From the Global to the Local: Building Capacity in a New Era of US Global Health Action

Past

As the US government redefines its global health engagement strategies, policy makers increasingly embrace the need to help partner nations strengthen health systems and build public health surveillance and response capabilities. Although many in the foreign policy and security communities now place a high priority on “capacity building activities,” whether they focus on HIV/AIDS or emerging infections, what this means in practical terms ranges widely and there is no clear list of stakeholders.

Please click the image above to view the complete video of the proceedings.

Dr. Kevin De Cock, Director of CDC’s Center for Global Health, will lead a panel discussion with distinguished health leaders from CDC and the Department of Defense about programs that help countries build and measure their public health systems and workforces, ultimately contributing to overall national development and security.  The panelists will include:

Kevin M. De Cock, MD, FRCP
Director, Center for Global Health
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Bassam Jarrar, MA, MBA
Acting Director, Division of Public Health Systems and Workforce Development
Center for Global Health
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Deborah L. Birx, MD
Director, Global AIDS Program
Center for Global Health
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Capt. Kevin L. Russell, MD, MTM&H
Director, Division of Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (GEIS) Operations;
Deputy Director, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC)
US Department of Defense

Please RSVP via e-mail at [email protected].

 

Shortly after the event, a link to the video will be available on this page and on the Global Health Security main page.

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Kevin M. De Cock, MD, FRCP
Director of the Center for Global Health

Throughout his career he has served in a variety of positions and medical schools in the United Kingdom, the United States, and sub-Saharan Africa. He most recently served as the Director of CDC Kenya. From 2006-2009 he served as Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Department of HIV/AIDS, where he oversaw all of WHO’s work related to HIV/AIDS focusing on initiatives to assist low- and middle-income countries in scaling up their treatment, prevention, care, and support programs. He previously served as Director of the CDC Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Surveillance, and Epidemiology.

Dr. De Cock is a U.S. citizen who was born in Belgium. He received his medical degree in 1974 from the University of Bristol, United Kingdom.  He specialized in internal medicine and obtained extensive experience in infectious diseases, tropical medicine, and liver disease.  He holds medical licenses from both the United Kingdom and the state of California, and is registered in the United Kingdom as a specialist in infectious and tropical diseases.  He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (United Kingdom) and Visiting Professor of Medicine and International Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr. De Cock has won a variety of awards including the Chalmers Medal, Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene; Commandeur de l’Ordre de la Santé Publique (Commander of the Order of Public Health), Côte d’Ivoire; the CDC and ATSDR honor Award for International Health; the CDC Mackel Award; and the CDC William C. Watson Jr. Medal of Excellence.  He has published over 280 articles and book chapters and has served as a referee for numerous scientific journals and organizations.

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Bassam Jarrar, MA, MBA
Acting Director, Division of Public Health Systems and Workforce Development
Center for Global Health
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Bassam Jarrar, Deputy Director of CDC’s Division of Global Public Health Capacity Development, works at CDC and internationally to plan, implant, and evaluate applied epidemiology programs, policies, and strategies. As a public health advisor, Bassam has worked with the Integrated Disease Surveillance and the Global Disease Surveillance projects, including in Jordan and Egypt. His Division works to strengthen public health systems through training, consultation, capacity building, and assistance in applied epidemiology, public health surveillance, evaluation, instructional design, and other disciplines. Since 1980, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) has collaborated with Ministries of Health (MOHs) around the world to enhance international public health capacity through Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs). The FETP was modeled after CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and has since evolved to include the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program.

Before joining CDC in 1990, BJ was Administration Manager at the corporate headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for American Medical International. Mr. Jarrar completed the Graduate Certificate Program in Public Health at the University of Washington, Seattle in 1995. He also has an MBA from the University of Phoenix and MA in English Literature from Atlanta University.

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Deborah L. Birx, M.D.
Director, Global AIDS Program
Center for Global Health
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Deborah L. Birx, M.D., Division Director of the Global AIDS Program, Centers for Disease Control.  Since 2000, the CDC, through the Global AIDS Program (GAP), has helped resource-constrained countries throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean to implement comprehensive HIV prevention programs in conjunction with integrated treatment, care and support programs for people living with HIV; and built human capacity through training and infrastructure to address the global HIV/AIDS pandemic in high quality and sustainable manner.  Specifically, the CDC Global AIDS Program’s (GAP) highly trained epidemiologists, medical officers, public health advisors, behavioral scientists, and laboratory scientists provide essential technical assistance to implement the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (the Emergency Plan).  GAP has offices in 24 countries, including all 15 Emergency Plan focus countries.  There are also four regional offices in Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, and Southern Africa.  GAP headquarters supports an additional 31 countries including Swaziland, Mali, Sudan, Senegal, Russian and Lesotho.  GAP also has technical staff detailed to the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, USAID, and the HHS office of Global health Affairs in Washington, D.C. as well as to the World Health Organization and UNAIDS.

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Captain Kevin L. Russell, MD, MTM&H
Director, Division of Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (GEIS) Operations Deputy Director, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC)
US Department of Defense

Kevin Russell, M.D., M.T.M.&H., F.I.D.S.A. CAPT MC USN,  graduated from the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio Medical School in 1990; after a family practice internship he was accepted into the Navy Undersea Medicine program. He was stationed in Panama City, Florida, at the Experimental Diving Unit where he worked in diving medicine research from 1991 to 1995. After a preventive medicine residency with a masters in tropical medicine and hygiene, he was transferred to Lima, Peru, where he became head of the Virology Laboratory. His portfolio included febrile illness (largely arboviral in origin) and HIV surveillance studies in eight different countries of South America, as well as prospective dengue transmission studies. In 2001, he moved back to the states and became the director of the Respiratory Disease Laboratory at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, California. Febrile respiratory illness surveillance in recruits of all services was expanded into shipboard populations, Mexican border populations, support for outbreaks, and deployed settings. Validation and integration of new and emerging advanced diagnostic capabilities, utilizing the archives of specimens maintained at the laboratory, became a priority. A BSL-3-Enhanced is currently nearing completion. Projects expanded in 2006 to clinical trials support as Dr. Russell became the principal investigator for the Navy site in the FDA Phase 3 adenovirus vaccines trial, and more recently to support the Phase 4 post-marketing trial of the recently FDA-approved ACAM2000 Smallpox vaccine. Dr. Russell recently became director of the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD-GEIS).

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