afghanistan include Mohamamd Zubair Khalazai, NajibullahKosha, Shadab Yosufi, Shareefullah Hemati, Haseeba Omari, Khadija Attaee, MuniraHakimi, Robina Yosufi and Shadab.
• Yōhei Sasakawa is the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and Japan’s Ambassador for the Human Rights of People Affected by leprosy.
About ASHA Workers:
ASHA in Hindi means ‘Hope’; the ASHA workers are the Indian government’s affiliated healthcare workers who are the first point of contact in rural India. They worked to provide maternal care and immunization for children against vaccine-preventable diseases, community health care, reception for hypertension and tuberculosis, and core areas of health promotion for nutrition, sanitation, and healthy living. Most of them obtain the spotlight during the pandemic’s peak in India for conducting door-to-door checks to trace coronavirus patients.
