Email enokerekeltd@gmail.com

Dr Ebere Okereke is a senior global health physician, strategist and board-level adviser with more than 25 years of leadership across philanthropy, government, multilateral, academic and delivery settings in Africa, the United Kingdom, the Gulf and Asia. Most recently, she served as Global Health Adviser to the Director General of the Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity in Abu Dhabiafter serving as the Foundation’s Chief Program Officer. Earlier she was the first substantive Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Public Health Foundation, and Honorary Senior Strategic Adviser to the founding Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, where she contributed to the agency’s 2022–2027 strategy and co-led work on the Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing and the Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme.

Her work centres on global health security and preparedness, health systems strengthening, and regional approaches to health governance and equity across the Global South. A Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health Medicine and Associate Fellow in Global Health at Chatham House UK, she has published widely in leading journals and has been recognised by The Lancet, the British Medical Association and the UK Government for her leadership in public health.

She has one daughter who is a UK based actor and her personal interests include African history and the roles of women in society.

• NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (Honorary Affiliate)
• Chatham House — Associate Fellow, Global Health Programme

• Global health security, preparedness, surveillance and outbreak response
• Health systems strengthening and primary health care
• Regional and sub-regional approaches to health governance, preparedness and equity
• Vaccine manufacturing, health sovereignty and self-reliance
• Global health strategy, financing, partnerships and institutional strategy
• Public health leadership development and board governance

• Global health security, preparedness and outbreak response
• Health systems strengthening
• Public health leadership and capacity development
• Global health strategy, governance and policy

• Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MB BS) — University of Nigeria College of Medicine
• Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) — Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
• Master of Science in Public Health (MSc PH) — Newcastle University
• Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine (FFPHM), United Kingdom
• Executive Leadership Programme — London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• Doctor of Science, honoris causa (DSc) — Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

• 2025 — Nigeria Healthcare Excellence Award, Diaspora Excellence in Global Public Health Leadership
• 2023 — Honorary Doctor of Science, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
• 2023 — Profiled by The Lancet, “Dr Ebere Okereke, driving the new public health order in Africa”
• 2021 — British Medical Association Role Model for Women in Academic Medicine
• 2021 — UK Government Inspirational Scientists and Engineers Award

• Independent Global Health Strategist and Adviser | Sept 2026–date
• Global Health Adviser to the Director General, Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity, Abu Dhabi, UAE | Nov 2025–Aug 2026
• Chief Program Officer, Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity (formerly Reaching the Last Mile), Abu Dhabi, UAE | Nov 2024–Oct 2025
• Chief Executive Officer, Africa Public Health Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya | 2023–2024
• Honorary Senior Strategic Adviser to the founding Director, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | 2020–2023
• Senior Health Adviser, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, London, UK | 2021–2024
• Medical Consultant and Programme Director, Public Health England (later UK Health Security Agency), London, UK | 2016–2021 — led design and scale-up of a £24m International Health Regulations strengthening programme across six countries in Africa and Asia
• Consultant in Communicable Disease Control and Environmental Health, UK Health Protection Agency | 2002–2016

• Board Chair, Population Services International Europe
• Chief Executive Officer, Africa Public Health Foundation (first substantive CEO) | 2023–2024
• Chief Program Officer, Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity | 2024–2025
• Chair, UK public health tuberculosis group | 2012–2015 (contributed to the national TB control strategy for England, 2015)
• Trustee, Healthcare Federation of Nigeria

• Commissioner, NUS–Lancet Pandemic Readiness, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Commission
• Member, WHO Regional Office for Africa Emergency Preparedness and Response Technical Advisory Group
• Member, Novartis Global Health Strategic Advisory Board
• Member, Policy Advisory Group, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi)
• Strategic Advisory Group Member, PharmAccess Nigeria
• Advisory Board Member, Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute, University of Pretoria
• Steering Committee Member and Faculty, Africa CDC Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme
• Editorial Board Member, PLOS Global Public Health and BMJ Global Health; Regional Advisory Board, BMJ Africa

• Elnaiem A, … Okereke E, et al. Global and regional governance of One Health and implications for global health security. The Lancet. 2023;401:688–704.
• Oyebanji O, Okereke E. Empowering African women leaders is key for health equity. Nature Human Behaviour. 2023;7:839–841.
• Rahman-Shepherd A, Razavi A, Adetifa I, Okereke E, Erondu N, Hinjoy S, Ho ZJM, et al. ASEAN’s response to mpox: advancing regional and interregional cooperation to manage public health emergencies. PLOS Global Public Health. 2025;5(1):e0003985.
• Elston J, Eteng W, Ihekweazu C, Oliver I, Aniaku E, Okereke E, Abubakar A, et al. Development and implementation of a public health event management system, Nigeria, 2018–2024. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2025;31(1):4–13.
• Kyobutungi C, Okereke E, Abimbola S. After USAID: what now for aid and Africa? BMJ. 2025;388:r479.
• Okereke E, Gombe S, Onyango O. None of us are prepared unless all of us are prepared: research for the next health shock must be inclusive and equitable. BMJ. 2024;387:q2110.
• Doble A, Sheridan Z, Razavi A, Wilson A, Okereke E. The role of international support programmes in global health security capacity building: a scoping review. PLOS Global Public Health. 2023;3(4):e0001763.
• Razavi A, Collins S, Wilson A, Okereke E. Evaluating implementation of International Health Regulations core capacities using the e-SPAR tool to monitor progress with Joint External Evaluation indicators. Globalization and Health. 2021;17:69.
• Erondu NA, Rahman-Shepherd A, Khan MS, et al., Okereke E. Improving national intelligence for public health preparedness: a methodological approach to finding local multi-sector indicators for health security. BMJ Global Health. 2021;6:e004227.
• Razavi A, Erondu N, Okereke E. The Global Health Security Index: what value does it add? BMJ Global Health. 2020;5:e002477.
• Okereke E. Chapter 5: International legal issues of national sovereignty and authority impacting global health security. In: Modernizing Global Health Security to Prevent, Detect, and Respond. 2024.
• Okereke E. Chapter 22: Science and political leadership in global health security. In: Modernizing Global Health Security to Prevent, Detect, and Respond. 2024.
• Lim JO, Okereke E, Robalo M, Bindra R. Chapter 36: Learning the lessons — recovery and review. In: Infectious Disease Emergencies: Preparedness and Response. 2025.
• Okereke E. A fair pandemic treaty is unlikely, but poorer countries have healthy options. The World Today, Chatham House. March 2025.
• Okereke E. What U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization means for Africa. Think Global Health. January 2026.