Elimination of Infectious Diseases from the South-East Asia Region

Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh was the first Indian elected Regional Director of WHO’s South-East Asia Region. She was also the first woman in the region to assume the office of WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia in February 2014. In September 2018, she was unanimously elected for a second five-year term by the 71st Regional Committee and 144th Session of the WHO Executive Board. Prior to Dr. Khetrapal Singh’s service as Regional Director of the WHO South-East Asia Region, for over two decades she was a civil servant in India as a member of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). In 1987 she moved to the Health, Population and Nutrition Department of the World Bank and in 1998 she joined WHO headquarters, Geneva, as Executive Director, Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments Cluster, and became a member of the Director-General’s Cabinet. Dr. Khetrapal Singh has devoted more than three decades to strengthening public health as a leader and manager at national and international levels. Dr. Khetrapal Singh has vast experience in developing evidence-based, scientifically sound policy in complex state, national and international health systems due to her work in low resourced health systems, leading large multi-sectoral teams and collaborating with global partners and public health leaders. Dr Singh has a PhD in Public Health and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), of the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Introduction: A historic paradigm shift in communicable diseases in South-East Asia: from control to elimination.- Thailand: Elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmission.- Yaws: freeing young children in India from an old scourge.- Maldives: a long battle to banish malaria.- Unburdening the poor: elimination of lymphatic filariasis in Maldives.- Sri Lanka: long battle to eliminate malaria.- Lymphatic filariasis elimination in Sri Lanka: overcoming the odds.- Elimination of lymphatic filariasis in Thailand: a model for best practices.- Trachoma elimination in Nepal: bringing light, preventing darkness.- South-East Asia Region marches ahead on elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis: Sri Lanka becomes the third country in the SE Asia Region to be validated.- Leveraging health system gains towards eliminating mother-to-child transmission (EMTCT) of HIV and syphilis: How Maldives became the second country in WHO South-East Asia Region to achieve this feat.- Leprosy: accelerating towards a leprosy-free world.