Doctor Piyanit Tharmaphornpilas
Manager - National Immunization Program, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand
Piyanit Tharmaphornpilas, MD, MPH, is the National Immunization Program Manager of the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand. She is a medical epidemiologist and completed her postgraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Doctor Tharmaphornpilas was formerly Director of the International Field Epidemiology Training program in Thailand, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Field Epidemiology Training and Research, and has extensive experience in outbreak investigation and disease surveillance, both in Thailand and in a number of other developing countries. During 1998-1999, she was seconded to the Communicable Diseases Surveillance and Control section of WHO in Geneva.
In her current role, Doctor Tharmaphornpilas is in charge of establishing immunization policies, preparing program guidelines and manuals and monitoring immunization performance countrywide. She further evaluates the impact of the national immunization schedule and potential impact of new vaccination programs, and supervises cold chain and vaccine logistics. She also serves on several international committees and working groups related to vaccines and immunization.
Doctor Tharmaphornpilas' research interests include epidemiology and infectious diseases. She has authored a number of papers published in national and international journals including the following topics: “Diphtheria in Thailand in the 1990s”; “Vaccine-derived Poliovirus, Thailand, 2003”; “Increased risk of developing chronic HBV infection in infants born to chronically HBV infected mothers as a result of delayed second dose of hepatitis B vaccination”; and “Seroprevalence of Antibodies to Measles, Mumps, and Rubella among Thai Population”.
Last updated: 1 September 2010