Objective: understanding how infodemic management can support trust building and credibility in health system emergency response, particularly among populations that are most at risk.
Moderator:Arash Rashidian, Director of Science, Information, and Dissemination, WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office
Panel speakers:
- Dimitri Prybylski, Team Lead, Demand for Immunization, Global Immunization Division, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA
- AbdelHalim AbdAllah, WHO Regional Office for Africa – secretariat of Africa Infodemic Response Alliance
- Tim Nguyen, Unit Lead, High Impact Events Preparedness, Department of Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness, WHO
- Baybars Örsek, Director, International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN)
- Gerald Mulally, Director, Prime Minister's Office & Cabinet Office Communications, UK
- Ian Roe, Director for Operations and Development and co-founder of Kids Boost Immunity (KBI) and I Boost Immunity (IBI), British Columbia Public Health Association, Canada
- Santi Indra Astuti, MAFINDO Indonesia & Communication Studies Faculty, Bandung Islamic University (Universitas Islam Bandung), Indonesia
Speakers:
Arash Rashidian
Dr Arash Rashidian is Director of Science, Information, and Dissemination in the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the World Health Organization; leading WHO regional agenda in areas of health information systems, evidence-informed policymaking, knowledge sharing, research development, e-health, and WHO publications. He is the Executive Editor of the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, the flagship WHO publication in EMR. He has an established career in health policy and systems development. He joined the WHO from his position as Professor of Health Policy and Deputy Chancellor (Tehran University of Medical Sciences). Previous positions include: founding Director of National Institute of Health Research (Iran); Visiting Professor (Imperial College London, UK; Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran); Visiting Associate Professor (Aga Khan University, Pakistan); Assistant Professor (LSHTM, UK); Honorary Senior Research Fellow (Bangor University, UK). He has provided health policy advice to ministries of health of several countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, has supervised several PhD and MSc/MPH students and has co-authored many research papers on different aspects of health systems.
Dimitri Prybylski
Dimitri Prybylski is an epidemiologist and Team Lead of the Demand for Immunization team in the Integrated Systems Branch of the Global Immunization Division at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Recently he has served as the Africa Regional Advisor on CDC’s COVID-19 International Task Force and has also was the deployed as the Epidemiology team lead on the Ebola epidemic response in Sierra Leone. Dimitri also was the Team Lead for CDC’s HIV Key Populations Surveillance Team and has over three decades of applied public health experience in over 30 countries. His main technical areas of focus are in surveillance and biobehavioral epidemiological research with a strong interest in multidisciplinary areas such as data triangulation, integrated analysis and the emerging field of Infodemiology. Dimitri holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, an MPH in International Health and Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and a B.S. from the University of Michigan in Biology and Anthropology.
AbdelHalim AbdAllah (Halim)
AbdelHalim AbdAllah (Halim) is the Crisis Communications Officer for WHO's Regional Office for Africa. He is leading on the setup and coordination of the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA) and its social media arm Viral Facts. He is also part of WHO's COVAX vaccine demand and readiness task force in the region and is supporting with crisis communications for the rollout of the novel oral polio vaccine.
Halim is a journalist by training and as a communications professional has worked in the field in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Nigeria.
Tim Nguyen
Mr Tim Nguyen is the Head of Unit for High Impact Events in the Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness Department of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE). His team manages (i) the WHO Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN), a platform to unite the work on managing disease infodemics during emergencies, and (ii) the strategic global governance of pharmaceutical interventions including pandemic influenza and smallpox vaccine as well as influenza antivirals. In the COVID-19 pandemic response, he co-manages the “Managing Infodemic” pillar.
He joined WHO in 2006 initially working as a Technical Officer in the Yellow Fever Programme which managed an initiative funded by the GAVI Alliance to provide 40 million doses of vaccine to most at risk populations in low resource settings. In 2008, he joined WHO’s Global Influenza Programme and took part in the global response work to the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century. In 2011, he was the founding member of WHO’s Global Hepatitis Programme and project manager for the development of the first WHO treatment guideline for HCV.
From 2014-2017, he was the Unit leader for Knowledge Management, Evidence and Research for Policy-Making at the WHO Regional Office for Europe based in Copenhagen, Denmark. There, he established the scientific journal Public Health Panorama and was responsible for the development of the WHO/Europe resolution and action plan for evidence-informed policy-making. Before joining WHO, he worked as management consultant in the pharmaceutical industry.
Baybars ÖrsekBaybars Örsek is the director of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at The Poynter Institute, the premier global coalition of fact-checking organizations. Prior to joining IFCN, Örsek had served as the founding executive director of the Turkish fact-checking organization Doğruluk Payı between 2014 and 2019. He is a frequent expert source for major media outlets around the world. Örsek is a member of the board of trustees at TESEV, Turkey’s oldest think tank. Before launching Doğruluk Payı in 2014, he worked at his alma mater Istanbul Bilgi University. Örsek holds a B.A. degree in international relations and an M.A. degree in conflict resolution.
Gerald Mullally
Gerald Mullally is Director of the UK Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office Communications and is responsible for the UK Government Communication Service’s international work. Gerald is currently delivering programmes of communications
capability building for governments in Africa, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Asia. Prior to this, Gerald was Head of Campaigns at 10 Downing Street designing and delivering a wide-range of campaigns based on the priorities of the UK Prime Minister
and Head of Business Partnerships engaging businesses in the Prime Minister’s priorities.
Previously, he worked as an advisor to a Prime Minister and as a strategy consultant for PWC and Accenture respectively advising senior Ministers, government officials and c-suite executives across a range of FTSE 100 companies. He holds a MSc. from the London School of Economics in economics and public policy.
Ian Roe
Ian Roe is the Director for Operations and Development and co-founder of Kids Boost Immunity (KBI) and I Boost Immunity (IBI) - two Canadian-based digital education platforms and designed to raise vaccine literacy and support global health through UNICEF. Ian has more than 20 years’ experience working in audio and video production, communications, social marketing, web management and immunization promotion and education. He currently works at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) in Vancouver, BC.
Santi Indra Astuti
Santi Indra Astuti is lecturer of the Faculty of Communication Science, Bandung Islamic University, Indonesia. Since 2016, she joined MAFINDO, a community based organization dedicated to eradicate hoaxes in the country. For three years, she was appointed as the Head of Research and Development Committee of MAFINDO, and recently move to the Presidium of MAFINDO. Today, she's running TULAR NALAR, a digital literacy advocacy aimed at upgrading the critical thinking curriculum based on digital media literacy for 1.200 lecturers and 3.600 teachers in Indonesia. She’s also the head of core team research in international joint collaboration powered by UNICEF, WHO, and CDC US for preparing social inoculation research aimed to design intervention against COVID-19 infodemic in the country.
