Hepatitis C Virus Elimination Symposium: Strategies to Eliminate Hepatitis C as a Public Health Concern in Asia Pacific by 2030

Date:

Monday, 7 Nov 2022

Time:

1:00pm – 3:00pm

Synopsis:

The Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health aims to advance the efforts in Hepatitis C elimination through the HCV Elimination Symposium 2022. The Symposium brings together experts from around the region to discuss key gaps in health policies preventing the APAC region from reaching the target goal of hepatitis C elimination by 2030. It will also enable sharing of best practices and lessons learnt with policymakers and practitioners which in turn can be adapted in their home countries to eliminate Hepatitis C. These interactions and learnings will contribute to life-saving and life-changing movements.

Session Chair

Professor Chien-Jen Chen
Graduate Institute of Epidemiology, National Taiwan University College of Public Health

Prof. Chen, Chien-Jen received his Sc.D. in epidemiology and human genetics from the Johns Hopkins University (1982). He then worked as an associate professor (1983-1986) and professor (1986-2015) of National Taiwan University. He was appointed as the director of Graduate Institute of Public Health (1993-1994), founding director of Graduate Institute of Epidemiology (1994-1997), and dean of College of Public Health in National Taiwan University (1999-2002). He became a Distinguished Research Fellow of Genomics Research Center of Academia Sinica (2006-2015), and was appointed as a vice president of Academia Sinica (2011-2015). He was appointed as the Minister of Department of Health (2003-2005) and Minister of National Science Council (2006-2008). He was elected as the 14th Vice President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). He is now an academician and distinguished research fellow of Genomics Research Center of Academia Sinica.

Prof. Chen has dedicated himself to molecular and genomic epidemiological research on chronic arsenic poisoning and virus-induced cancers over 40 years. His discoveries of multiple health hazards of arsenic in drinking water have led to the global awareness and mitigation of the largest environmental calamity, and his research on end-stage liver disease risk prediction of chronic hepatitis B has pioneered the viral load paradigm in its clinical management. He has published over 750 scientific articles and over 75 books/chapters, which have been cited for over 93,000 times with an H-index over 140 (Google Scholar).

Prof. Chen was elected as an academician of Academia Sinica (1998), a member of World Academy of Sciences (2005), an honorary member of Mongolian Academy of Sciences (2007), and a Foreign Associate (international member) of US National Academy of Sciences (2017).

He has received many awards and honors including the Presidential Science Prize (2005) and the Order of Dr. Sun Yat-sen with Grand Cordon (2020) in Taiwan, the Cutter Lectureship on Preventive Medicine of Harvard University (2008) and the Knowledge for the World Award of Johns Hopkins University (2012) in the USA, the Officier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (2009) in France, the Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre (2010) and the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great (2013) in Vatican. He received honorary doctoral degrees from China Medical University (2014), National Sun Yet-Sen University (2020), and Kaohsiung Medical University (2020) in Taiwan.

Moderated by:

Dr Hsien-Hsien Lei
Chief Executive Officer, The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham Singapore)

Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Singapore — the largest and the most active international business association in Singapore and Southeast Asia, with over 6,000 members representing over 550 companies. Hsien is also Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Advisory Board and founding member of the Precision Public Health Asia Society.

Prior to AmCham, Hsien was Vice President, Medical and Scientific Affairs, Medtronic Asia Pacific, where she was responsible for the Medtronic Innovation Centers in Japan and Korea, training and education, and the company’s health systems transformation strategy in the region. Hsien has extensive experience in scientific affairs, corporate and healthcare communications, advertising, public relations and government affairs.

Hsien has lived and worked in the US, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, UK, and is now based in Singapore. She holds a BA (with honors) in Human Biology from Stanford University and a PhD in Epidemiology from The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where she was the recipient of a US National Institutes of Health Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology Training Grant. Her doctoral thesis explored the genetic epidemiology of end-stage renal disease and type 2 diabetes. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at National Taiwan University Hospital in the Department of Internal Medicine.

Speakers:

Dr John Ward
Director, Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination, The Task Force for Global Health

Over a 38 year career, Dr Ward work spans the practice of epidemiology, laboratory science, clinical trials, public health practice, policy development, health communication, education, and clinical medicine in the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and the elimination of viral hepatitis. Dr Ward direct the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination of the Task Force for Global Health providing a community of practice for hepatitis elimination programs to collaborate, receive technical assistance, and participate in operational research. Operational research includes scale-up of harm reduction in rural settings, cost-effectiveness of HCV prevention and treatment for general and risk population, simplification of HCV testing; HCV micro-elimination strategies, and disease surveillance.

Over a 13 year tenure, Dr Ward directed the CDC Division of Viral Hepatitis with responsibilities for viral hepatitis surveillance, prevention, and research. As Director, Dr Ward revised national recommendations for hepatitis vaccination and testing including the first population-based recommendations for hepatitis B and hepatitis C testing. Dr Ward initiated research of new HCV diagnostic assays, the effectiveness of maternal antiviral prophylaxis to prevent perinatal HBV transmission and the feasibility of implementing HBV and HCV testing in diverse settings. Dr Ward authored the first national action plan for viral hepatitis and initiated two National Academies of Sciences recommendations for viral hepatitis elimination. Globally, Dr Ward advises hepatitis elimination activities at WHO and other organizations. Dr Ward guided the launch of pioneer HCV elimination programs.

Over a 14 year period, Dr Ward directed national HIV/AIDS surveillance, identified new HIV transmission modes, HIV natural history and evaluated the first FDA licensed screening tests to detect HIV infection. Dr Ward has authored over 175 scientific publications of viral hepatitis and HIV. Dr Ward conceived of and edited Silent Victories, a history of public health in the 20th Century published by Oxford University Press. Dr Ward is a Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta.

Dr Alisa Pedrana
Senior Research Fellow; Co-Head, Public Health; Co-Head, Implementation Science Group; Eliminate Hepatitis C Australia Coordinator

Dr Alisa Pedrana is a senior research fellow and public health practitioner at Burnet Institute. Her research focusses on BBV/STI epidemiology and implementation science and uses co-design approaches to strengthen health systems and support decision- and policy-making. She currently coordinates the Eliminate Hepatitis C Australia Partnership, a $12.4M national project, which brings together researchers, government, health services and community organisations to establish a collaborative framework to facilitate a coordinated response to the elimination of hepatitis C as a public health threat from Australia by 2030.

Dr. Raoh-Fang (Jasmine) Pwu
Director, National Hepatitis C Program Office, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan

Raoh-Fang (Jasmine) Pwu, PhD, is the Director, National Hepatitis C Program Office, Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan. She also is adjunct Assistant Professor at the Taipei Medical University.

Trained as an epidemiologist at College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Dr Pwu has gained expertise in research designs and analysis of large/claims database early in her career. Along the research path she found economic evaluations in healthcare quite interesting and became determined to pursue a career in this field. She is one of the first researchers to excel in modeling cost-effectiveness of medicines and public health interventions in Taiwan. She gives lectures and advises students on analytic-decision models and their applications. Since completing her master thesis, she has over 20 years of experience in research and application in health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) studies.

Dr Pwu and several of her college colleagues founded a consulting company specializing in clinical/epidemiological research design and data analysis in 1999. However, when the Taiwan government asked her to develop a health technology assessment (HTA) system in Taiwan in 2007, she began working for the Division of HTA, Center for Drug Evaluation. She became the second Director of the HTA Division since 2009. In this role, she and her team have developed a strong HTA system and research.

Dr Pwu is an enthusiastic collaborator. Therefore, she welcomes any chance to serve the Society. She served on the INAHTA Board from 2010-2012. She and her HTA colleagues from Thailand and Korea created HTAsiaLink in 2010 and she served as their President from 2014 to 2016. Dr Pwu has been an ISPOR member since 2001 and served as the Board of Director for 3 years (2018-2021).

Dr Lee Tau Hong
Head, Antimicrobial Resistance Coordinating Office, National Centre for Infectious Diseases

Dr Lee Tau Hong graduated from National University of Singapore in 2005 with his primary medical qualification. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians in United Kingdom since 2010 and an accredited infectious disease specialist since December 2014. He is a senior consultant and the Head of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme in Tan Tock Seng Hospital. In addition, he is the Head of Antimicrobial Resistance Coordinating Office (AMRCO) in National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), and serves as Chairperson of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Control Committee, Ministry of Health.

His clinical interests include antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship, HIV medicine and traveller’s health. He is a recipient of the National Healthcare Group(NHG) Health Manpower Development Plan Award to undergo training in the management of HIV-HCV co-infected patients in the United Kingdom.

Dr Lee is appointed as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Clinical Senior Lecturer at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and is a faculty member in the NHG Infectious Diseases Senior Residency Programme.

Dr Hannah Clapman
Infectious Diseases Programme Lead and Assistant Professor, NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health

Hannah Clapham is an Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock school of Public Health, NUS where she also leads the ID program. Hannah’s modelling work on flaviviruses, specifically Dengue and Japanese Encephalitis (JE), and more recently COVID-19, has made major impact on international and national efforts on infectious disease control and vaccination. Her work incorporates multiple disciplines including mathematics, human and animal biology, immunology, epidemiology, public health, and public policy to create complex yet usable models to inform public health policies and programmes. Before joining NUS, she was Head of the Mathematical Modelling group in the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Vietnam. For COVID-19 she worked in collaboration with MOH Singapore on models of how vaccination and other interventions impacted disease burden over time. She also works on modelling the dynamics and burden of other diseases including vector borne diseases like dengue and Japanese Encephalitis. She has a particular focus on the use of vaccination and how to evaluate vaccination compared to other control measures across a range of diseases.

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