Bangladeshi scientist Senjuti Saha made member of WHO board

Published : 12 Jul 2020, 16:37

Jagoroniya Desk

Dr Senjuti Saha, a scientist of the Child Health Research Foundation in Bangladesh, was appointed as a member of the Polio Transition Independent Monitoring Board (TIMB) of the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative created the TIMB to monitor and guide the process of polio transition planning. 

Dr Senjuti is the first Bangladeshi to be made a member of the board.

According to CHRF, the board will be advising the WHO at Director-General level on progress of the polio transition process. 

This process is primarily concerned with how countries around the world will sustain the public health infrastructure- particularly essential immunisation, wider communicable disease surveillance, emergency response-once polio money which has been used for years or decades to pay for non-polio activity is withdrawn. 

The WHO is implementing a plan for polio transition approved by the World Health Assembly in May 2018.

This board is chaired by Sir Liam Donaldson, former Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor of Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom.

A total of three board members have been appointed this year. The two other board members are Prof Sheila Leatherman of the USA and Dr  Lola Dare of Nigeria.  

Sheila Leatherman is a Global Health Policy soecialist at the Gillings School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina while Lola Dare is a community physician, epidemiologist, global health practitioner, development consultant, social entrepreneur, and health advocate of over 30 years.

Senjuti Saha is a microbiologist working at the intersection of Clinical Microbiology and Global Health as a scientist at the Child Health Research Foundation in Bangladesh. 

Her work is grounded in advancing the cause of health and research equity, based on her vision that everyone across the world should have equal access to the practice and benefits of science. 

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