Dr Runa Jha

Dr Runa Jha is Director of the National Public Health Laboratory, Ministry of Health and Population, Nepal.  She holds a Doctor of Medicine degree in Pathology from the Institute of Medicine, Nepal. Her particular focus is on improving the standards of laboratory services in Nepal and she is involved in formulation of policies, standards and guidelines. Dr Jha leads various projects and programmes addressing Blood safety, AMR, Laboratory surveillance of Japanese Encephalitis and other vaccine-preventable diseases and sentinel Influenza surveillance. She is actively involved in COVID-19 response, has provided leadership for expansion of COVID-19 PCR laboratories in country (which have expanded from a single laboratory to over 100 laboratories currently). She has been leading team involved in preparing guidance documents, protocols and SOPs for various tests and laboratory procedures related to COVID-19.