World Health Organization
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heymannd@who.int
+41.22.791.2212/2563 (voice)
+41.22.791.1571 (fax)

Research Interests
communicable diseases; public health; polio eradication

David L. Heymann was a consulting professor at CISAC. He is the assistant director-general for communicable diseases and the representative of the director general for polio eradication at the World Health Organization (WHO). From July 1998 until July 2003, Heymann was executive director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster which includes WHO's programs on infectious and tropical diseases, and from which the public health response to SARS was mounted in 2003. From October 1995 to July 1998 he was director of the WHO Program on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases, and prior to that was the chief of research activities in the WHO Global Program on AIDS.

Before joining WHO, Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo--formerly Zaire) on assignment from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in CDC-supported activities. These activities aimed at strengthening capacity in surveillance of infectious diseases and their control, with special emphasis on the childhood immunizable diseases including measles and polio, African hemorrhagic fevers, poxviruses and malaria. While based in Africa, Heymann participated in the investigation of the first outbreak of Ebola in Yambuku (former Zaire) in 1976, then again investigated the second outbreak of Ebola in 1977 in Tandala, and in 1995 directed the international response to the Ebola outbreak in Kikwit.

Prior to these 13 years in Africa, Heymann worked two years in India as a medical epidemiologist in the WHO Smallpox Eradication Program.

Heymann has published over 140 scientific articles on infectious diseases and related issues in medical and scientific journals, and authored several chapters on infectious diseases in medical textbooks. He is currently editor of the 18th edition of the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, a joint publication of WHO and American Public Health Association publication.

He is a recipient of the American Public Health Association Award for Excellence and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Donald MacKay medal, and is a member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine. Heymann holds a BA from the Pennsylvania State University, an MD from Wake Forest University, a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and has completed practical epidemiology training in the two-year Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) of CDC.

Other affiliations
World Health Organization