Dr Hamid Jafari, Director, Polio Eradication
Dr Hamid Syed Jafari, Director, Polio EradicationDr Hamid Jafari was assigned to the post of Director, Polio Eradication, based in Amman, Jordan, in August 2019.
Dr Jafari was formerly the Principal Deputy Director of the Center for Global Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. He played a key leadership role supporting CDC’s global public health goals. He was instrumental in establishing and accelerating Joint External Evaluations to assess country capacities in meeting the requirements of the International Health Regulations and coordinating agency efforts to end the global TB epidemic.
From 2012 to 2016, Dr Jafari was Director of Global Polio Eradication Operations and Research at WHO headquarters in Geneva and the overall leader of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Prior to this appointment, he served as the Project Manager of WHO’s National Polio Surveillance Project in India from 2007 to 2012 and is widely recognized for his key leadership role in polio eradication in India. From 2004 to 2006, Dr Jafari was Director of the Global Immunization Division at CDC, leading global immunization and polio eradication efforts. He served as Medical Officer for Polio Eradication in the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean on assignment from CDC from 1996 to 2002. He played a key role in establishing polio eradication programmes across the Region.
Dr Jafari completed his residency training in Pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School and his Pediatric Infectious Disease fellowship training at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. He is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in the sub-specialty of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. He is a graduate of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program. Dr Jafari also completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and book chapters on pathogenesis of infectious diseases, polio eradication and other vaccine-preventable diseases and global health security.