PHM-Exch> New director Global Forum for Health

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ravi Narayan <chcravi at gmail.com>
From: Announcements <announcements at globalforumhealth.org>



*Prominent South African researcher to head Global Forum for Health
Research Geneva, 23 October 2009 *

The Foundation Council of the Global Forum for Health Research today
announced the appointment of Anthony Mbewu BA MBBS FRCP MD FMASSAf as
its new Executive Director as of January 2010.

Professor Mbewu is currently President of the Medical Research
Council of South Africa (MRC). He is also Honorary Professor of
Cardiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Cape Town and a
Foreign Associate of the Institute of Medicine of the USA.

Professor Mbewu trained in medicine at Oxford and London
universities, qualifying in 1983. He subsequently trained as a
specialist in cardiology and in general medicine at the University of
Manchester whilst also conducting a research doctorate in preventive
cardiology on  lipoprotein(a) in coronary heart disease . On
returning to South Africa in 1994, he was appointed Consultant
Cardiologist in the Cardiac Clinic of the Department of Medicine,
University of Cape Town. In 1996 he became Executive Director for
Research at the MRC and its President and Chief Executive Officer in
2005.

In 2003 he chaired the Taskteam that developed South Africa s
Comprehensive Care, Management and Treatment for HIV and AIDS
programme that has enrolled 871 914 patients on antiretroviral
therapy.

Internationally, Professor MBewu is known for his work as co-chair
of the Inter-Academy Medical Panel (a body that represents 66 of the
world s medical academies). He has served as a member of the
Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of TDR (UNICEF/UNDP/World
Bank/WHO Special Programme on Research and Training in Tropical
Diseases), has often served as a technical adviser to WHO and was a
member of the Director-General s External Reference Group for a
Research Strategy for WHO.

He is currently Vice-Chair of the Board of the Global Alliance for
TB Drug Development (TB Alliance); a member of the Strategy Working
Group of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease;
US National Institutes of Health; a trustee of Bioventures (South
Africa s only biotechnology venture capital fund); director of
Linsela Investments (a social entrepreneurship company); a member of
the Advisory Committee for FIND Diagnostics; of the Board of the
African Clinical Research Organisation; and a member of the Taskforce
for the African Network for Drug and Diagnostics Development (ANDI).

The Chair of the Foundation Council, Dr Gill Samuels CBE, was
enthusiastic in making the announcement.  Tony Mbewu is an
outstanding individual who brings scientific rigour, good managerial
practices and an understanding of policy formulation that will help
translate the strategy of the Global Forum for Health Research into
concrete action and results. I am delighted that we will bring a
scientist from an innovative developing country to help focus on
health equity and the health needs of the poor and marginalized.

Professor Mbewu expressed his pleasure at taking up this new
challenge.  I have been working with the Global Forum for several
years already, since 2007 as a member of the Foundation Council, so I
am aware of the importance of its objectives. In this period of
economic restraint, it is all the more important to prioritize
research and innovation that will truly lead to improvements in
health. In particular, the growing interest in global health and
health research makes it feasible to envisage a world in which all
the world s people share equitably in the gains in health and well
being that people in high income countries derived over the past half
century

Professor Mbewu will succeed Professor Stephen Matlin who retires at
the end of 2009.
Finally, Dr Gill Samuels CBE, on behalf of the Foundation Council,
took the opportunity to warmly thank Professor Stephen Matlin for his
substantial contribution to the Global Forum and the leadership that
he has demonstrated over the past six years.

----------------------------

The Global Forum for Health Research is an independent international
organization, committed to demonstrating the essential role of
research and innovation for health and to underlining the importance
of health equity benefitting poor and marginalized populations.
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